What’s the main reason you watch video content? Is it to be entertained? To escape from your daily life? To learn about a new brand or product? If you said any of the above, you’re not alone. The answers from most people are all of the above. Turns out that 32.8% of consumers watch videos to help them relax and unwind followed by 26.3% who want to be entertained or laugh, according to HubSpot. Video content has changed so drastically since the creation of the internet. It’s really hard to believe that it’s only been around for 30 years or so. Wrap your mind around that for a second!
Neilson Global Marketing Report 2022
Performance Marketing vs Affiliate Marketing
A hot topic right now is performance marketing. It’s somewhat similar to affiliate marketing but has a lower risk involved and encompasses a wider umbrella that includes affiliate marketing as its sub category. It’s not something that is new but is now rising to the top as a new way to market. Let’s define each for some more clarity. Affiliate marketing is where a relationship is set up between a brand and an individual or organization where partners will receive a percentage commission of the sales they help create. Performance marketing where brands only pay when a certain objective has been met, such as clicks, leads or a sale. Here, advertisers connect with agencies, publishers or influencers to design and place ads on their company channels.
The Rise of Interactive Advertising
Did you know that there is a term called ad blindness? It is a term to explain the phenomenon in response to how people have begun to cope with being subject to constant advertising. People have developed a coping mechanism to subconsciously and sometimes consciously tune out advertisements. In fact, 82% of Gen Z skip or ignore ads completely according to A List Daily. You can check out our article from yesterday on tips to make your advertisements more engaging but there is another kind of ad emerging that seems to increase engagement; interactive advertising. Actually, interactive advertisements have been shown to increase consumer attention by 47% and 32% more memorable according to a study conducted by Magna Global. So, let’s talk about some different types of interactive advertisements.
Silent Video
“Silence is a source of great strength”
-Lao Tzu
Imagine that you’re in a quiet work environment. You get on your phone to look something up. As the page finishes loading, a loud blast of sounds starts coming through and you fumble to get your volume button pressed down to zero. We’ve all had this happen to us. It’s disruptive and it affects people negatively. Turns out that 66% of people hate it when ads automatically play with sound on according to an article by Teads. In response, advertisers are trying to mitigate this by producing ads that begin to play automatically without sound. Since outstreamed videos are going to become a thing of the future, advertisers should focus on silent plays with captions. According to Facebook, captioned video ads increased views by 12%. Ads should be able to convey an emotional message without the use of sound. This can be done with the use of motion graphics and text within the campaign. This new trend will be a way for advertisers to use their creative license to make videos impactful despite not having any sound. We’re certain your team has the creative abilities to do this but here are some quick tips to get you started on ways to make your silent spots stand out and perform well.
1. Use bold visuals and/or animations. This will help catch the viewers eye and keep them engaged. It’s also very visually striking to see good fonts and animations that blend well together within your brand’s signature look.
2. Use Call to Action buttons. Make sure to insert in a way that it is natural flowing. You can even run tests before it launches to see where it receives the most clicks. CTA buttons are imperative to getting conversions. Using a download button seems to yield the best lead results (HubSpot).
3. Subtitles. If your brand feels it won’t be able to get its point across 100% without sounds then subtitles can offer a lot of relief. Facebook now offers a feature where you can automatically add captions to videos.
4. Write unconventional scripts. This is always a fun way to entice viewers to keep watching your campaigns. They’ll want to know what is about to happen next. I know I always appreciate a good creative ad that keeps me on my toes or just completely blows me away with how unconventional it is! A prime example would be the recent OutHorse Your Email Campaign for Visit Iceland.
5. Share your offers/discounts early in the ad. Since attention spans are shorter and shorter each year, you want to get the most important message out first. Research suggests that you have about 10 seconds to hook, line, and sink em’!
6. Be short and concise. Again, for those in the back who didn’t hear. Attention spans continue to lessen so it’s important to make your campaigns shorter than 60 seconds. The ad must also grab the attention of the audience immediately in order to keep them engaged in watching.
7. Don’t ditch the audio. Sometimes people do still listen to ads with sound on. Be able to convey your message without it but really drive the point home with the audio on. Make that emotional connection deeper with your audience.
In the words of the infamous Will Rogers, “Never miss a good chance to shut up!” This is definitely one of those times! A time for advertisers to harness the opportunity to creatively grow through the rise in popularity of silent ads is here. Let your campaigns say a lot through saying nothing at all! Happy creating!
Contextual Advertising
While writing our blog about Google’s announcement of their 3rd party cookie phase out the term contextual advertising came up as a possible solution. We found this topic worth digging into a little. Contextual ads are placed on web pages based on the content of those pages. For example, if you’re reading an article on Yosemite an ad for hiking boots may pop up. This keeps the user’s data privacy in tact while still getting the right information in front of the right audience.
