Mobile video and its rise – are you creating content for mobile?

21st February 2016

The audience should always be at the heart of what you do as marketers and business owners. That’s why it’s essential to be aware of the context of their viewing when planning your video marketing strategy and think mobile. We’ve produced content for World Mobile Congress in Barcelona again this year, and therefore we wanted to turn to mobile video and its growing importance for marketers on the blog this week…

Mobile video accounts for more than half mobile data traffic

Mobile is always on our minds when we’re recommending video marketing to clients. So we were interested to read the latest mobile white paper from Cisco (Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2015 to 2020 White Paper) crammed with facts and figures on mobile usage.

  • Mobile traffic grew 74% in 2015.
  • Mobile data traffic has grown 4,000 fold over the past ten years (almost 400 million fold over the past 15 years).
  • Mobile video traffic accounted for 55% of total mobile data traffic in 2015.
  • YouTube has seen a 100% growth in watch time on mobile devices (215/2014).

Mobile video – a less distracted viewer

In a report by Google/Ipsos, they found that mobile viewers were less distracted than TV viewers; there are more than double the number of concentrated viewers on mobile. For millennials, 98% reported using smartphones to watch video content daily. Interestingly video watching on TV was the sole activity just 28% of the time (the rest of the time was taken up with chatting, eating, cooking, being on their computers…) whilst 58% of video watching on mobile was the sole activity.

Multi-channel omniscreening

It is important to be creating video content for multi-platforms and multiple screens and touchpoints, and ensuring this is clearly documented in your marketing strategy.  As with all marketing, it’s about getting into the head of your audience and backing this up with research and data. Where will they be searching for content? Which channels are they already engaging with?

It’s no longer enough to solely rely on YouTube as your distribution channel. Social video networks now include Facebook, Instagram and Twitter which are all worth thinking about with their large audience reach, and you can target very specific demographics through mobile video ads.

Create video for the context of viewing and where your consumers are in the buying cycle. We imagine a content pyramid with your shiny brand content at the top to attract attention and extend brand awareness, then a range of videos giving more detail about your product and finally a broader range of content that humanises your brand such as video diaries and behind-the-scenes content.

To maximise your brand story, ensure that your content is integrated on all the touch points: website, landing page, ads, social media etc. There is more likelihood that referral traffic will stick on your site if the brand story is integrated well. Your website ranking will suffer if you have do not have a mobile optimised site; move it up your priority list if you’re not mobile ready.

Add a call to action on your videos to guide your viewers through your ideal customer journey. It is now a good idea to add a text CTA on the video as viewers may be watching on silent via their mobiles on social channels.

Strong story-telling needs to lead the viewer through multiple channels. We advise using the emotion, logic, emotion strategy to do achieve this. Pull in viewers with a strong emotional opening then back up your arguments with your logical reasons, then end on an emotional call to action.

Tech video example – Samsung

Let’s look at this in action with a telecoms tech brand. As we’re going to Global Mobile World Congress this week, let’s check out Samsung, which will be unveiling their latest Galaxy phone. It follows the theme of “unboxing” where influencers and consumers are encouraged by brands to ‘unpack’ their purchases and share on social video.

Here’s their stand out brand video to reveal the new phone. It takes the story of their tech and asks the viewers “Who knows where progress will take us next?”

The video mixes the emotional and the logical well by reinforcing the brand’s experience in the tech market but also playing on the emotions of nostalgia. It also shows the emotional, remarkable moments such as the first 3G call at Everest and the logical – such as phones being water resistant.

The call to action to visit the website comes in at just over 1 minute. It’s all about using data from your brand but as a rule of thumb on video length we would suggest adding it in a little earlier to minimise drop-off.

This brand video is backed up with reminders via social media to see the big reveal.

This is also consolidated with video content asking people to take a walk down memory lane and check out older Samsung products; this works for both younger audiences (how did you ever manage with that piece of tech) and nostalgia for post 35s. Again the emotional is mixed with the logical (by showing all the things you cannot do on these phones, it reinforces what the new phone will be able to do) and the emotional (how tech helps to connect us with friends and family and make romantic connections). 

Finally, Samsung have released a report: “What will life look in 100 years?” which reinforces that they are the tech firm which is defining the future.

With this campaign, Samsung also need to ensure that their brand story is being reinforced at the shop floor level and via customer service both on and offline – otherwise all that good video work will go to waste.

Look out for our video content for GSMA via Twitter.

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