Commentary
Video Strategy: Life Beyond YouTube
- by Jen Sargent , January 16, 2014
Millions of video screens surround us in our daily lives. NDR estimates over 500 million Internet-connected devices in U.S. homes (5.7 per household, on average). Outside the home, the number of screens is growing expansively. From smartphones and Apple TV to waiting areas in airports and checkout lines at cafes or retailers, digital screens touch us in every part of our day.
Marketers need to be where the screens are. According to Nielsen, the average consumer spends 60 hours per week consuming content at home, of which only 1.5 hours is spent watching video on the Internet. These stats can be deceiving when presented in some reports as the total number of aggregate minutes in a month, but when boiled down to hours per person, the usage becomes clear. Research also shows that consumers spend up to 70% of their time out of home. These facts combined showcase the huge opportunity beyond internet-based video and YouTube.
Marketers should embrace a multiplatform strategy for video in order to grab a consumer’s attention. Connected devices like Roku and Apple TV provide marketers a way to combat the dismantling of appointment viewing and reach viewers when they choose to watch content. Digital out-of-home screens let marketers engrain into the daily routine. Go back to the basics of advertising when you develop your video strategy – deliver the right message, in the right place, at the right time.
Why YouTube isn’t the be-all, end-all
YouTube was not created to support the needs of millions of publishers or to sustain full content creation. The reality is, viewers can skip video ads on YouTube after five seconds, which is all the time you have to get your brand message across. If you are fighting a five-second time window, why not consider a six-second custom video on Vine or Instagram? It’s just as compelling.
How to harness a new, multiplatform video frontier
Here are a few quick tips for growing your video strategy beyond YouTube:
- Think multiplatform: in-home and out-of-home, passive and active, fixed and viral. Think about all of the places your consumer is and where you can also be to maximize ROI.
- Branding: Video is not just about awareness and engagement. When aligned properly with content or other brands, it can also build trust with your target audience.
- Length: For content under 15 seconds, consider platforms such as Vine and Instagram. For 30 seconds to 3 minutes, consider online platforms such as Hulu, AOL’s ON or Digital OOH platforms such as National Cinemedia, IZON Media and Connectivision.
- Social video advertising: With Facebook’s new video ad platform, Vine and Instagram, we will see this part of the market take shape quickly (if it hasn’t already) in 2014.
In the past, a unified multiplatform campaign translated to print, radio, TV and outdoor billboards. Today, a comprehensive video strategy should go beyond YouTube to accommodate Web, mobile, social, connected devices and digital out-of-home options.
Great article, Jen, on the importance for marketers to take a "big picture" view of video. Even the biggest broadcast and cable spenders ($30MM+) can't reach everyone they need to through TV on a 4- to 6-week basis, given the lightest viewing quintile (45MM Americans) watch roughly 35 minutes a day. So planners are now looking to online video to reach the 20-40% of the audience that TV can't. Here's the problem: With only 2-3% of all video viewed is online, you can't solve a 40% problem with a 3% solution. Combine that with the fact that the great majority (70%+) of online video is watched by heavy TV viewers, most of the online video impressions will be against those already reached. What's required is a solution that's TV-like in terms of impact, scale, and whose audience is over-weighted to light TV viewers. Those options are indeed few, but include cinema and "in the bowl" sports stadium video networks, where the screen is fundamental to the consumer experience.