Some brands are accelerating efforts to merge brand-building and direct response on mobile, with video as the glue.
As mobile gadgets become handheld TVs with
a wireless link to a cash register, marketers are transforming brand-building
content into transactional platforms, with video content providing an emotional
draw that can boost results.
Mobile video is growing and marketers are diving in
across a wide range of tactics designed to elevate awareness of a brand through
entertaining content, from super-short 10-second ad to mini-films like
Marriott’s popular "Two Bellmen" series.
As marketers get more adept at video and at engaging
mobile users, some are taking their branding efforts one step further by
including a direct response angle in their strategies, thereby giving new life
to an app and acquiring valuable data that can be used to determine the return
on investment for mobile. However, research suggests this is still the
exception rather than the rule, despite marketers recognizing that branding and
direct response are complementary.
"We are seeing a convergence of direct response and
brand strategies in the digital video space,” said Joe Beccaroli, chief
executive of Interact Marketing in New Windsor, New York. “Marketers
are using social media and video to build relational brand equity by rotating
about three brand videos to every one direct response or promotional video.”
Souped-up
apps
The power of mobile direct response is well recognized
among marketers, but not easy to implement. While two-thirds of marketers see
branding and direct response as complementary, only 35% of respondents have
“completely aligned” the two initiatives, according to a survey this month by
the Mobile Marketing Association and RadiumOne, a San Francisco-based
advertising agency.
Marketers said social media is most important for
branding campaigns, while direct response initiatives are more focused on
people who are repeat buyers, according to the survey. Purchase data is the
most popular way to measure the effectiveness of mobile direct response, with
38% of respondents ranking it as the No. 1 metric.
Video is one tactic that is helping brands merge their
branding and direct response efforts on mobile.
Mobile viewers are 80% more likely to respond to a video
than to text, said Beccaroli, while video consumption has increased as the
smartphone market reaches 90% saturation.
Dollar Shave Club, a marketer of personal grooming
products, is a former “direct-response purist” whose mobile app, released this
year, has a strong element of brand-building, he noted.
The app features weekly video content and topical, punchy
articles on topics from proper grooming techniques to general health and
wellness. The content is an addition to typical transactional-based offerings
like signing up to receive monthly razor shipments, adjusting delivery
frequency, switching razor choices, buying additional items and sending a gift.
“This weekly dose of video branding is creating
engagement with consumers, too, with some weekly videos topping 150,000 views,”
Beccaroli said.
A key reason for the push into mobile video is the
immediate measurability that smartphones provide.
“With digital advertising and mobile, in particular, all
marketers are required to produce tangible, measurable results,” said Jasper
Radeke, director of North America marketing for AppsFlyer, an Israel-based mobile attribution
and marketing data analytics company. “Major brands are becoming very savvy
when it comes to combining content-driven mobile marketing with more
traditional direct response tactics.”
User behavior can be measured in many ways, such as the
frequency and time spent with the content, social media shares with friends and
followers, likes and purchases.
“Our projection is that we'll see more and more of such
use cases — where apps provide custom/interactive experiences based on
measurable user activity,” Radeke said.
Common
ground
Lyft Inc., the ride-hailing service that’s available in
more than 130 U.S. cities, tried an experiment to re-work its video brand
awareness ads to drive a simple transaction: a free download of its mobile
app.
The company found that a brand awareness video ad
featuring former NBA star Shaquille O’Neal had better results than its
direct-response video that didn’t have a celebrity.
“The Shaq ad, for example received 8% higher clickthrough
rates than Lyft's traditional direct response ad and a similar conversion rate
to those ads that were designed specifically to drive conversions, or
installs,” Aman Govil, head of the art, copy and code projects team at Google, wrote in a blog
post in March about Lyft’s efforts. “The lesson here: Make sure to test and
learn how all your creative performs on various metrics.”
A
natural fit
The role of the brand message drives decisions on
creative elements to include in a marketing campaign, said David Griffith,
chief strategy officer of Seattle-based agency POP, via email.
“There is no reason brand-oriented videos cannot also
handle the hard work of direct response,” Griffith continued. “All direct
response strategy should consider an approach that includes brand imagery or
messaging. Will that always mean video content? Perhaps not.”
He said online media gives marketers more freedom than
the confines of a 15- or 30-second spot that characterizes broadcast video.
“If you want to add a call action to your spot designed
to run on TV you can do so without cutting out the heart of the creative idea,”
Griffith said. “As long as it is done in a way that feels natural rather than
‘Frankensteining’ it, the video should perform great as both a brand message
and direct response piece.”
Viewers of mobile video are remarkably open to seeing
ads, and they don’t mind a little irreverence, Interact Marketing’s Beccaroli
said.
“Brands should stay within the general boundaries of
their core image and messaging strategies,” he said. “Content that is humorous,
fun or sometimes even a little weird seems to perform better for most consumer
brands.”
Meanwhile, social media platforms like Facebook are
rapidly evolving into major purveyors of mobile video. Last year, 85% of videos
that appear on Facebook were originally posted on its platform, compared with
only 10% of videos that first appeared on YouTube, according to Quintly, a
social media analytics firm based in Cologne, Germany.
“Especially through Facebook Live videos, Facebook users
— consisting of private accounts and businesses – have the ability to
directly engage with their audience by discussing topics in real-time,” Nils
Herrman, communications manager at Quintly, wrote in a blog
post in March. “It is crucial to implement Facebook Live to your Facebook
campaign to reach and engage the audience you are targeting.”
Mobile video advertising will continue to develop as the
technology improves and high-speed bandwidth allows for better connectivity
with customers.
“Video remains a highly effective format on mobile both
for advertising and other content because it's well understood both by
advertisers and the audience,” AppFlyer’s Radeke said. "It's going to be
interesting to see how the removal of technical limitations, from compression
to the length of ad units, and the continuing evolution of mobile usage overall
impact its use by both groups."
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