This morning, a new report fresh off the presses from e-marketer indicates blistering growth in online video advertising over the next 5 years. Driven by a proliferation of ad networks, demand-side-platforms and scalable, social video production solution-providers, e-marketer sees online video ad spending nearly doubling in only four years from $4.14 billion dollars in 2013 to $8.04 billion by 2016, a 25% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). With the online video advertising industry’s market size and revenue pool set to double over the next five years, the digital video space is also expected to mature to achieve more standardization in video ad format, a larger shift to cost-per-action ad pricing and a rise in native branding on publisher sites.
Meanwhile, TV and digital video advertising revenue pools continue to blur and converge, as multi-platform and multi-screen video advertising is increasingly become an integrated norm. “We’re pretty much approaching all of our major broadcast partnerships in concert with our digital programs,” says David Matathia, director of marketing communications at Hyundai Motor America. “When we’re working with network partners, it’s now rare to see a standalone TV or a standalone digital deal. It’s almost become standard practice to package digital and broadcast together.”
With digital marketers more than ever looking to social video as a key tool to convey rich, sharable brand experiences, e-marketers projections hardly come as a surprise. However, according to e-marketer and Credit Suisse, this growth will be accompanied by stable-to-rising CPMs for marketers (as well as higher RPMs to content creators) on networks like YouTube and mid-tier blog and media placement sites.
US Online Video CPM, by Inventory Tier, 2010-2017
Source: Credit Suisse, e-marketer. Excludes mobile display ad impressions.
Although the report doesn’t touch on social video and branded entertainment advertising, growth in that sub-class is also expected to be strong, driven by the reality that consumers increasingly have (1) more freedom over how, when and where they consume video (and by extension, to skip or ignore ads), (2) more devices to navigate between, (3) more social media activity informing their online identity and (4) less patience for content that isn’t contextually relevant, entertaining and/or informative.
Overall, with marketers, agencies and media companies set to double spending on online video in only a few short years, the future certainly looks bright for standardization, consolidation, innovation and maturity in the digital video advertising space. Let’s hope the quality of the ad content keeps up (or, better yet, improves) with the big expected boost in spending.
We are proud to show you the first video demonstration of our video testing analytics app! Now you can know exactly what your audience thinks of your videos.
Content-loving customers had better take note, because you just leap-frogged blogging and slide deck-styling all the way making a video for your brand. “Video? Isn’t that the future of marketing and like 60% of all internet traffic?” You’re damn right it is, and now your content marketing prowess is on full display to all your customers and social media followers, not to mention a billion monthly YouTube users. WIN. That’s right internet – we’re uploaded, we’re discoverable and we’re in the game with a titanic 88 views in week one. And people, 88 views is just the beginning, because by week two we’ll be making waves with triple digit viewership, am I right?
It saddens me to say that in ZoomTilt’s line of work, I seem to have this exact same conversation on a weekly basis:
Brand: We want a viral video. None of our videos are getting good viewership and we’re spending a lot of time and money on them.
Me: Well, what kind of videos are you making right now?
Brand: Pretty much all documentary-style testimonial interviews and really slick, artsy, color-corrected videos of beautiful, waif-ish people walking down dim hallways showcasing our product.
Me: Would you consider experimenting and cross-testing different types of video creative? Maybe something more relevant to your target demo that’s funny, or edgy, or surprising? Perhaps with memorable, strongly-defined characters? We can define success metrics and perform deep data-gathering and predictive A/B testing on each one.
Brand: Oh no, no, no. We could never do that. Characters? We’re not GEICO, we don’t have a Gecko… the brand IS the personality. Besides, we can’t be a funny brand or an edgy brand, we’re an elegant, sophisticated, reliable, precision-engineered brand whose experience must translate like a haiku told upon the shore of a placid lake. So what can we do like that that’s going to go pretty viral..?
Stop. Video marketers, 95% of you need to re-think your approach right now, because that one competitor who gets it is smoking your PR and inbound marketing efforts. So let’s cut the small talk and get you started with our field-guide of key video marketing pitfalls to avoid. If you’re making videos for your brand and no one is watching them, here are the ten (10) reasons why:
1. You don’t really know your audience. Knowing who your audience is (say age 35+ working mothers) isn’t the same as knowing their media consumption habits and what content resonates with them – you need to understand both.
Let’s start with a typical customer video from a mainstream, mom-oriented consumer brand:
Ok, darling and highly likable Mom? Check. Solid brand that knows how to do fun video creative? Check (*ahem* Old Spice Guy *ahem*). Video that will inspire anyone to share your message or watch more? Complete miss. Don’t get us wrong, there are great opportunities out there in user-generated content, but why would a mom watch dozens of nearly identical informational testimonials for the same product? And why does Pampers, a globally-recognized diaper brand, feel the need to flood its YouTube channel and crowd out its more premium content with so many different iterations of the same bland, product credibility-builder video that doesn’t create informational or emotional value for their customers? Why would a diaper-buyer watch multiple minutes of this type of video content rather than simply executing a 15 second Google search to quickly skim a credible blog review on the same product? Your customers’ time, convenience and content consumption autonomy are highly relevant to your digital content strategy – respect them.
Now let’s take a look at some of their professional creative:
Strong start here too – who doesn’t love cute, happy babies with bed-head? But ouch, only 6 likes and 3 dislike? What gives?
Well, to summarize the entire campaign message: “if your baby pees or poops itself and doesn’t get changed, it won’t be happy (or have great, disheveled hair) like these happy babies.” What’s new, insightful or interesting about that message, one that more or less restates the same biological principle mothers have known for decades, if not centuries? Sorry Pampers, we already know your diapers are probably a little bit better (and a little bit more expensive) than some of the other brands sitting next to you on the shelf, your single layer of additional protection isn’t boosting brand lift or getting anyone to retweet this.
Want to know who gets motherhood? Fiat gets motherhood:
2. Your content doesn’t create value.
A lot of marketers think successful branded video content needs to have professional, $10,000-per-minute-and-up production quality. It doesn’t. Nor does it even necessarily have to be funny or shocking, although that usually helps. But one thing your content MUST accomplish is value creation for the viewer, which can be either informational value, emotional value or both, like these:
3. Your content generates a low-valence emotional response.
72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, so if you make something average it will get skipped and ignored. If you create something on the far end of the spectrum that generates high viewer emotional arousal, audiences will engage with and share your video.
Right (creative) way to make a marketing video for your pizza business:
Wrong (traditional, uncreative) way to make a marketing video for your pizza business:
4. Your video content doesn’t have hooks early and often.
Again, when you create content, your content is competing for attention against an ocean of entertaining video, great music and informative blog articles. You don’t need to perform an epic jump from space like RedBull, but be sure to hook viewers’ attention early and often to avoid drop-off and defection to other content. Nice job Pepsi:
5. Your content has no story arc.
Both of these videos feature heavy men’s business apparel product placements. Which do you think had the better digital campaign return on investment (ROI) and repeat viewer engagement because viewers wanted to know what happens next?
Story:
No story:
6. No one found your great video.
Unfortunately, successful video content marketing isn’t just creating great content, then putting it up on your YouTube page, blog and facebook feed and moving on to the next thing. Videos live and die by discovery, and you need to get a broad audience (and, for that matter, the right audience) looking at your work. I wrote a pretty comprehensive introductory explainer to getting more views on your video here on Quora. Check it out and feel free to leave comments or feedback if it was helpful or you disagree with any of my core points. Whatever you do, don’t make the same mistakes as Cybergeddon.
7. You didn’t test your video(s).
Traditional video content marketing – particularly branded entertainment – can be high-reward, but also moderate risk. Even with significant investment in seeding and paid media, big branded content efforts can crash and burn because the creators missed their audience or couldn’t quite pull it together on execution. At ZoomTilt, our branded entertainment media buying process is closely-integrated with video A/B-testing, so that not only do advertisers get to compare multiple creative variations based on the same brief or campaign objective, but they can also make data-driven predictions about targeted audience engagement and content virality prior to committing their full production spend. Test your videos, don’t just pull the trigger on a $300,000 media buy because your 24 year old intern down the hall who wears skinny jeans thinks they’re epic.
8. You’re not amplifying or complementing the conversation.
During prime time, up to 60% of the conversation happening on Twitter can be related to TV. Yes, successful TV shows can create global hashtags in real time. While digital isn’t at that scale and more fragmented, it’s also not as ephemeral here-and-gone as a TV ad, and that’s a big opportunity for marketers to capitalize on. Create companion content, connect your videos to product promotions or product launches, integrate hashtags and then measure it all. Entertaining storytelling is a huge catalyst for social media activity and engagement, so don’t silo your videos from your overall social media marketing efforts.
9. You’re missing the long tail.
Just like search engine optimization (SEO), strategically targeting the long tail (and long tail keywords in your video title, text description and metadata) can pay off big, particularly when your video has little relevant competition but really strikes a chord with a spirited niche. Get it right, and next thing you know your content gets picked up on Mashable and your sales go through the roof. Just ask the OraBrush guys:
10. You’re the 1,000th brand to hop on a content-competitive trend.
Don’t go head-to-head on replica content with Fortune 500 marketing giants (unless you yourself are a Fortune 500 marketing giant) if you can’t bring something really new, fresh and novel to the table:
This wins (#JeffGordonisonFire):
This doesn’t (#sorryHubspot):
The difference a little creativity and the scale of your audience reach [a solid celebrity cameo that doesn't bust your budget usually doesn't hurt either] collectively make on the success of your content cannot be understated.
Now let’s go out there and make successful branded videos people love.
Every year the CES conference showcases new technologies and campaigns from the biggest names in technology. Video, TV and transmedia integration were high on everyone’s minds this year, spanning two-screen advertising to smart TVS to cloud-driven video recording. With thousands of attendees, three expo halls (plus tents and a few food trucks), the CES was, at times, overwhelming, so we’ve broken down a selection of important media innovation developments from this major tech gathering as part of ZoomTilt’s 2013 CES recap:
1. Cisco: Videoscape Unity
Videoscape Unity is a new and expanded video services delivery platform which will allow companies to provide a synchronized multiscreen video experiences. It will also provide unified search, discovery, and viewing functions to allow consumers to watch premium live and on-demand content on any (service provider managed or unmanaged) connected device regardless of location.
2. Audible Magic: Content Recognition
Audible Magic will bring an advanced television advertising solutions including interactive and addressable advertising across smart televisions, set-top boxes and second screen devices. This will provide an interactive advertising solution which will use the company’s SmartID ACR technology to identify ads in real-time watched by users and will then display supplemental, promotional and additional informational options.
3. Google TV: 3rd Generation Streamers
In its race to reverse second-screen the TV into the “new monitor,” Google TV debuted its latest generation streaming device, the ASUS Qube with Google TV media streamer, alongside OEM partner Marvell. The team watched a few ZoomTilt web series episodes at the Marvell both, and, needless to say, Google TV’s new boxes are hands-down the most convenient and enjoyable way to watch ZoomTilt shows in big-screen HD.
4. Accedo: TV Everywhere
Accedo’s T.V.E Solution will provide an integrated solution, which connects content distribution and management platforms with attractive Pay TV applications on any connected device. Additionally, social networking integration through TVE app will allow for an enhanced user experience.
5. YuMe: Click-to-Ngage
The Click-to-Ngage icon located on an advertisement will allow users to see more information and options from that brand. Although it remains to be seen if this type of feature will catch on (clearly the quality of the content alongside it will be of critical importance), YuMe’s approach is clearly looking to combines the big screen, couch-based TV viewing experience with the interactivity and measurability of online video.
6. AT&T Enters Online Video Streaming Fray
A telecom heavyweight is wading into the streaming TV space? It would certainly seem so. The phone company’s upcoming U-Verse television service will start offering an online video streaming service called “U-Verse Screen Pack” for an $5 a month, available to U-Verse television subscribers. The bundled offering appears likely to offer a content library similar to Netflix at a slightly lower price point, although it remains to be seen if AT&T intends to win customers based on a differentiated experience (and/or content), or simply hopes to entice its existing telecom subscriber base to pick up streamed TV at a slight discount.
See anything else new and noteworthy at the 2013 CES? If so drop us a note in the comments section.
In December, YouTube launched a new redesign which focuses on channels and subscriptions, while tightening its integration with Google+. The reviews from the platforms lovers and marketers have been mixed. It nixed a lot of features that daily users loved but channel managers like the shift towards higher engagement. We’ve listed a few of the major changes and ways to optimize your YouTube channel with them.
Avatar Importance: The image you choose for your channel is now appearing whenever you leave a comment, in the sidebar when your channel is showing, on channel recommendations and more.
Descriptions Can Make or Break It: While channel descriptions can be quite long, only the first 45 characters will show up alongside your avatar and channel title, so make sure its impactful and keyword-optimized.
Make sure to include your keywords in your channel description so that your channel will come up in viewer search results. Be sure they are in your tags as well. Additionally, video descriptions should be inserted before any external website links, as they will increase the likelihood on a viewer clicking on it to watch.
Features Removed: There are noticeable elements that have been removed including “view count”, “relevance” and the “sort by” option.
Links: Make sure to link your Facebook & Twitter accounts to YouTube through account sharing settings and get these to be displayed on your channel sidebar. Additionally, the new design allows you to put multiple links on the sidebar. To optimize this feature include as many links as you want and you can link to a specific section of your website using this.
Learn About the Featured Tab: If you enable the Featured tab on your channel page make sure to use it wisely. Make sure your avatar and playlists correctly represents its. Also, if you have multiple channels, you can display them using Network or Everything template from Edit Channel option.
In short, make sure you get familiar with this new design quickly to make sure you channel is up to date and ready for viewers. For more information, refer to YouTube’s recently published best practices guide.
Web series aren’t just a guy/gal with a camera, a couch and a vlog talk show anymore, and audiences and advertisers are taking notice. With brands like Ford, Ikea, Target, Yahoo and Intel spending millions annually creating original web entertainment on top of YouTube’s own premium content buys from Hollywood and networks like Machinima, demand for compelling, original entertainment is rising rapidly, and content creators are rising to the occasion.
This week, ZoomTilt debuts three new made-for-web TV comedy pilots: “The Pickup Chicks”, “Spycology”, and “Cool Justice”. Although the three comedies are starkly different shows – with backdrops ranging from Brooklyn bars to a top-secret Spy Academy to a 1970′s L.A. drug bust – they all have several qualities in common: memorable, unique characters, top-quality professional cinematography and studio-caliber story arc development. Following on the tradition established by recent web series standouts like “The Beauty Inside,” Warner Premiere’s “H+: The Digital Series” and “Dating Rules for My Future Self,” ZoomTilt’s first three shows coming out of the TV Reset Project webseries competition demonstrate that creative, compelling storytelling and community-building trumps big budgets in generating earned media and audience engagement.
The first new ZoomTilt pilot is romantic comedy “The Pickup Chicks” by Stacie Capone, which follows a trio of Brooklyn roomates-turned-entrepreneurs dealing with the unexpected success of their dating service for hopeless single guys:
The second show is “Cool Justice” by Todd Rulapaugh and Brian Groh, who play two larger-than-life 1970′s cops transported to modern day Los Angeles to help a beautiful heiress recover her missing inheritance:
The third show is “Spycology” by Tenth Gate Productions, where slacker spy Jack gets jolted by the threat of expulsion from Spy College and the arrival of an enigmatic new female transfer student. Can Jack harness his inner Bond before time runs out on his diploma hopes or his best buddy Tim’s hostage situation?
As both production equipment and video hosting costs continue to drop, knowledge transfer of production and editing expertise is accelerated through lightning fast internet data transfer and digital video demand continues to grow rapidly, traditional TV and “digital TV” will continue to converge and overlap, creating exciting new opportunities and avenues for content creators, advertisers, audiences and digital networks alike.
With the Thanksgiving holiday almost upon us, the filmmaker finalists in ZoomTilt’s first TV Reset Project web series competition are racing to complete final edits on their pilots. With some submissions already in and some completing the final phases of post-production, ZoomTilt is looking forward to an exciting and diverse set of new web TV releases.
Series creators Brian Groh and Todd Rulapaugh play two larger-than-life 1970′s cops transported to modern-day Los Angeles in new comedy “Cool Justice”
ZoomTilt’s Amy DePaola recently sat down with one of the TV Reset Project’s finalist production teams – James Poirier and Travis Tyler of Boston’s Tenth Gate productions – about the inspiration and excitement around their show, action-comedy “Spycology,” a story about a group of students attending a top secret Spy Academy:
