• by Jack Cohen-Martin , September 16, 2013

As advertisers and marketers continue to scrutinize their advertising/marketing budgets and media buys, strategic CMOs are watching the growth of digital video. With digital video consumption rising every quarter -- especially the skyrocketing growth of mobile video – many CMOs are asking their teams to figure out a digital video strategy for capturing the attention of male consumers.

Below are several winning strategies for targeting men with digital video:

Short-form video sharing: Consumers immediately embraced Vine and Instagram Video for sharing short videos. And, it didn’t take long for teenage males to embrace these short videos to create videos in a style reminiscent of MTVs Jackass series. Some teenage males are already using the hashtag #smackcam to share videos of themselves slapping unsuspecting friends (some would argue that many of these videos are actually staged and aren’t really videos of teenagers hitting each other unexpectedly). 

Fight Club, meet social media.

Is this the right content for many consumer brands? Probably not. But, if you were a marketer looking to launch a new energy drink or an action movie targeting teenage males, using #smackcam videos as part of your campaign, could be a strategy worth investigating. 

In addition to consumer-generated short-form videos, smart marketers and their agencies are already using Vine and Instagram Videos in very interesting ways. Lowe’s, the home improvement chain, has distributed videos of home improvement tips via Vine.

Whether curating or incorporating consumer-generated videos that would appeal to men, or creating their own short videos, brands and marketers can use Vine, Instagram, and other video apps to better target and engage male consumers.

YouTube: As the recent Fortune cover story, "How YouTube Changes Everything, recounted, Google's once puzzling acquisition of YouTube is no longer puzzling. In fact, the YouTube acquisition is now considered a master-stroke by Google. All of YouTube's KPIs are going straight up -- viewership, the amount of content uploaded every day, minutes watched per week or month, etc.

As many in the media industry have realized, the next MTV or Comedy Central isn't taking shaping in the NYC or LA offices of traditional media companies. Those future media channels are taking shape on YouTube’s platform. Some YouTube content creators are building audiences, viewers, and subscribers that already rival the viewership of mainstream cable channels.

Smart marketers are studying these new YouTube channels that are appealing to micro-niche audiences -- including male audiences -- and figuring out how to incorporate YouTube into their digital marketing strategies and plans. 

The options for integrating YouTube vary widely. First, there’s the traditional YouTube ad buys to target audiences via pre-roll or in-stream ads. But, there are other possibilities beyond strict YouTube paid media buys. After identifying a YouTube content creator that appeals to men, a brand could approach the personality about a formal sponsorship..

Viral videos: At this point, it's a bad cliché for an advertiser to expect their agency to create a “viral video” that will spread far and wide. Certainly, viral videos still happen. But for every viral success vis-a-vis Dollar Shave Club or I Ship My Pants, there are plenty of “viral videos” created on behalf of brands that are collecting digital dust – unseen and unshared.

It’s probably a smarter strategy for brands to consider using or curating consumer-generated viral videos, as outlined above, vs. trying to create their own viral video. 

As we’ve found, with creativity, brands and marketers and the agencies working with them, can utilize the myriad video platforms and new video personalities and content creators to capture the attention of the male audience they’re trying to target.