9 Tips to Get The Most From Video Marketing

Videos are a very effective way of finding new and inexpensive audiences. Even though your videos may only get a moderate amount of views, they are quality views that allow you to leverage the technology to grow your business.

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Video Tools for Success - August 2012

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Video Ads Grow 70%-Google Network

In its recent report, Display Business Trends: Publisher Edition, the search giant analyzed “tens of billions” of impressions across its publisher products including DoubleClick for Publishers, the DoubleClick Ad Exchange and the Google AdSense network. With video in particular, Google found several trends that may be useful for publishers to keep in mind as they peddle video ads.

For starters, video advertising is one of the fastest growing segments in digital advertising, the report said. Google’s not the first company to note the rapidity of video’s growth; but corroboration from the Web behemoth on what countless other reports say is a good thing for the video ad business.

Specifically, in the second half of 2011, the number of video impressions across the DoubleClick for Publishers platform grew nearly 70%, and ads were watched to completion 72% of the time, and to the midpoint 79% of the time.

The most eye-popping stat is in the growth of impressions running in wide-screen players. Google saw nearly a tripling in the number of impressions on the 640 x 360 ad unit within wide-screen players.  “Conversely, we’ve observed a decrease in standard aspect-ratio video player impressions, indicating that they’re phasing out,” the report said.

Half of the video ads in its network register between 15 and 30 seconds, with 36% longer than 30 seconds and 13% running less than 15 seconds. -MediaPost

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5 Key Video Marketing Findings: comScore Report

comScore released a report entitled Surviving the Upfronts in a Cross-Media World, a guide for navigating the cross-media landscape during this year’s TV and digital upfronts.

The report examines how the online video market can be used to supplement traditional television advertising. It also looks at the effectiveness of cross-media campaigns. The report also features some recommendations for advertisers, agencies, and media buyers who are thinking about incorporating digital video formats to their media mix.

“With the digital upfronts in their second year, more advertisers are considering adding digital video to their media mix in long-form TV programming and short-form video,” said Judy Bahary, SVP, Marketing Solutions at comScore in a press release. “Our research shows an incredible synergy between TV and digital video formats when used together in cross-media campaigns, driving effectiveness levels higher than either medium used on its own. As the online video market continues to develop, we should see it evolve from its current supporting role to an essential part of media planning in the annual upfronts.”

Key findings include:

1. The online video audience reaches approximately 180 million monthly unique viewers. In addition, average engagement levels are rising as it continues to play a more prominent role in the online experience.
2. Adding a digital video component to a TV media plan can increase the effective reach of the campaign in a very efficient manner.
3. Digital video ad formats are just as effective as TV ads. But TV and digital video have a synergistic effect when used together, making this media mix more effective than either one on its own.
4. Multi-Screen consumers are a fast-growing segment and need to be marketed to on multiple screens in order for campaigns to achieve optimal reach and frequency levels.
5. Younger age segments are generally more receptive to digital advertising than TV, highlighting the importance of incorporating digital video into the media buying and planning process.

It’s no surprise that YouTube is the clear leader in the online video market today, easily drawing 146 million viewers in March 2012. Other leading publishers of video content include Yahoo! (61 million viewers that month), VEVO (51 million) and Facebook (45 million). Many of these properties fluctuate within the top 10 ranking from month to month, but their audiences are consistently strong.

To get a true sense of how widespread online video content is in the U.S., comScore examined its reach within the online population as well as among the total U.S. population, and segmented it by age group. Overall, more than 4 in 5 Internet users are consuming online video content in a given month.

The 18- to 24-year-old segment showed the highest penetration of its online population at 87 percent. Another interesting finding is that for ages 25-34 and 35-44, there is virtually no difference between online video’s reach among the web population and the total U.S. population, which suggests that nearly 100 percent of people ages 25-34 and 35-44 in the U.S. are Internet users, making a strong case for the potential value of online video advertising for marketers interested in reaching all of these segments.

While the monthly audience for online video content is steady at around 180 million people, the degree to which users engage with online video has increased dramatically in the past year. In fact, 30 percent more Americans now watch online video content on an average day than they did a year ago.

The average user spends more than 21 hours per month (up 47 percent) watching more than 200 content videos (up 20 percent). Americans’ growing interest in long-form video content is evident from the growth in the average time spent watching a video, which has jumped 23 percent in the last year to 6.4 minutes.

The report makes its most persuasive arguments when it cites the latest data or recent studies. However, it also makes some less persuasive arguments when it suggests editing “TV ads down to 15 seconds to optimize for digital platforms.” This isn’t backed up with any supporting evidence.

Cutting a 30-60 second TV ad spot down to 15 seconds might make sense “if” viewers have no choice and no control over which ads they want to see and when. Anything longer might annoy or irritate them.

But, the advent of YouTube’s TrueView video ads, which give viewers the ability to skip an advertiser’s message, means you might not need to cut your 30-60 second TV ad spot. And since YouTube charges you only when a viewer has chosen to watch your ad, not when an impression is served, there’s no cost and no risk to running a spot that’s longer than 15 seconds.-Greg Jarboe, Search Engine Watch

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Tablets Gain Mobile Video Viewers

Per comScore, tablets have reached a critical mass in the U.S. with 1 in every 4 smartphone owners using tablets during the three-month period ending April 2012, and nearly 3x more likely to watch video on their device compared to smartphone users, with 1 in every 10 tablet users viewing video content almost daily on their device.
Mark Donovan, comScore SVP of Mobile, observes that “... tablets are one of the most rapidly adopted consumer technologies in history... poised to fundamentally disrupt the way people engage with the digital world... on-the-go and... in the home...”

In April 2012, 16.5% of mobile phone subscribers used a tablet, representing an increase of 11.8 percentage points in the past year. Growth in market penetration was even more apparent among the smartphone population with nearly 1 in 4 using a tablet device in April, an increase of 13.9 percentage points in the past year. A lower 10.4% of feature phone owners use a tablet, suggesting that smartphone ownership is highly predictive of tablet adoption in the current market.

Tablet Users Among Mobile Audiences (Total U.S. Mobile Subscribers; Ages 13+; 3 Mo Average)
	% of Respondents Using Tablet
	Apr 2011	Apr 2012	Point Change
Total Mobile (Feature Phone & Smartphone)	4.7%	16.5%	11.8
Smartphone Only	9.7%	23.6%	13.9
Feature Phone Only	2.3%	10.4%	8.1
Source: comScore MobiLens, June 2012

A demographic analysis of mobile device audiences indicated that tablet and smartphone audiences closely resemble one another in terms of gender composition, with tablet users just slightly more likely to be female than smartphone users.

However, the age composition of audiences showed that tablet users skewed noticeably older than smartphone users. For both devices, the heaviest overall audience concentration was between the ages of 25 and 44. Compared to smartphone owners, tablet users were 28% more likely to be in the 65 and older age segment, and 27% less likely to be age 18-24.

Tablet users also skewed towards upper income households, likely a function of the high price point of these devices still considered a luxury good to many consumers. Nearly 3 in 5 tablet users resided in households with income of $75,000 or greater, compared to 1 in every 2 smartphone users.
More than half of tablet users watched video and/or TV content on their device in April 2012, compared to just 20% of the smartphone audience, with larger screen sizes making tablets more conducive to video consumption than their smaller-screen cousins, says the report.

Not only were tablet users more likely to watch video, but they were more likely to view video habitually with 18.9% of tablet users watching video content at least once a week, and 9.5% watching video nearly every day on their device. Of those viewing video at least once during the month, 1 in 4 paid to watch content, highlighting the tremendous monetization potential this platform represents for content providers.

Video/TV Viewing on Device for Tablet and Smartphone Audience (Total U.S. Tablet Owners and Smartphone Subscribers, Age 13+; 3 month avg. ending Apr. 2012)
Viewing Frequency	% of Tablet Audience	% of Smartphone Audience
Ever in month	53.0%	20.0%
Once to three times throughout the month	24.6%	10.3%
At least once each week	18.9%	6.7%
Almost every day	9.5%	2.9%
Source: comScore TabLens and comScore MobiLens, June 2012

For additional information from comScore. - MediaPost

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YouTube Video Campaign Engagement Levels

While 33% of the most-engaging YouTube campaigns run under 30 seconds, only 11% of campaigns by volume run that length, per findings from a Yesmail Interactive study [download page] released in June 2012. And although YouTube campaigns rose sharply over the 3-month study period - by about 38% to 80 across all brands (3.5 campaigns per brand) - the average campaign engagement plummeted by roughly 66%. Yesmail’s actual engagement measure adjusts for follower size; rather than measure by sheer volume of Facebook Likes or YouTube views, actual engagement is a measure of individuals’ behavior. Thus one campaign may outnumber another in followers by 10 to 1, but its actual engagement may be far lower.

Duration Does Not Match Actual Engagement

Some 45% of all campaigns for 20 leading apparel brands (including Abercrombie & Finch, Old Navy and American Apparel) ran between 30 and 90 seconds. But of the top 10% in terms of actual engagement, a plurality (33%) ran under 30 seconds, while just 39% ran between 30 and 90 seconds. A further 28% ran either between 120-180 seconds (17%) or more than 180 seconds (11%).

The study indicates that much of why brands choose the longer formats is due to choice of content: TV commercials typically run from under 30 to 90 seconds, while music videos, short documentaries and user-generated content usually run over 120 seconds.

According to recent comScore data, video ads accounted for 21.6% of all videos viewed and 1.9% of all minutes spent viewing video online in May. While the duration of the average online content video was 6.5 minutes, the duration of the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes - or 24 seconds.

If duration is a key variable in engagement, then, the challenge for brands is to create video that is short enough to be digestible for the consumer, but long enough to tell a compelling story that prompts a reaction. And if video advertisers want to take a cue from a recently-released Nielsen study of CPG ads from 2006 to 2011, it’s best they focus on funny or sentimental ads at the expense of those that hone in on promotions or prices.

Marketers Missing Other Opportunities, Too

Marketers deploying campaigns on YouTube appear to be missing the boat with regards to the optimal days for deployment. Despite Monday being the most engaging day for YouTube, it is one of the 3 least-utilized deployment days. By contrast, the largest number of YouTube campaigns were deployed on Friday and Thursday.

Other Findings:

• 15% of the brands tracked do not have a YouTube channel.
• Only 35% of the brands that have a YouTube channel deployed campaigns during each of the 3 months tracked. 20% only deployed campaigns in 1 of the months.
• Roughly two-thirds of the YouTube campaigns were deployed between 11AM and 7PM ET. Surprisingly, the 2AM - 3AM timeslot achieved the highest engagement. It may be that these campaigns are reaching insomniacs: according to recent figures from Resonate, insomniacs are 34% more likely to watch TV on a computer, 31% more likely to watch from a tablet, and 24% more likely to watch on a cell phone.

About the Data: Yesmail used its Yesmail Market Intelligence tool to tracks, collect and analyze all digital campaigns deployed through email, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, for 20 leading apparel brands and retailers over a three-month period. Those brands included The Gap, Abercrombie & Finch, Ralph Lauren and Urban Outfitters, among others. Brands were selected for their strong reliance on social media marketing, and for their focus upon the 18-35 year old demographic.-eConsultancy

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Online Video Everywhere

According to the Q1 Global Video Index Report from Ooyala, Long-form content, videos longer than 10 minutes, accounted for half the total time people spent watching online video in Q1, and the growth trend is expected to continue.

Viewers are watching more videos on their tablets and mobile devices, and for longer periods. The overall share of time watched on smartphones grew by 41% last quarter. The share of time watched on tablets grew by 32%.

Tablet video viewing rises on weekday mornings as people prepare for the day and commute to work, then falls off during work hours as PC viewing picks up. On weekday evenings, tablet video surges as people watch streaming video to end their day. A third of tablet video plays occur between 7pm and 11pm, while only about 17% of PC plays take place over that same window.

On the weekend, the morning “commuter bump” fades on tablets. Mobile video drops 22% on weekend mornings compared to the workweek. And on Saturdays between 4pm and 11pm, viewers watch nearly a third more video on connected TV devices than they do during the week.

Tablet viewing rises in the morning, tails off during through midday, and then surges in the evenings. On a typical weekday, a full third of tablet video plays occur between 7pm and 11pm. Only about 17% of PC plays take place over that same period.

Viewers on connected TVs watch nearly a third more video between 4pm and 11pm on Saturdays than on a typical weekday evening. Most video publishers have a small group of super-engaged viewers. The analysis shows that 10% of a publisher’s audience watches more than five of its videos in a given day. Smart marketers will find new ways to identify and engage these “power viewers.”

Key trends from Q1 2012:

• People are watching more TV shows, movies and long-form videos online, and they are watching for longer periods of time. Long-form content made up more than half of the total time spent watching video in Q1 across all connected devices

• The share rose dramatically from 57% in Q4 2011 to 88% in Q1 2012. Around 40% of the time spent watching online video on mobile and tablets was spent watching long-form videos, compared to 29% for mobiles and 36% for tablets in Q4 2011

• In addition to watching more long-form video, people are watching each video longer across PCs, smartphones and tablets. Tablets recorded the strongest growth, with time per play increasing 58% during the quarter. The same metric grew 36% for smartphones and 24% for PCs

The study finds that, of users who watch video when they visit a domain or use an application, 55% will watch one video over the course of a given day. At the other end of the spectrum, 10% of the publisher’s audience will be highly engaged “power viewers,” watching more than five videos during the day.

The data shows explosive growth in video watched on non-PC devices like tablets, smartphones, gaming consoles and connected TV devices. The share of non- PC video plays has tripled in the past nine months alone.

Concluding, the report says that the overall share of time watched for mobile video grew by 41% in Q1, while tablets notched 32% growth. ”Typical” TV viewing is shifting, and not slowly, from broadcast channels on a single screen to mobile, multi-screen viewing experiences- Ooyala

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Out-Of-Home To Reach $8.2 Billion By 2016

Despite continuing economic uncertainty at home and abroad, U.S. out-of-home advertising will enjoy a cumulative annual growth rate of 4.9% from 2012-2016, increasing to $8.2 billion over that period, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, which just released its latest global advertising forecasts.

That’s about the same as PwC’s forecast for the global out-of-home marketplace overall, which the consultancy sees expanding at a CAGR of 5% for 2012-2016. It’s also higher than the predicted growth rate for the broader U.S. economy, with most economists predicting GDP will grow by low single digits over this period, at best.

Stefanie Kane, a partner with PwC’s entertainment and media practice, attributed the positive forecast to the continuing rollout of digital billboards and captive audience video networks, both of which have been growing at an impressive clip in recent years. Captive audience networks, in particular, are “widening to locations that weren’t previously available,” noted Kane, including taxi cabs and gas pumps.

Digital billboards and video networks also allow owners and operators to sell inventory based on dayparts, giving advertisers greater flexibility, as well as more precision in targeting audiences. Increasing adoption of the new “Eyes On” metric from the Traffic Audit Bureau should also result in greater advertiser confidence in the out-of-home medium.

Kane pointed to the growing overlap between all types of out-of-home advertising and the burgeoning field of mobile marketing, with coordination between the two enabled by QR codes, near-field communication and other mobile response mechanisms.

While mobile e-commerce is still in its early stages, hybrid models combining out-of-home and mobile marketing can facilitate in-store mobile transactions for retail customers.

That said, out-of-home does face some headwinds in the U.S. The cost of installation for new digital billboards, in particular, remains high -- at an average price of $450,000 for a 14-by-48-foot LCD billboard. Digital billboards only make up 2,400 surfaces of the total 400,000 billboard surfaces available in the U.S. -- or less than 1%. Digital billboards also face continuing opposition from some state and local governments, which contend that they distract drivers or are aesthetically unappealing.-Erik Sass, MediaPost

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