How A Video’s Pace Affects Its View Through Rate

Most marketers recognize that mobile optimized video is different from the traditional :30 spot.

There are initiatives, such as BBDO’s Thumb Breaker, that have championed communicating in a soundless and vertical viewing experience, as well as studies that suggest shorter video is more effective in mobile.

Something that may be more surprising is the role of pacing on the effectiveness of videos.

For the latest installment of the Bourne franchise, Universal cut an interesting trailer.

Like the traditional trailer, this version is over 2mins of tease and action; giving the viewer some sense of what lies in wait for them. However, upon closer inspection, the trailer is fairly unusual. The first 5secs are actually a mini-trailer for the trailer.

The video quickly cuts between face shots of Matt Damon, explanatory supers, a dramatic fight scene and a close on the name of the franchise’s leading character “Jason Bourne”.

It seems that even with a successful movie franchise starring Matt Damon, even Universal had to up the pace of their storytelling to capture the attention of viewers before opening on the much slower building trailer that starts with a shot of a man lying in bed.

A look at Apple’s recent iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus launch video suggests that they also believe in the power of pace.

In this frenetic video, Apple flashes type on screen whilst interspersing the video with dramatic close ups of their latest phone offering. It could be argued that the fast pace keeps the viewer on the edge of expectation for the next frame, which might lead to higher view through rates.

A recent Ad Age article supports this idea. They report that Google Unskippable Labs have run an experiment where a faster paced version of an ad was compared with slower cut of the same ad.

The faster version led to a view through rate of 35% on mobile vs. 29% for the slower version.

How does this affect video marketers design for mobile?

The good news is that like the Bourne Trailer and the Google Unskippable Lab experiment, pacing is something that can be affected in the edit with existing footage. This can lead to a fairly simple and effective optimization process.

Whether higher paced video is shot with custom footage or optimized in the edit, pacing is certainly a consideration that marketers should add into creative process when designing for the mobile context.