What You Can Expect For Social Video in 2015
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This article is by Devra Prywes, VP of insights and marketing at Unruly, a video-ad technology company.
In 2014, we saw a rise in trackvertising, native video ads went mainstream and viewability was on the tip of everyone’s tongue. So what curveballs will be thrown at marketers this year? Here are five predictions you can expect to see in 2015.
1. Facebook will overtake YouTube for video views. In 2014 we saw Facebook challenge YouTube for audience views and advertiser dollars. The world’s largest social network started to publicly display view counts in 2014, and with new Facebook video features launching all the time, we’re entering a post-YouTube era in 2015. Three-quarters of video views already occur outside the YouTube ecosystem (according to 2014 comScore stats), and in 2015, successful brands will need to embrace multiple media channels to reach and engage their audience wherever they’re watching and sharing videos.
2. TV networks get with programmatic but TV ads still don’t resonate. According to IDC, less than 1% of TV ad spend in the US is currently traded programmatically but is expected to leap to 7 or 8% by 2017. But the bigger gap that needs to be closed in 2015 is the gaping content chasm: Most TV ads are still stuck in a broadcast mindset, failing to emotionally engage viewers and missing the opportunity for social engagement. And according to research from the IAB and Nielsen shifting 15% of TV ad spend to online creates more effective and efficient reach. Brands can, and should, test TV ads for viewer engagement. Not only will this benefit their on-air effectiveness, but the advertisers choosing a 30-second TV spot as the basis for their online creative can make sure they back their most engaging creative. Better yet, advertisers can programmatically sync on-air and online ads for full coverage, go on the offensive and launch online ads against competitors’ ads on-air or go guerilla and sync their online ads to a prime time program for a fraction of the cost of a TV buy.
3. Emotional testing and targeting will drive digital content strategy and distribution. The strength of the provoked emotional connection in a video is the strongest indicator of word-of-mouth success and earned media. Plus, there’s a growing body of research proving that emotional ad campaigns are more effective than rational ones in driving purchase. As advertisers invest bigger budgets in making and distributing ads, testing emotional resonance and targeting the viewers with the strongest responses will become a best practice.
4. “Moment Marketing” will close the gap between digital and in real life. Until now, agile marketing campaigns have largely comprised of the social media teams at brands and agencies adding brand responses to “zeitgeist” moments and real-life conversations, with varying degrees of success. Programmatic targeting has made it possible to apply the same agility to paid media campaigns. Data providers are enabling advertisers to move beyond audience targeting and into “conditional targeting” or “moment marketing,” where digital campaigns are synced with real-world events such as points scored in sporting events, team wins and losses, changes in weather conditions and other in-real-life events that affect consumer buying habits.
5. Attention will be a metric to watch. Marketers continue to seek the most effective ways to measure the success of video campaigns, and often track views to measure reach, shares to measure social impact, and clickthroughs to measure viewer actions. However, attention is a vital metric because for an ad to resonate and persuade consumers, it must first earn their attention. We predict a renewed focus on attention metrics such as dwell time and completes in 2015. Recent research from Harvard Business School’s Thales Teixeira reveals that consumer attention to advertising is dwindling fast, especially for TV advertising, becoming a scarce and valuable resource.
Curious what else you can expect in 2015? Check out 10 Social Video Trends to Look Out for in 2015 here.
