Online video creativity and execution

Written by Kristof Harling, account director, Syzygy and Camilla Day, head of video on demand, PHD

The benefit of film as a medium is that it enables a brand to tell a visual story. Like all stories, the way it is told is crucial to how the message is received, understood and accepted.

There are now so many marketing channels available that brands have had to bear an overwhelming array of choice in where to broadcast. This is against a backdrop of consumers becoming increasingly fussy about the advertising they engage with.

The result is that brands have needed to think smarter, deeper and wider on how to create effective advertising across the marketing mix and in context to online video advertising; this has driven some interesting creative delivery.

Tailored adverts for online

With a clear vision of video on-demand’s role and where it sits within the media mix, creative can be tailored at little or no additional cost. Exclusive footage for online video can be included in the original shoot to create either the pre/mid/post-roll, for display or to reward the consumer on a brand website.

Adverts before and in the middle of content

Advertising ahead of content (pre-roll) or in the middle (mid-roll) can be very powerful in terms of driving positive brand associations and purchase intent. However, in this environment the creative must be relevant to the viewer and only interrupt if long form, like a traditional TV experience.

Interactive campaigns

In considering the consumer experience, the highly targeted nature of video-on-demand means that you can deliver more tailored messaging than on TV and engage the consumer in deeper brand conversations.

What really sets online video apart from traditional media channels is that for the first time you can benefit from true interaction. To harness this interactivity to optimum effect, creative execution is key and it is more important than ever that creative and media agencies work together from the early planning stages.

The following questions need to be answered:

• What journey are you taking the consumer on? What messages do you want to deliver? What do you want the end result to be? What do experience do you want the consumer to have?

• What do you want the consumer to do once they have interacted? Do you want them to read more in depth information? View different images of a product? Request for consumers to call you?

• How do you encourage the user to interact? Will you offer an incentive? Offer enticing copy?

In creating interactive online marketing campaigns, the concept of visual interaction via a website’s interface has become a powerful component within online campaigns. From Volkswagen Golf’s Night Drive in 2007, Wario Land’s You Tube video ad in 2008, to Mazda’s behind the scenes interviews in 2009, have been experimenting on taking digital interaction and TV advertising to a new level. This is not to say that the rules have been completely re-written as most, if not all, online video ads follow the principle of either being interesting, funny or informative with the successful ones also being relevant to the target audience.

Companion adverts

Companion MPUs or banners that sit alongside the player can drive interaction with a simple and compelling call to action. New interactive video formats such as branded player skins around the video player itself can also be considered to drive interaction and brand engagement.

Communicating across multiple channels

Today’s marketing strategy requires creative ideas that communicate across multiple channels. In doing so, creativity can be executed to great effect. On a simple level this would explain the online success of the Cadbury Gorilla, which at this time has had an engaged and active audience of over 4 million people via YouTube. At a more sophisticated level, Ford made online video as an integral part of their strategy in engaging with a younger audience with the Where Are The Joneses (WATJ) campaign.

The campaign got young people via social networks and the WATJ blog to send in stories for an episode. Ford then selected the best one and filmed it with a professional crew and then posted it on the blog letting all who participated to view it. There are currently 94 episodes and each video finds a way of including a Ford car though the product placement is the only brand messaging. This creative idea has been hugely popular and effective in creating relevance for a corporate and American brand into a young UK audience.

The main take out from this is that the participants didn’t feel marketed to by intrusive advertising but felt invited to engage and contribute to an idea and community. This is the similar thinking of the Stokeholm based agency Far Far, which says it’s a group of time bandits as “in today’s chaotic marketplace of brands trying to break through the clutter, consumers want to be in command of their own time, interacting with media on their own terms”. This philosophy was formed from the agency’s founder, Matias Palm-Jensen, who thinks that good creative execution creates time rather than intrudes on it. As online video marketing continues to improve within the marketing mix, the best creative executions will certainly take advantage of this new form of brand interaction.

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