Part of a series of Top 10 Branding/Pre-Sales Mobile Marketing Strategies
Video is exploding. More video was uploaded to YouTube in the last two months than if ABC, CBS and NBC had been airing all‑new content every minute of every day since 1948.
The growth of streaming video on mobile devices is almost doubling every year. This is being driven by:
- Device proliferation – the explosion of smartphones and the shipment of over 100 million tablets this year (video viewing on tablets is growing two to three times more than on smartphones)
- Device capabilities – sharper screens, longer lasting batteries
- Network access – the proliferation of Wi‑Fi access points
- Network speed – the availability and growth of 4G mobile networks, and
- Content – an explosion of the availability and quality of mobile video content.
The small screens on mobile devices may be viewed by marketers as a big disadvantage, but always being at your side they have a crucial advantage – convenience. Furthermore, they are engaging; immersing users in a vivid captivating world. As a result, the completion rate for mobile videos is actually 31 percent higher than the completion rate for videos on other devices.
Mobile Video Marketing: As more people are getting comfortable watching mobile video, more companies are using videos to engage consumers and build their brand. Mountain Dew uses banner ads to point to its Mountain Dew YouTube channel where its target audience of tech‑savvy males can watch several videos.
In a successful effort to highlight its emerging market expertise, HSBC created mobile videos of its emerging market economists. This helped position and brand the eminence of HSBC employees as experts in this area.
Figure 42: YouTube Video Marketing – Blendtec Will it BlendWill It Blend? is a YouTube video marketing campaign for Blendtec’s line of blenders. The company founder, Tom Dickson, blends various unusual objects such as iPads, golf balls and footballs to show the power of their blenders. This has resulted in 60,000 subscribers and over 100 million views – sales are up by 500 percent!
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Although successful, these previous examples demonstrate the traditional marketing paradigm of corporate-created content being presented to the masses. The brave new social media world enables organizations to engage everyone to create videos.
For example, Doritos ran a video contest to let customers create the next great Doritos commercial and the winning commercial was actually played during the Super Bowl. Nestle also had a successful video contest inviting anyone to create a Butterfingers’ (chocolate bars) TV commercial.
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Video Ads
Video ads on mobile devices are gaining in popularity. There is a wide range of video ads that can be considered including pre‑roll video ads (appear before the video that someone has selected to view), interstitial video ads (appear in between other multimedia content), in‑banner video ads (play inside a banner, audio is user initiated) and in‑app video ads (play inside a mobile app). Some video ads take up 100 percent of the smartphone’s display; others simply take up a portion.
Research has clearly proven that “mobile video ads demonstrated significantly higher brand awareness, favorability and interest in purchasing. Overall, mobile video delivered superior results in comparison to online video and TV across all key brand and ad metrics, proving that mobile video is a high performing vehicle to drive ROI and merits greater investment in cross-screen marketing campaigns… mobile video delivers strong ROI as a complement to TV and online and should be leveraged as a crucial component of the marketing mix.”
In a head-to-head comparison, general ad recall from mobile video ads was 79 percent, compared to 49 percent for TV ads and 29 percent for online ads. Furthermore, purchase intent from mobile video ads was more than twice as effective as online ads and almost four times more effective than TV.
Smart Video Ads
Smart Video Ads use analytics to deliver personalized ads to individuals; this results in higher engagement and more successful campaigns. For example, imagine delivering a video ad about printer cartridges to someone that has already purchased your printer or an ad for a television to someone that already placed that television into a shopping cart, but then abandoned the transaction.
“Personalized video advertising has enabled Office Depot to target consumers with relevant messaging that converts site abandoners, salvaging an otherwise lost investment.”
Interactive Video Ads
Interactive Video Ads enable viewers to click on items in the video that will generate specific actions such as adding an item to a shopping card or making a dinner reservation. There is clear evidence that interactive video ads are more engaging for viewers and help advertisers achieve specific objectives. “According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, half of online video ads will be interactive within two years.”
Figure 43: YouTube Video Marketing – Animal PlanetAnimal Planet found interactive video ads to be most effective for generating buzz for its TV show on big river monsters (i.e., fish). The AdMob video ads generated six million impressions, engaging 75,000 visitors. YouTube ads generated another one million video views.Notably, 84 percent of mobile users finished watching the video and many visitors shared the content via Facebook and Twitter. Visitors engaged with the ads for an average of four minutes, which is a strong level of engagement. Animal Planet achieved their goal of driving ratings and buzz for the show.
Mobile Video Marketing Best Practices
- Identify clear business and/or marketing goals.
- Identify your customers’ “What’s in it for me?” factor (i.e., what value do they receive).
- Create engaging, short and snappy mobile videos to address the shorter attention span of mobile users on‑the‑go.
- Create tailor-made content (e.g., larger text) versus simply repurposing TV video content – this will address smaller mobile screens.
- Make your mobile video content interactive (e.g., product configurator).
- Make your mobile video content more casual and personable compared to other video mediums such as TV.
- Give users the option to skip video content otherwise they may get annoyed.
- Capitalize on the phone’s touch screen capability (e.g., a swipe could enable one of your interactive features).
- Capitalize on the smartphone’s sensor capabilities (e.g., use GPS to identify the closest store or bank branch).
- Provide quick tap options allowing consumers to engage more deeply with your brand or with your employees.
- Integrate share and like social media call to action options with your video strategy to enable consumers to become brand advocates (combining mobile video with social media integration increases engagement by 64 percent).
- Provide a clear call to action.
- Implement a video marketing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy to ensure your videos rank highly for YouTube and Google searches.
- Post videos and video ads to popular mobile video apps (e.g., YouTube, Vimeo and SocialCam).
- Implement interactive video ads and smart video ads to increase viewer engagement.
- Combine full‑page tablet ads with mobile video since this has proven to increase engagement by 15 percent.
- Combine TV advertising with your mobile marketing strategy. There is a 69 percent increase in brand recall and a 72 percent increase in purchase intent when consumers interact with multiple screens such as a smartphone, tablet and TV.
- Shorten videos for viewing during busy workday hours.
- Provide real‑time video conferencing support for your customers.
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 Watch the Video: Video Cutaways Impact: Watch Heart’s rendition of Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin. Think about how the cutaway shot of the audience reactions heighten your feeling that this was truly an impactful event. The same approach could potentially be used for your product branding, marketing and sales videos. <goo.gl/g9U88> (Duration: seven minutes) |
Challenge Questions
Video Marketing Strategies: Would a video marketing strategy help you achieve your business objectives and if so, what would it look like? What are your priority objectives? How can you reach your target market? Can you exploit built‑in smartphone sensors to make your video ads even more compelling?
