The future of AI and creativity

 

The future of AI and creativity

TLDR: Creative experts are unleashing creativity using Google AI Generative AI enables brands to strengthen their creative approach by rapidly analyzing vast quantities of information and uncovering complex patterns, novel insights, and emerging trends To increase effectiveness, marketers are leaning into Google AI to deliver hyper-personalized creatives at scale As the industry increasingly adopts AI, the strategic role of the marketer will become more foundational in helping brands win with viewers

T H E   I N S I G H T S Meet your newest creative partner, Google AI

Effective storytelling has never been more important. According to NCS, creative is the most critical driver of ad effectiveness, influencing nearly half of incremental sales.1 Yet as the video landscape continues to evolve, knowing what truly breaks through with audiences has become more complex. To keep up with people’s viewing preferences, brands are leveraging the power of Google AI to supercharge their strategy at every stage of the creative process – let’s explore how.

AI as an insights driver: Building audience-first strategies that break through To win with today’s viewers, brands should be audience-first, which means having a deep understanding of what people are watching, how they’re watching, and so much more. To achieve that level of familiarity and expertise, marketers have to synthesize a lot of information, and Google's most capable AI model, Gemini, makes it easier. Bringing information together is the foundation of AI, so by leveraging Gemini at the beginning stages of the creative journey, brands can gather rich insights to inform their video strategy. Best of all it’s natively multimodal, which allows teams to examine creative inputs beyond text.

AI as an expert thought partner: Refining your big idea One of the most important parts of landing an effective creative concept is ensuring that the messaging resonates with viewers. Creative teams already excel at this but imagine if they could achieve hyper-personalization at scale. Creative agency Tombras set out to do just that by creating a real-time out-of-home campaign – a feat they consider “impossible” without the help of Gemini. After uncovering the insight that PODS containers served as the company’s original billboard, Tombras leveraged Gemini to create a custom model that served as a content strategist for their “World’s Greatest Billboard” campaign. They trained the model on audience personas, brand guidelines, and past campaigns so that on the day of the activation, Gemini could write real-time copy on POD’s digitized containers while traveling to every New York City neighborhood. After crafting over 6,000 tailored messages in one day, POD’s NYC requests for quotes (primary KPI) was up 33%, representing the biggest year-over-year lift for the brand in years.

AI as creative enabler: Bringing stories to life in ways never imagined Imagine the impact marketers could have if they delivered stories that offered viewers exactly what they wanted, when they wanted. Brands have been limited to engaging with audiences in this way via text, but Google AI is ushering in new possibilities with video. Take Google Pixel – after noticing that fans on social media were suggesting new ways to bring the “Best Phones Forever” campaign to life, the creative team used the Gemini model combined with other tools to craft 300 fan-inspired episodes in one day. Not only did this campaign put fans in the driver's seat but it also allowed Pixel to build an authentic community where people felt a deep connection with Pixel’s story. Using Gemini to delight fans and offer new ways to engage enabled the US Pixel team to achieve one of their highest-performing social campaigns of all time.

Looking ahead While generative AI has demonstrated the ability to unlock enormous creative potential for brands, marketers are still essential to the creative process. As the industry increasingly adopts these tools, authentic creativity and ingenuity will make the difference. From the stories told to the connections with viewers, the role of marketers will become even more foundational to the success of today’s brands.

What we learned from the most effective YouTube campaigns of the year

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What we learned from the most effective YouTube campaigns of the year

Kim Pedersen September 2019Video

A panel of experts chose the most creative, compelling, and effective YouTube campaigns of 2018. Kim Pedersen of Kantar, who advised the panel, shares some lessons to help any advertiser or agency create videos that drive real business results.

What does it take to create a great video campaign? This year, I got to find out.

As partners of the first ever YouTube Works Awards — a competition that celebrates the brilliant minds producing the most innovative and effective campaigns on YouTube — my team and I at Kantar reviewed dozens of submissions, spoke to the judges who chose the winning campaigns, and even carried out a quantitative analysis of the most impactful ads.

Here are the insights we gathered that can help any advertiser or agency create a YouTube campaign that drives real business results.

How to create a winning YouTube campaign

Sparks: Tap into YouTube insights to come up with new ideas

For the marketers behind the winning campaigns, YouTube wasn’t just a platform on which to reach their audience. It also provided the inspiration they needed to create stand-out ads. Of the finalists, 86% used YouTube to identify insights that could serve as the creative spark for their campaigns.

After noticing the rise of grossly intriguing and humorous experiments on YouTube, Liquid Plumr created a series of videos that both picked up on this trend and helped showcase its product. The videos increased awareness and favorability by 38% and 40%, respectively.

Samsung did something similar for its winning campaign, which showcased the new Galaxy smartphone. Knowing how popular YouTube creators can be among the Gen Zers it was trying to reach, it created a video series called Make, which featured influential YouTuber creators doing things like reviewing scripts and shooting footage on the smartphone. According to Samsung, 17% of those who were exposed to the ads were more likely to purchase the Galaxy as their next phone.

Signals: Use audience signals to inform your creative and media approach

When people go online to start researching a family vacation or head to YouTube to watch highlights from their favorite sport, they’re giving all sorts of clues as to their passions, interests, and needs.

The most effective advertising campaigns draw on these signals to inform both their media and creative processes. For example, 71% of finalists (compared with 42% of nonfinalists), used YouTube to personalize content to individual audiences at scale.

That’s what Xfinity did in its Grand Prix-winning campaign “Data in Dollars,” a series of pre-roll, six-second ads that showed users how much the video they were about to watch would cost to stream using their current cellular provider.

“We shot completely different commercials to match all of the most popular genres on YouTube,” explained Tristan Graham, a creative director at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, the agency that worked on the campaign. For example, if someone was about to watch a beauty tutorial video, the pre-roll, six-second video they saw was on a related topic. “It was a lot of work, but it created a sense of mass intimacy,” Graham said. “Every part of every ad felt like it was made specifically for the person watching it.”

Stories: Choose the right storytelling format and techniques

People are fascinated by stories, yet only 40% of advertising uses storytelling as a technique.

The most effective YouTube campaigns we saw all understood the importance of storytelling, but none more so than “Dundee: The Son of a Legend Returns Home.” The team behind the award-winning ads, Tourism Australia, Droga5, and Universal McCann, created a trailer for what viewers were led to believe was a remake of Crocodile Dundee, a movie that, when it was first released in 1986, spurred a huge amount of interest in Australia as a tourist destination. The team created a dedicated YouTube channel and used YouTube in-stream ads to get the trailers in front of viewers. Two weeks later, they released a new trailer that revealed the truth: It was an advertising campaign, not a movie.

The elaborate story captured people’s imagination and their attention. Visitor spending increased 30% and U.S. tourist visas increased by 12% in the six months following the campaign.

Building a winning YouTube campaign

Anyone looking to build a video campaign that captures attention and drives real business results will want to take into account these three lessons. It might just make them the next YouTube Works Award winner.

YouTube's new 'Bumper Machine' automates 6-second ad production

• YouTube is testing a software tool called "Bumper Machine" that aims to optimize video ads for mobile audiences, TechCrunch first reported. The video-editing tool uses machine learning to pick out key moments from a longer spot and condense them into six-second bumper ads, a format that the video-sharing site introduced three years ago.
• Food delivery app GrubHub shortened two 13-second ads with Bumper Machine by identifying more exact marketing messages the company wanted to show. A GrubHub spokesperson told MediaPost that the short-form videos gave it more flexibility in its ad placements as part of ongoing campaigns.
• The Bumper Machine looks at video spots and identifies elements such as human characters, motion, sharpness of the focus and quality of the framing. It can help marketers to identify the message and how best to convey that in six seconds, Vishal Sharma, VP of product management at YouTube, told MediaPost.

Insight:

YouTube developed bumper ads, which appear at the beginning of videos on its site, to be less intrusive for mobile viewers who don't want their viewing experience interrupted. By using machine learning to fuel the Bumper Machine, YouTube could encourage adoption of the six-second format by cutting costs for mobile marketers who can rely on artificial intelligence to edit previously produced ads and repurpose old content.

Agency creative executives have fretted that the short ads make it harder to make an emotional connection with viewers, but other studies have shown that viewers can mentally process an ad quickly. Mobile ads start triggering an emotional response in consumers in less than half a second, according to a study by brain researcher Neurons for the Mobile Marketing Association. On TV, six-second ads captured 8% to 11% more attention per second than longer ads, per a study by the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) and TVision Insights.

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YouTube's Bumper Machine test comes as research shows that mobile video ads are a key driver of digital media spending. U.S. mobile advertising grew 40% to $69.9 billion last year, making up 65% of total digital ad revenue, per an annual report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PwC. Digital video ads on mobile devices expanded 65% to $10.2 billion, outpacing the 37% growth for digital video in all formats, including personal computers. Mobile video ads are forecast to grow as high-speed 5G mobile networks expand nationwide over the next few years.

Google-owned YouTube isn't the only platform expanding its inventory of six-second ads. Snapchat last month announced plans to introduce a service to let brands reserve and buy non-skip, six-second commercials during premium shows in the image-messaging app's Discover section. The Snap Select service features ad inventory in Snap Originals, sports programming and premium shows on a fixed cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) basis.

YouTube has replaced Facebook as the most widely used social media platform among teens

In the last few years alone, Facebook has gone from being the favorite social media platform among American teenagers to not even breaking the top three. The social media giant has been replaced in first place by longtime competitor YouTube, according to the latest study from the Pew Research Center.

As this chart from Statista shows, Generation Z chose YouTube as the platform they use the most as of April 2018, and put it at a close second as the platform they visit most often, showing a clear shift in the social media ecosystem.

In fact, YouTube's share of 13- to 17-year olds who use online platforms exceeds what Facebook's was when it was on top the last time Pew conducted this study in 2015. Three years later, Facebook's share of the teen market has gone down from 71% to roughly half. And YouTube — which didn't even have a spot on the 2015 chart — has secured itself a reasonable claim to being the most popular.

Shayanne Gal/Business Insider

Success in Six: 4 best practices for building impactful YouTube bumper ads

https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/advertising-channels/video/youtube-bumper-ads-best-practices-video-editing/?utm_medium=email-d&utm_source=weekly-insight&utm_team=twg-us&utm_campaign=Nurture-V10-twg-us-think-weekly-insight-OT-OT-OT&utm_content=Video-img&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTm1KaVlXUTBaamN3WVRJdyIsInQiOiJZUXhtenFSQ3I5dll4eTBBVThmRVlKRlRaK256NTBXck50Zmd2UGZOT095WUtDYWdUVmVhRkthYXpSeUZXMklRUUpXMlRkMFhPTG1JR0JwMUx4TWYxMFwvdUxQRjZQcXpBN2U2ZTZKQkN4UnpWaGhMaE1cL2RYR2xvckg0dHh5MmIrIn0%3D

10 YouTube Pre-Roll Ads You'll Actually Enjoy

You technically can't skip these ads. But you wouldn't want to anyway.

Last year at Sundance, YouTube unveiled a new ad format to brands: the unskippable, six second "bumper" ad. To prove it was possible to cram a compelling story into such a short window, they recruited a handful of creative agencies to test drive the format -- and the results were pretty convincing. 

After that, huge brands like Under Armour and Anheuser-Busch adopted the new six second ad format to tell quick but gripping stories that actually stuck with audiences.

In fact, according to Google, 90% of bumper ad campaigns boosted global ad recall by an average of 30%. That's pretty impressive for taking up only six seconds of someone's day.

It might seem like you can't accomplish much in that amount of time, but with a little creativity, brands can use it to forge an emotional connection with their audience and implant a vivid memory of those feelings in their minds.

Why Six Second Pre-Roll Ads Work

Suffering through 15, 30, or even 60 second pre-roll ads prompted so many head shakes and back button clicks that eventually YouTube added a skip button to their ads in 2009. In theory, though, an ad’s first five seconds are enough to hook viewers and hold their attention for the rest of its duration.

But we all know this rarely happens. Whenever a YouTube ad pops up and shields you from your favorite video, what do you usually do? You immediately glue your eyes to the skip button's countdown clock and wait … until those lingering seconds finally slug by.

Fortunately, the six second pre-roll ad better engages viewers. When YouTube plays such a short ad for them, it's not as annoying as a full length ad. And when brands craft these ads into fast, captivating stories, they can resonate well with audiences.

This lets YouTube sustain their ad business while helping brands create a more enjoyable and memorable user experience for its viewers.

So if you're leveraging YouTube's six second pre-roll ads right now, then hats off to you. If you're not, here are 10 examples you can reference to inspire YouTube viewers faster than a Vine could in 2013.

10 Exceptional Examples of Six Second Pre-Roll Ads on YouTube

1) YouTube

To further promote their new ad format's creative potential, YouTube challenged filmmakers and ad agencies to retell classic pieces of literature in just six seconds.

These are some of the most complex novels ever written. So creatives needed to convey each story's core in a simple yet spellbinding way.

Rethink, a Canadian agency, did just that. Their rendition of Hamlet is clear and concise (we all know that everyone dies when modern day Claudius spams the buy button). But it's also unexpected and funny because it gives us a glimpse of how Hamlet could've transpired in today's digital age.

2) Old Spice

You're probably not surprised that this is an Old Spice ad. But you're also probably laughing so hard you're crying like that guy's armpit.

When you watch this ad, you're so amused that you forget Old Spice is trying to sell you deodorant. And while you're still mid-chuckle, your favorite video begins. It's a seamless transition. And viewers crave that. All advertisers should strive to satisfy their audience, and Wieden & Kennedy, Old Spice's agency, know exactly how to indulge theirs.

3) Chipsmore

I know you fell for it too.

When I first saw the red face of doom, disappointment started spilling over me. But, luckily for us, the Chipsmore's Cookie Guy saved the day.

The thing is, we just wanted to watch the ad. Imagine how someone who wanted to watch a video after it must've felt.

They were probably frustrated at the initial sight of the "broken" video link, then surprised when the Cookie Guy appears, which grabbed their attention. And, finally, delighted when their favorite video starts.

This ad takes its viewers on an emotional roller coaster. And, honestly, who doesn't have fun on those?

4) Road Lodge

This is a prime example of insanely honest marketing.

Road Lodge sets the expectation that their hotel is best suited for relaxation. And not so much for partying.

You might think they're deterring potential customers from their hotel -- and you're right -- they are. But it's actually a good thing because these people would never stay at their hotel in the first place. 

And since their honesty signals confidence, builds trust, and shows that they value their customers' experience more than short-term profits, their target market becomes more attracted to them.

Road Lodge knows that if you're brutally honest about your product or service, then you won't disappoint your customers. This makes it a lot easier to maintain their loyalty.

5) Under Armour

When you play baseball, nothing matters more than your stats. They're a direct measurement of your performance and can even define your value as a person.

Under Armour sought to uproot this belief.

In six short seconds, Droga5, Under Armour’s agency, injects purpose into ball players everywhere, motivating them to place their value in their character instead of their numbers.

6) Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes uses swift video cuts and a roaring engine to engage their viewers' senses. This way, their audience can actually see and hear the intensity of reaching 60 MPH in only 3.8 seconds.

7) Universal Pictures

Universal Pictures used this pre-roll ad to promote the full Jason Bourne trailer, which garnered over 14 million views.

And since the ad is chock full of non-stop action, it piqued viewers’ interest and generated tremendous hype around its trailer release.

8) Burn

Burn’s pre-roll ad is so effective because it’s snappy and visually engaging. And since you can process visuals 60,000 times faster than text, a flaming fist across the face will definitely catch your eye.

The slow-mo effect also makes the ad seem longer, intensifying your viewing experience.

9) Airbnb

Family vacations are the best.

You get to explore incredible places and create timeless memories with your loved ones. Is there any other way you would want to bond with your family?

Airbnb agrees too. So their agency, TWBA, produced a charming ad that showcases the benefits of a family vacation: loads of fun and connection.

10) Geico

The Martin Agency, Geico’s creative partner, deserves a lifetime supply of car insurance for this masterpiece.

“Unskippable” was so refreshingly original, it won AdAge’s 2016 Campaign of the Year. And for good reason too. It sympathizes with your annoyance of pre-roll ads, so it ends before you can skip it. But it's also so unique and witty that you'll actually watch the entire ad.

Geico says this ad is impossible to skip because it's already over. But really, this ad is impossible to skip because it's so clever.

Seen any ads that top these? Share them on Twitter!

Should You Upload Your Business Videos to Facebook or YouTube for Best Engagement?

 By SoMedia Team  Best Practices, How To & Tips, Opinion, Video Marketing Tips engagement, Facebook, facebook videos, featured, social video, video marketing, youtube, youtube videos  4 Comments

We know that YouTube is the 300lb gorilla of online video. We know that videos posted on YouTube have the potential to be seen, and shared, by millions of people. We know that YouTube is indexed by Google extremely well. Then there’s Facebook. Facebook is the world’s most popular social network. Facebook has millions of users who actively read and share all kinds of content—including videos—every single day. So, if you want to put your video on Facebook—say your business’ page—you can either upload it to YouTube and embed/link to it or you can upload the video directly to Facebook. The question is: which is better. SocialBakers and ReelSEO both have some commentary, but leave what to do for us to decide. I’m going to go out on a limb take a stance.

Better Engagement and Reach With Facebook Native Videos

Let’s look at the data first. SocialBakers published two related studies on Facebook native versus YouTube links to videos. One study looked at interactions and the other focused more on reach. These are closely intertwined numbers, so I think it’s important to see them both together.

First the interactions chart (original post):

According to SocialBakers, native Facebook videos have a 40% higher engagement rate over links to YouTube videos. For individual metrics, you can see that the only item were Facebook has a clear lead is comments. Comments are important, but I don’t know how YouTube link engagement is measured (I’m going to hazard a guess that it’s from Facebook data publishers can see) maybe comments are more heavily weighted that other kinds of engagement. Now let’s look at the reach and lift chart (original post):

Facebook native videos get a reach of 12.5% versus 9.1% for YouTube links. This is a key stat, maybe the most important stat for us to consider when making an informed decision. You can get more reach with Facebook-native videos than YouTube linked videos. Chris over at ReelSEO hit the nail on the head with his summary:

I think there’s no doubt that what SocialBakers found here had a lot to do with the ease-of-use for Facebook users to watch the video completely on-site as opposed to being re-directed to YouTube. Obviously, it’s easier for those who share video to simply upload it to YouTube, which is what a brand/marketer is going to do anyway, and then provide the link which is very easy itself. However, getting people to jump around, even though it’s not much, makes a pretty sizable difference.

From:ReelSEO

“Frictionless sharing” might be a buzz word, but it has real-world implications for how content spreads across the Internet. The faster and easier people can share and item, the more likely they are to actually share it. For video, what’s important is for people being able to watch the video in the fewest number of clicks so they can feel comfortable sharing it (and in the shortest amount of time—remember viewers start abandoning videos within two seconds if the video doesn’t immediately load). So Facebook native videos perform better over YouTube video links, and these are probably due to videos loading quickly and natively within Facebook. Interesting, but…that’s not the whole story on which platform to choose for your videos. SocialBaker outlined a few pros and cons in their engagement post:

The Benefits of YouTube Links

• YouTube is the most popular video-sharing website that can aggregate, not only your videos, but also data concerning its views and shares.
• You can share the YouTube link anywhere that supports your online exposure, unlike Facebook videos which cannot be shared outside of the social network.

The Benefits of Facebook Videos

• Your Facebook fans can be tagged in the video.
• Your Facebook videos suggest that users Like your Page via a button directly in the video.

Which option do you prefer and why? Are Facebook videos suitable for the needs of businesses or are they intended for casual, personal rather than for content creators?

From SocialBakers

What’s the Right Choice for You?

SocialBakers left the decision up to commenters; which didn’t work out so well, with no consensus in the 16 comments so far. I don’t like leaving data like this just hanging out there, so I’m going to put a stake in the ground and give you an answer that I think will satisfy everyone: Yes. I think that given these data, if you want more engagement and reach with your videos within an active Facebook community, upload the videos to Facebook so they display natively. For the occasional video, or if you have a large and more active community on YouTube than on Facebook, just embed the link to the video from YouTube. However, if you upload your video to Facebook, don’t forget to upload it to your YouTube channel as well. This might be a blinding flash of the obvious, but since Facebook remains (essentially) a walled garden from Google, you need to make sure your videos are on YouTube as well to ensure you have the widest possible audience—and greatest breadth of sharing options.

That’s where it stands. This isn’t an either or decision, it’s a “yes to both” decision. This decision is also one that you need to experiment with yourself and your audience. Maybe you have a large Facebook community, but a community ofbloggers who will want to embed your video on their blogs as well—and the best way to do that is via YouTube. There isn’t going to be a one size fits all solution. The only sure thing is to make sure you have all your bases covered.

What has your experience been? Have you experimented with native Facebook video versus YouTube links? Chime in below…