Digital Video & Marketing Outlook: 2020
Over the course of 2019, Storyhunter co-founder Alex Ragir traveled all around the world speaking to some of the brightest minds in the Media & Advertising industries, from the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, to Advertising Week New York, to ANA Masters of Marketing Week. Each conversation brought a unique perspective, and fascinating insights on the past, present and future of media. Hear what the heads of content or marketing from companies like Hersheys, Instagram, The Clorox Company and Twitter said when asked: “What should we expect in our industry in 2020?”
Storytellers Should Showcase Humanity, Not Orchestrate It
“I think we’re going to see a lot more around format and entertainment come back into the world, so at the same time, how do I just bring a smile to somebody’s face? How do I entertain them? As we’re trying to reconstruct what we believe a diverse and fair life looks like, there’s a new generation who are just shooting it with their video camera and because they actually live in a diverse world. Their whole world is diverse. And so maybe instead of trying to orchestrate a perfected humanity, maybe we should spend more time just telling stories that entertain humanity, that showcase humanity.”
— Bonin Bough, Founder/CEO of Bonin Ventures
Interactive Storytelling Is On The Rise
“We’ve still only scratched the surface of spatial storytelling like AR and VR. Right now I feel like we’re still telling relatively linear stories because that’s how we’re used to telling them for so many years. I’m looking forward to getting to a place where we’re telling stories in VR where if you go that way you have an entirely different experience than if you go this way, which also jives very much with the one to one and having personalized experiences.”
— Ari Halper, Chief Creative Officer of FCB New York
Brands Will Advertise More On Twitch and Other E-Gaming Platforms
“We’re starting to get into things like gaming and esports. You know there’s a lot of young men who spend a lot of time there. saying how do we bring our products to life on that particular platform? Like Twitch, or a lot of it’s on Twitter or on YouTube Gaming. So places like that.”
— Charlie Chappell, Head of Media for The Hershey Company
Watch the Full Interview | Listen on Spotify | Listen on Apple Podcasts
Brands Will Rush To Be More Authentic
“What I think we’re going to start to see with consumers is a rush back to authenticity. So consumers are starting to already feel a bit of ‘There’s a lot of ads here’. So the rush to authenticity and the fact that I know in Australia, Instagram has stopped showing the number of likes on a piece of content. It says ‘you and others like this’, which is taking the pressure off and they’re doing it for the right reasons. And I think what we’re going to start to see with consumers is that they want their brands to be as authentic as they want to be themselves. And so we’re going to have to pull back on measuring things like likes because we’re going to stop seeing them. So what is the measure of brand salience and brand relevance and social will have to be something that is deeper than how many likes you got on an image.”
— Kate Whitney, Director of Digital for Pernod Ricard USA
Watch the Full Interview | Listen on Spotify | Listen on Apple Podcasts
The End Of Traditional Broadcast Television Is Near
“As we get older, there will be a need, we are going to move away from linear TV broadcasts. We’re still going to be watching on a big screen at home. We’re still going to be watching live for life sports, for breaking news. We still want that live element of things that are out there, but majority of it’s going to be on demand. Everyone launching their own VOD service, right? Because everyone’s seen that there’s this age group that now have money, are able to afford at least two subscription models. Can they now tap into that marketplace? And I think over time it’ll fizzle out, but it’s almost like broadcast TV all again just on demand.”
— Riyaad Minty, Director of Digital for TRT (Turkish Radio & Television)
Watch the Full Interview | Listen on Spotify | Listen on Apple Podcasts
User-Generated Content Will Be More Common
“I think user generated content is going to become a more important piece of that. We are still going to of course rely on external agencies to do some of that work. We continue to build our internal agency. We have a strong internal agency and they’re really becoming a content machine. We’re looking to publishers to help us and other partners, as we partner with other people, getting content from them. What that requires is probably the hardest part, which is you have to have such a strong core understanding of your brand and be able to evaluate all that content to hold it together.”
— Stacey Grier, Chief Marketing Officer of The Clorox Company
Watch the Full Interview | Listen on Spotify | Listen on Apple Podcasts
Video Creators Will Stop Flooding Social Feeds, Focus More On Quality
“Quality video, regardless of time or length. It’s kind of du jour right? It’s the norm and I think that people are starting to pivot away from just feeding social feeds with video content thinking that’s what the consumer wants when that’s not really exactly what they’re consuming. So I think that people now are starting to listen and figuring out okay, maybe it’s not necessarily just short video clips and like little memes and trying to get traffic there that you can’t really monetize. Instead you have to bring the quality.”
— Mary Kate McGrath, Chief Content Officer of Gallery Media Group
Video Will Be Long-Form Or Short-Form, With Little In-Between
“Longer, longer form, right? Branded content, more series, more … a sponsored longer form content and then the opposite. Much, much shorter form, chunked up smaller pieces of video. Which is hard because to create drama you need conflict, right? And to create conflict in three to seven seconds in a video story on a phone in a feed, is really hard. You know, it’s that three-step: intrigue, involve, and then the third piece, which is persuade or activate someone to do something or to take an action.”
— Alan Schulman, Chief Creative Officer of Deloitte Digital
Watch the Full Interview | Listen on Spotify | Listen on Apple Podcasts
Brands Will Be More Efficient With Their Time And Money
“Brands are looking to create more content, but they’re looking to do it in an affordable way. And as an agency we want to develop that content with an exciting part of our business. But it’s also challenging to be able to develop that work with a cost efficient model because you’re still using, relying on data and analytics and we’re still relying on our specific strategy team. We’re relying on creative thinkers, our directors, writers, chief creative officer. All of those things go into creating that material, that content. But we have to also find a way to do it in an efficient way.”
— David Weinstock, Chief Creative Officer of RF|Binder
There Will Be More Integrated Marketing Campaigns
“I hope to see more integrated campaign planning. I think Nike did a brilliant job of that with the Colin Kaepernick campaign where they had this beautiful anthemic TV spot that lived on air, but it also lived on Twitter, it lived on social. They had iconic imagery that was associated with all of their brand ambassadors and the inspirational message of the campaign.”
— Stacey Minero, Head of Content Creation for Twitter
Brands, Agencies And Publishers Will Untap IGTV’s Potential
“The fact that IGTV is just now over a year old or not even hit the 18 month timeline is something really incredible. I think being able to see that evolve and transition over time like the IGTV series tools, just being able to search within IGTV is something else that’s really important to be able to discover that content. I also think interactive storytelling is really cool. I think there are people using the story, story tools, whether that be polling, the quiz sticker, being able to actually feel like you are having a hand in a way a story is being told and using stories on Instagram I think is really exciting.”
— Jeffrey Wisenbaugh, Head of Content for Instagram
Watch the Full Interview | Listen on Spotify | Listen on Apple Podcasts
Purpose-Driven Stories Are Becoming More Popular
“We’ve always looked for what’s the science behind a product, or the insight behind why an entrepreneur created it or what are the stories that make up the end user and outcomes. We’re always pitching the news. So if you’re going to do the editorial, it has to be the news behind it. So now visually we’re trying to bring that to life in different ways. And I think too, you’re seeing a huge amount of purpose, sustainability, other topics and visual storytelling and bringing those things to life on actually what companies, brands, are doing to help the end user to make things more environmentally friendly. All those kinds of stories just lend themselves to public relations.”
— Barri Rafferty, President/CEO of Ketchum Inc.
Publishers Will Use The Membership Model For Consistent Revenue
“Personally, I think membership is going to become a bigger piece of the industry. People now want a deeper sense of engagement. They always have. And that is a lot more dependable revenue and advertising revenue. Advertising revenue fluctuates. It goes highs and lows. A platform says something, or Snapchat announces a new feature and then advertiser then is either going to lean in or they’re going to lean back and see how it plays out. And that for a publisher can be a nightmare. And so I think you’re seeing already publishers that have diversified the revenue streams and started to figure out where else there’s money and membership for me is a thing that I feel like it’s coming and it’s a matter of defining it for your audience.”
— Mickey Meyer, President of Network for Group Nine Media
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By Jake Watkins, Content Marketing Manager
