Doubling Down on Data & Video: An Algorithm for Successful Creative
The Rise of Mobile Video
Over the past two years, there has been an enormous increase in mobile video consumption. From 2013 to 2015, mobile video viewing went up by 32% (source: eMarketer, 2015), and 100 million hours of video are being watched every day on the Facebook mobile app (source: Facebook Data, 2015). To reflect this trend, almost every social platform has expanded its mobile video advertising offering.
In the past few months alone, Facebook introduced 360 Video, Live, and Video in Messenger, Pinterest debuted video ads and Twitter added high impact video units, proving the importance of video to each platform’s core business.
And marketers are jumping at the chance to get on the bandwagon. According to the chart below, by the end of 2016, there will be an 85% increase in digital and mobile video advertising spend from 2014, showing the value marketers now place on video as a whole.
At BBDO, we have seen the power TV can have on building iconic brands, and we have continued to evolve as we’ve seen the impact film can make across multiple screens. This, fueled by our philosophical algorithm of
DATA x CONTEXT x CREATIVITY = IMPACT
This algorithm has caused us to shift the way we think, work, and concept new ideas every day.
DATA: We Fold Data into Everything We Do
Data is integrated into all steps of the creative process. We kick off creative development by looking at primary and syndicated data sources to inform insights that lead to big ideas. The work we did for Barbie earlier this year is a great example of using data to craft an insight-led story that resonated with the target and increased sales.
And we don’t stop there. Once we identify the data driven idea insight, we then use different resources to understand the consumer barriers that we’ll need to overcome to create impact with each piece of work. Each touchpoint of a campaign is then tailored toward a specific communications task to help ensure all messaging is uniquely relevant to the target.
CONTEXT: We Evaluate the Context in Which it Will Be Seen
The proliferation of media touchpoints has caused marketers to evaluate how a message will best translate across different platforms. This past year, we proved this for video by partnering with Facebook to better understand how consumers view video differently in newsfeed environments than they do elsewhere.
We found that there are specific creative elements that can be tweaked to maximize impact in feed. Below is a sampling of these elements that we use to inform our video optimization process:
Earlier this year, Sheryl Sandberg was quoted saying “The best marketers understand that people watch video differently in mobile feed than on TV. They create ads that grab attention in the first few seconds, sometimes even without sound — what we now call thumb-stopping creative.” (Source: Facebook July 2016 Revenue Call).
Interestingly enough, according to BBDO internal research, only 16% of brands are actually optimizing for feed. This is further proven by Facebook research, which shows that 76% of videos that run in the newsfeed require sound to make sense, only 22% of videos have an opening frame that would grab attention, and 23% communicate the message without sound and in the first 10 seconds (Source: video ad survey responses collected from contractors in Q4 2015,Q1 and Q2 2016).
This data provides a huge opportunity for marketers to be among the first to optimize for feed, and ultimately create more effective video content where a big bulk of their audiences are watching.
CREATIVITY: We Understand the Creative Opportunity Video Provides for Eliciting Emotion
Despite the fact that there are more media touchpoints today than ever before, research continues to prove that the strongest outlet to evoke emotion is film. Baumgartner and Esslen (2006) showed that emotions are more easily evoked by the combination of images and sounds over just sounds or images alone. Additionally, we have learned through the research of psychologists such as Robert Heath and Binet & Field that emotional communication has the power to create a longer lasting impact on consumers than rational messaging.
This finding has caused us to double down on emotional film. We now encourage all of our clients to create a healthy split of content that is focused on brand building rather than only selling products.
We’ve Built a Well Oiled Machine
As video opportunities continue to grow, we are arming ourselves with the right resources to ensure we are creating true impact at every turn. We continue to put increased support behind our Analytics and Communications Planning teams so that we are best equipped to find the right insights and right contexts to create the most effective work possible.
Additionally, we are working to establish our own video benchmarks to help our clients better evaluate success. Through the BBDO Databank, we have a built out a base of 3.5 billion video impressions to better understand which metrics are most effective at driving business results. On top of that, we are layering on research which will help us understand how different demographics interact in the newsfeed, and how long they typically spend with each piece content.
With this, we aim to better understand what video success means for our clients more than any other agency network in the world.
