It is prime time, where are your kids? They are all over the city, watching your favorite show. Not on tv but on a smartphone you once gave them as a present. They are watching Netflix, NBA, the World Cup, UEFA Euro, America’s Next Top Model, BBC, or enjoying Bruno Mars on Youtube.
The smartphone has become everyone’s portable tv set. Wherever, whenever. You get what’s on your local tv and experience much more. Naturally, advertisers are making the most of it, hunting and wanting to be as close to the smartphone-savvy market as they can get—with online videos for their latest brand pitch.
Over the last two years, there is a significant rise of Philippine advertisers opting to do online videos rather than TV commercials. Millennials, who are wired round-the-clock, are the primary target.
In the world’s most prestigious advertising award shows, Cannes, Clio, One Show, Epica, New York and London Ad Festivals, online video has also been made as a separate category, amplifying its growing strength and strategic importance as the new normal.
Recently, media giant Zenith Optimedia boldly announced its prediction: “Television’s dominance of the media mix will end in 2018, as it will be usurped by the Internet.” The sad truth is echoed by Advertising Age, which also said that television, which grew only at a slower pace over the last three years, is expected to drop to 34.8 percent on the same year.
Worldwide, online videos are beginning to be the biggest media channel for advertisers. In his article “How Teenage Behavior Predicts the Future of Technology,” author Derek Thompson paid tribute to Mark Zuckerberg, who has said that the behavior of the young is predictive of the future.
“They were on Facebook, Youtube, Tumblr, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Instagram, and later, spread to older age groups. They spend more time online. That’s the reason online videos are the best way to reach them,” he said.
Mike Palacios, digital strategy consultant for Publicis Manila, shares his valuable perspective:
“There are several factors for the migration to online video, and I don’t think that price is the main driver. First, it starts with a viable audience, with well past 50 million users on Facebook, driven mainly by mobile users.”
“Then there’s the ability to target that audience,” Palacios adds.
“Both our main local video platforms have amazing capabilities for ad targeting, not just by age, gender, location and interest, but in terms of behavior as well. Just visited our website? Just engaged with us on Facebook? Just read a piece of content? We can deploy a video campaign based on those triggers,” Palacios says.
Palacios punctuates the importance of creativity and mentions that there are no creative boundaries when it comes to producing online videos.
“Do you want to publish a long-form Mother’s Day video that showcases your brand story? Do you want to do a hundred one-minute recipes that inspire young chefs? Everything’s on the table. All that, before price,” he emphasizes.
Online videos are infinitely scalable, according to Palacios. They can be broadly targeted at P5 million or hyper-targeted at P50,000, he says. Moreover, online videos allow you “to create and deliver content if you have a laser-focused video strategy or just targeting certain brand or product segments,” he says.
Rise of online videos
A local production house owner whose company has produced a number of one- to three- minuter videos over the last three months gives advertisers who are planning to do online videos a reason to smile.
“Producing high-quality video content today does not cost big money anymore. It can be edited and reedited to unlimited versions, from 10-second teasers, all the way to half-hour shows,” he says. “Because of the varied ways one can do with a very good mother material, video marketing can actually work out less expensive in the long run,” he reasons out.
“There is truth to it,” a veteran Philippine advertising observer says. “You don’t need much money to produce high-quality online videos. They are roughly 20 percent less than what it costs to do a normal 30-second tv commercial. And they enjoy unprecedented media highway expanse because they are readily uploadable,” she says.
In an important research conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, it concluded that by 2018, digital advertising would account for a third of advertising spend in the US. This means that advertisers would have to start adopting a “digital mindset” if they are to make the most of their future in effectively marketing their brands.
It also stated that online advertising would grow from $133 billion to $295 billion by 2018. The money would come from budgets previously allotted to television advertising.
According to the report, the shift in budgets toward online advertising was due to two key factors: Better consumer reach on consumers who are on portable devices and excellent opportunities to display high-quality video.
Notable research company Nielsen, on the other hand, puts it succinctly: “Online videos are actually more effective than TV ads because they cannot be skipped. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re better than traditional TV ads. In fact, more often than not, they’re exactly the same.”
Online video ads have 65-percent general recall compared to 46 percent for TV ads. Brand recall online is also higher, 50 percent compared to TV’s 28 percent. Message online recall is 39 percent compared to TV’s 21 percent, the report further said.
Though TV may still dominate the advertising market, does that make online video a better advertising medium? Nielsen says it is like comparing apples to oranges and gives out this answer:
“Television offers unparalleled capacity to build reach, while online video offers pinpoint targeting and the potential for personalization of marketing messages. Both are powerful tools for establishing brand awareness and associations. It may not be apples to apples, but they are growing and TV is not.”
“TV’s status as the number-one channel for brand awareness means that it will continue to pull in big budgets, with more direct online channels used to complement that reach. As a traditional medium, TV is still important,” said Rich Lehrfeld, senior VP-global brand marketing and communication for American Express.
“When we run a heavy TV schedule, we see a lift in sales and product awareness. We need to run two weeks of digital to get the reach of one day of broadcast.”
Adam Harter, Pepsi VP for cultural connections, says: “It’s no longer a debate between TV and digital. It is how we bring these two things together.” He said that ads on TV have been reported to deliver not only the greatest reach, but also outperformed online videos when the objective is lead generation or increasing sales. Further studies made by Nielsen also revealed that the impression TV advertising left on consumers was “more trusted” and “lasts longer in the minds of potential customers”.
In today’s environment, television advertising is still the heavyweight and the undisputed king. People tend to unconsciously accept that “if it’s on TV, someone has paid a lot of money to put it there, so it must be of some value.”
For this reason, “as seen on TV” has many positive associations for brands. People trust the familiar and brands they know, and the effectiveness of “as seen on TV” is a testament to TV’s ability to build brand awareness.
All things said, it’s not a case of online video versus TV ads. But rather, it is a challenge for marketers to combine the best of both worlds to harness the power of their strengths in the overall marketing mix. So whether it’s online video or TV ad that you will be doing, creativity should be at the core of your execution, the common denominator that must shine in the medium.
Image credits: Sabelskaya | Dreamstime.com