• by Christopher Lockwood , October 2, 2013

As far back as 1979, a song released on Island Records announced that video had killed the radio star. And now, nearly 35 years later, it seems as if video is still stronger and more unbeatable than ever before.

The traditional advertising culture of the mid-20^th century, where brands found consumers by broadcasting short, direct messages at them with little concern for detail, effect or response, was turned on its head by the Internet that paved the way for a‘search culture. For the first time people could do the searching, and physical boundaries or distance to store were negated. This same change led growing numbers of brands to create websites and early digital strategy.

The inevitable next step was the empowerment of the individual and the virulent growth of a social culture. This is an ecosystem that centers around personalization, relevance and community, principally based on the sharing of information and ideas, and where it is products that change in response to user need, not the other way around.

Under these conditions, brands could no longer be dictators. They needed to retire to a more indirect place, be more inventive in their approach to customer interaction and provide useful and interesting content that dared to put the consumer’s needs ahead of their own. And they needed to do this 24/7, 365 on as many platforms as real people chose to use.

In spite of all this change, however, video as a medium has prevailed; in fact, it has gathered power. 

Video, as a method for recording live events, building imaginary worlds and facilitating all kinds of storytelling, is still by far and away the most effective and powerful way to make content that people enjoy and rely upon as one of their primary sources of news, information and escape (on a myriad of devices). But why?

The Web helped to transform video from a second-rate citizen (sleazy wedding videos, desperately dry corporate ones, educational videos) into a more significant tool that could enhance websites, explain complicated initiatives imaginatively and build aspirational worlds. By 2008/9, it had matured further still into one of the necessary pillars of e-commerce, with instructional how-to films reducing the need for experts in all manner of fields. And the viral came of age.

In 2013, social video has become the most powerful way to develop conversations throughout a brand’s digital ecosystem (across owned channels, social platforms and through satellite community and paid environments). We know that YouTube is now the planet’s second largest search engine and that video appears higher up in search results than other type of content. It’s the most shared asset on the Internet because of its ability to trigger an emotive physiological response.

A reduction in relative cost of production technology; the ubiquity of cameras; an increase in bandwidth and access; the proliferation of smartphones; more and easier-to-use self-publishing tools and social platforms – these have all fueled a perfect storm that has ignited the reincarnation of video.

Video is so many things to so many people. It is easy to use, to share, great to start a conversation about or to create a reaction -- a unique social currency of its own. It is still our favorite format for entertainment, from a night out at the cinema to a night in on the sofa.

Video is the support mechanism for many moments. It can be at the same time emotional and pragmatic, simple and complex, personal and mass. It has proven not to be diminished by scale and is now as commonplace on the bus and tube as the newspaper. In a multiscreen world, social video is king.