DIGITAL MEDIA DIGEST: NOV ‘15
A monthly look at the world of digital from NORTH’s point of view
Nov 2015 Edition
Virtual Reality: The Hype, The Reality and The Immediate Promise
By Caroline Desmond, Director of Media Strategy
There’s been a lot of hype already around virtual reality in the last year with articles touting potential applications across gaming, entertainment, education, healthcare, political activism and yes of course, advertising. In its purest form, virtual reality allows consumers wearing a headset to stream immersive videos and feel like they are in the environment featured in the video. In a simpler form, consumers can now control the video environment on connected devices across platforms like Facebook or YouTube’s #360 Channel adding another dimension of engagement to what was before a more passive viewing experience.
One of the greatest benefits virtual reality offers is an increased presence of mind for the viewer. Studies support that this has the potential to increase the effect a piece of content has on changing behaviors or attitudes. For example, a study by Skalski and Tamborini (2007) found that individuals with higher levels of perceived presence were more likely to be persuaded by health messages compared to those with low perceived presence. In today’s world of multiple screens viewed together, and increasing attention deficit, it’s no surprise that brands are eager to to take advantage of the “captive audience” effect that VR produces. All in the name of exerting greater influence over consumer behavior.
In case you haven’t yet seen them in your News Feed, here’s a sampling of a few brands using 360 video.
AT&T, Corona, Samsung, Walt Disney World, The North Face
A word of caution. No innovative technology is without its initial drawbacks, and VR is no different from other new technologies that saw a lot of hype before expectations were reset in the face of technological setbacks. There is actually a name for this phenomenon referred to as the “The Gartner Hype Curve”. It starts with ‘technology triggers’ that lead to new opportunities or inventions. From there, creative thought leaders in the sciences and arts imagine the possible applications, and hype ensues to build expectations beyond what existing technology can deliver. This in turn leads to what is called “trough of disillusionment” where expectations are reset.
So what are the current challenges standing in VR’s way?
It’s expensive. In an interview with Fortune, EA executive Bing Gordon said he believes the financial risk is that “VR may be the highest cost ever per minute of making interactive entertainment because it’s a new and developing market and developers’ efficiency is about half the speed and the cost of creating content is twice as expensive”.
Legalities. Re/code reported last August that there are potentially some liability issues at hand when considering the cognitive effects of traditional headset VR, such as seizures, motion sickness or post-traumatic stress disorder that might be triggered by VR.
Execution of true (headset) VR is difficult. VR headsets use sensors to track the movement of your head. Done well, the computer exactly maps your head’s real-world movement onto your view of a virtual world. When there’s dissonance is when you see VR motion sickness kick in.
Bandwidth issues. One of the biggest issues I have personally found with 360 video is the time it takes for videos to load due to the largest file sizes required. The rollout of 5G (ETA 2018) to consumers could help solve for this, but in the meantime, load times will likely deter 360 video from taking off especially on mobile where attention spans are particularly short.
So what are the best immediate opportunities for VR?
Political Activism. Chris Milk’s VR film “Clouds Over Sidra” made its debut at the UN and brought the Syrian refugee crisis to life for delegates in a way no other medium could have. Films like it stand to create an unparalleled sense of empathy that could inspire greater action among world leaders and help to close the gap between what happens “over there” and the conference room.
Education. Google is investing in a new virtual field trip system for schools to address the way K-12 aged students have become accustomed to obtaining information immediately and visually. Google “Expeditions” provide a more immersive experience with 360-degree views that stitch together photographs from Google Street View. In addition, using Google Jump, a 16-camera system, built by GoPro, Google creates three-dimensional images for the virtual excursions. Almost as good as taking a field trip, but without leaving the classroom.
The impact on education and global politics alone make VR a compelling invention of our time. As for brands, VR is probably a couple years away from being a truly viable mass medium justified by cost and made available via faster connection speeds.
Facebook Wants to Lead With Lead Ads
By Nathan Johnson, Asst. Media Planner
Lead generation marketing is a way for advertisers to cut through the noise by finding consumers who are interested in hearing and/or learning about a company’s products and/or services. This strategy is common in today’s practice, especially through filling out forms for newsletters, events, special offers, etc. However, there can be barriers that cause issues for developing leads. For example receiving bad information from typos or low conversion rate due to lengths of forms.
Facebook’s Out to Help
To give advertisers another option, and encourage them to spend more money on the platform, Facebook has developed a new ad solution, which it calls lead ads. Lead ads are just that, a way for businesses to utilize Facebook’s powerful targeting capabilities and serve up potentially highly qualified leads. The ad type is currently only available for mobile, which is understandable given the growing mobile only traffic on the channel.
The process is pretty straightforward and requires two taps of your finger. The first tap is when the user clicks on the served ad, which opens an auto-populated form that contains the user’s information such as name and email. The second tap is to confirm that they want to submit the information within the form, unless they need to edit any of the fields.
Facebook has also given advertisers the flexibility to customize their lead ads. For example forms can have open-ended and multiple choice questions to help brands receive the information that they find most valuable, though this would require more effort from the user. Lastly, the form allows for customizable disclaimers for brands that need it.
The Pros and Cons
So what makes this ad solution so attractive? Well let me give you a few things that stand out to me:
- Simplicity of the user experience — Facebook has a little bit of knowledge about user experience, go figure. It’s no surprise that they would focus on delivering an experience that was quick and easy.
- Ability to receive and respond to leads in real time — The ability to sync lead ads with one of Facebook’s integrated CRM solutions allows for brands to keep up with users expectations of a quick response once they reach out to a company.
- Robust targeting capabilities — If you’ve advertised on Facebook before you know that they have a wealth of targeting options that will allow highly targeted ads.
If that doesn’t have you excited, what about knowing that Stuart Weitzman saw a 52% more efficient cost per lead in generating email subscribers than other acquisition efforts? Or how Land Rover saw a 4x reduction in the cost per lead compared to previous social lead generation tactics?
But nothing comes without its flaws. Here are a couple that come to mind:
- Editing errors — Even though the process is automated, users can still go back and edit information. If this happens, it’s possible to receive wrong information from typos. While this might not be often, it is still worth noting.
- Response time delays — If advertisers are not synced with an integrated CRM solution than they will have to manually collect and respond to leads. This could cause some users to become frustrated if they are expecting something quickly for filling out the form.
Closing Thoughts
Facebook’s most recent addition to their ad solution is great for many of the reasons listed above. Though, like any advertising strategy, it’s important to think through the process. Here are a few questions to ask yourself:
- Who’s your audience? It’s important to realize that this is going to be a mobile audience and therefore on-the-go. Make sure the form is not over populated with questions because you will likely see a low conversion rate if so.
- What’s the objective of the campaign? Know the exact information you’re trying to receive from your audience and keep questions concise.
- What does success look like? Set a clear benchmark upfront to base the success of your campaign on. This could be cost-per-lead from the current campaign vs. previous efforts.
My last words of advice is test, test and test some more. No brand or campaign are the same and each need to be tested and measured to ensure you’re delivering the most efficient results.
The Battle for Video Supremacy
By Stacey Gallarde, Senior Media Planner
YouTube has long been the destination for online video, but Facebook has recently made attempts to topple the dynasty. In April of this year, Facebook touted 4 billion video views per day, nipping quickly at the heels of YouTube’s 7 billion daily video views. In recent weeks however, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg looked to upstage his competitor by touting the network has seen exponential growth and is now generating 8 billion video views per day. The conversation has has been largely focused on view volume, but can this be an apples to apples comparison?
“Views” Differ by Platform
Video views are not a standardized metric across platforms. YouTube declares a view once a user watches “around” 30 seconds. In contrast, Facebook counts 3 seconds as a view, and since the platform auto-plays, this could be mean view volumes are muddled with very slow scrolls through user newsfeeds. Snapchat has also thrown their hat in the ring noting they receive 6 billion views per day, though a view in their definition is a couple milliseconds.
User Engagement Differs by Platform
Facebook and YouTube have been keeping video view rate and completion rate averages close to the vest, so Reebok and Pixability recently teamed up to find out for themselves. Their study found that YouTube saw a higher view view rate (23.6% vs. Facebook’s 5.4%) as well as video completion rate (20.4% vs. Facebook’s 4.5%).
Though the study deemed YouTube as a winner within those metrics, it is important to note that the platforms are utilized in different manners. Facebook is a broad social network, where users scroll through their newsfeed for updates from friends, family and pages they follow. YouTube on the other hand is a dedicated video destination, where users have the intent to watch video content.
“You have only one purpose when you go to YouTube or come across a YouTube video, and that’s to consume video,” — Athan Stephanopoulos, Senior VP of Strategy and Partnerships at NowThis
Facebook’s Relentlessness
The above all said, Facebook not backing down from its video mission. Multiple moves in recent months have demonstrated their commitment to evolving the network to a premium online video destination. Facebook’s ad product lead Ted Zagat has even noted, “a year or two from now, we think Facebook will be mostly video.”
- In June, Facebook launched a Cost Per :10 View buying model for video (vs. impression based buying), allowing advertisers the opportunity to avoid paying for views with more involved user engagement
- Following YouTube into the VR space, Facebook announced a partnership with Oculus Rift in September and began testing 360 video ads in November
- In October, the social network began testing a dedicated video hub. This feature mimics the YouTube experience, giving users the ability to watch, share and discover video content in a more “lean forward” atmosphere
Advertiser Implications
Zuckerberg has stated “over the next few years, video is going to be some of the most engaging content online.” For advertisers, this signals the importance of being aware of the nuances in video opportunities, metrics and use occasions across platforms. Though Facebook and YouTube are vying for top spot, it may never be a winner takes all situation for advertisers. YouTube provides an audience with high view intent, meshing well with longer form content. Facebook on the other hand delivers larger reach (1.55B users vs. YouTube’s ~1B users) and more advanced targeting capabilities through their extensive amount of first party data.
Mobile App Searchability
By Crystal Stanford, SEM / PPC Manager
Nielsen recently published data showing that time spent in mobile apps has increased 63 percent over the last couple of years. The data also showed that, on average, smartphone users tend to use roughly 26 to 27 apps per month, spending the equivalent of over an entire day and a half (37 hours, and 28 minutes to be exact) in mobile applications.
Sure to be in heavy rotation among those 26–27 apps is the Facebook app, the second most widely used mobile app (after Google’s own Google Maps), which is why today’s news is such a win for Facebook’s unlikely partner — Google.
On Friday Google’s parent company Alphabet announced that Facebook had begun allowing Google access to its mobile app in order to enable the world’s largest search engine to crawl and index the mobile app for the world’s largest social network. From a smartphone user perspective, this means that users can now be served “deep links” on a mobile search engine results page. Deep links click through directly to areas of the mobile app relevant to the search query.
This is, of course, subject to user privacy settings on Facebook, but an example of a now Facebook-enabled deep link would be searching Google on your mobile device with the query “facebook safety check” and being linked directly to an in-app result. Another interesting example would be if Instagram agreed to a similar partnership with Google, and allowed Google to link directly to relevant hashtags, user or image searches in-app. For example, you could search “niagara falls” on Google and the Instagram result would take you directly into the Instagram app to a collection of images tagged at Niagara Falls.
In many ways, Facebook and Google are direct competitors, especially with the recent news that Facebook is revamping their search feature, with many saying this is a move to allow them to compete with Google in yet another way. This fall, Facebook indexed 2 trillion posts, making them more searchable to users.
So it’s surprising to some that Facebook and Google have decided to partner up on this new development. It certainly enhances the smartphone user’s mobile app experience, and seems like an obvious win for Google. In terms of Facebook though, one can imagine that they saw some sort of advantage to allowing Google to crawl and index their app if they agreed to it. Perhaps they are hoping that better searchability can lead to higher in-app engagement and even more time spent in the app.
From a digital marketing perspective, this move seems advantageous to any digital marketing efforts that involve app downloads as an objective, as well as making social content and posts more searchable. It will be interesting to see if Google pursues partnerships with other popular apps, most notably Instagram and Yelp, the latter of which they’ve been involved in some legal trouble with.
