Online video ad viewing increased dramatically in 2012, with audiences choosing to watch video ads 4.6 billion times, or about 13.2 million times every day.
Records were broken by the likes of M&M’s Superbowl Ms Brown or Kony 2012, with the former getting 85% of online views driven the ad’s virality (not by paid ads) and the latter counting 41 millions video views in just one day.
Online videos are effective for branding and can deliver your message on any platform and any scale, from internal communications to global campaigns. Read about other outstanding videos trends in 2012 here.
And your company? What does your video communications plan look like for 2013?
Ready for the next level? See the iFilm portfolio and let's schedule a meeting to discuss the next project. Email Dave Henry or call 713-504-5765.
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Friday, February 15, 2013
Monday, June 21, 2010
On Authenticity
It started sometime around 1985.
Video had firmly supplanted film, and internal corporate videos were suddenly easy to make (well, if you consider U-matic easy). Corporate executives, spokespeople and PR-folks had to learn to craft the things quickly.
Naturally they leaned on their long-standing ‘external’ instincts, meaning, how to deal with the news media. Craft the bullet points, memorize them, stick to the script on camera.
Fast forward to now. In the short story “Appetite” by Said Sayrafiezadeh, the protagonist is watching a public affairs campaign on TV. He smirks: “The very fact that everyone managed to pronounce the phrase without stumbling once was evidence that the whole man-on-the-street conceit was fraudulent.”
In other words, give us some um’s and uh’s and be a real person. Everyone can make video now. The walls have been torn down. The only thing that works is authenticity.
How do you get there? For internal messaging, the onus falls on the interviewer, not the interviewee. The person in the hot seat (cameras get smaller, but lights are still hot) needs an empathetic questioner who’s well prepared, holds eye contact, and asks questions based on the conversation, not the bullets.
And please, no ganging up. I recently did a shoot with five PR people in the room, leering over the shoulder of the interviewer. The nice lady on camera had no idea where to look.
Get rid of the distractions and focus on discourse, and you have a comfortable, open person talking easily about the things they talk about every day.
Video had firmly supplanted film, and internal corporate videos were suddenly easy to make (well, if you consider U-matic easy). Corporate executives, spokespeople and PR-folks had to learn to craft the things quickly.
Naturally they leaned on their long-standing ‘external’ instincts, meaning, how to deal with the news media. Craft the bullet points, memorize them, stick to the script on camera.
Fast forward to now. In the short story “Appetite” by Said Sayrafiezadeh, the protagonist is watching a public affairs campaign on TV. He smirks: “The very fact that everyone managed to pronounce the phrase without stumbling once was evidence that the whole man-on-the-street conceit was fraudulent.”
In other words, give us some um’s and uh’s and be a real person. Everyone can make video now. The walls have been torn down. The only thing that works is authenticity.
How do you get there? For internal messaging, the onus falls on the interviewer, not the interviewee. The person in the hot seat (cameras get smaller, but lights are still hot) needs an empathetic questioner who’s well prepared, holds eye contact, and asks questions based on the conversation, not the bullets.
And please, no ganging up. I recently did a shoot with five PR people in the room, leering over the shoulder of the interviewer. The nice lady on camera had no idea where to look.
Get rid of the distractions and focus on discourse, and you have a comfortable, open person talking easily about the things they talk about every day.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
On Web Movies
SEO statistics show that online video viewings daily has passed the total number of searches on the “core” engines. (Core = Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, and Ask.)
And that if you post a video on your website’s front page, up to 80% of visitors will click on it FIRST.
Eighty percent? More videos than queries on the big five? Are you kidding me?
A decade and more ago, everyone talked about “the convergence.” The biggest challenge would be the battle between the ‘lean forward’ nature of computing and the ‘lean back’ posture for watching movies and TV. Well the future is here and nobody cares. We’re screen agnostic, and we watch moving pictures on any device.
(I’m leaning back just now, even as I type, because my tilting laptop table from Ikea nuzzles perfectly against my comfy armchair.)
So, if you build videos into your site, they will come. Here are four things to think about:
1. You have 5-10 seconds of initial attention span to work with. The video needs to be compelling from the start. Look for a hook – a single graphic or image, engaging music, a unique voice and great copy – that demands they continue to watch.
2. Give it personality. In the You-Tube era, surfers expect a certain quirkiness and authenticity. Try not to be slick and over-produced. The whiz-bang animations that look so good in the edit suite will be wasted on the small screen.
3. Tell a story. Meaning it has a beginning, middle and end. And get a call-to-action of some kind in there, even if it’s just a web address at the close.
4. Help the virus spread and watch it grow. Make your video search-engine friendly with tags and easily shareable with links. And make sure you use all the cool metric tools on your host site to see who’s viewing.
One great source for ideas is the video mash-up Vidque. Check out http://vidque.com/business/popular/
For thoughts about your online video needs, remember that iFilm consultations are free, and screen agnosticism is part of the DNA.
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