Q1 has seen nothing but an uplift in online video advertising and there’s no doubt that currently everyone is excited about video ads. Publishers are able to sell an interactive ad format to brands that and brands are able to experiment with a new type of advertising that can engage the user to become part of the experience.

To put in perspective on a global scale, Deloitte predicts a 56.4% year-on-year ad spend growth in the UK, making the market incredibly optimistic. Similarly, Brightroll’s annual video survey revealed last year that 69% of advertisers believed online video advertising was more effective than social media.

So what does this mean for media spending? 

Nielson, a global information and measurement company, produced this graph for a better understanding of the industry.

Online video ad spending is predicted to nearly double in only four years from $4.14 billion dollars in 2013 to $8.04 billion by 2016, a 25% compound annual growth rate (CAGR).

One might be quick to jump stating this is the end of TV; however, advertisers are often seeing online video campaigns as an addition to TV advertising and part of an integrated 360 marketing campaign rather than a full-on replacement (See: Gillette How To Series Campaign). To simplify,  display advertising is getting gutted while TV ads are experiencing a thinning and although TV is not going away, the money between the two is getting split from a budget once dedicated only to TV.

Canadians have always been internet savvy, leading the pack and we are still among the world’s most devout users of online video advertising as stated to a new report by Baltimore-based digital advertising firm Videology.

Videology’s report states that Canada continues to outpace other global markets in terms of “cross-device” video advertising. Across all devices, online video advertising in Canada grew 119% on a year-on-year basis, with online video advertising on PCs/computers seeing 63% year-on-year growth.

The industries taking advantage of using online video are diverse; however, it is consumer packaged goods companies who maintained at the top, followed by automotive, beverave alcohol and entertainment.

It’s also substantial to note that popularity of online video contributes to its ability to target not only with age and gender but also location and behavioural targets. This has contributed to 95% of advertisers using some form data-driven targeting in the first quarter, a 13% increase over the fourth quarter of 2012. See VMG’s campaign for Longo’s Leaside launch targeting a 7km radius. 

Additional highlights from the Q1 Canadian Video Market Statistics:

• In Q1 of 2012, 30 second spots accounted for 37% of all online video advertising. In Q1 of 2013, 30-second spots were up over 52%.
• 72 percent of video buyers’ budgets for the medium increased in the last year.
• The average spending increase of those whose video budgets rose was 53 percent, compared with just 20 percent the year previous.
• Of those whose video budgets increased, 39 percent of buyers shifted spending from TV budgets compared with just 27 percent in 2012.  Similarly, 41 percent of buyers shifted money from display advertising to fund increases in online video.
• The average amount of TV spending tapped for the increase in online video was 11 percent.
• 76 percent of marketers plan to add video to their sites, making it a higher priority than Facebook, Twitter and blog integration.

Exciting times for the Canadian online video landscape! 

We hope you all had an excellent March – the online video world sure did!

Things are looking very bright in our industry based on some recent reports from comScore, Google and MediaCT.

If you’ve noticed more videos being shared via smartphones, it’s no coincidence and the trend is looking up. In Canada, video is accelerating in the mobile world with half of Canadians watching more online videos than they were last year. Specifically, 35% smartphone owners, 56% tablet owners, and 75% laptop owners in Canada are regularly watching videos on their portable and mobile devices.

Even further, Canadians watch an average of eight videos per week. What percent of our nation is still not willing to engage? A small portion – only 13% of Canadians do not watch any online video content. This is all pretty remarkable and the diversity and easily accessible nature of online video inevitably makes the medium more entertaining than live TV (according to 26% Canadians to be precise).  It’s all about convenience and on demand content with none other than YouTube leading the way.

For those who are using media dollars for the traditional media outlets – you may want to rethink your strategy as leading networks such as CTV and CBC, were popular with only 25% or less of Canadian online video watchers.

Last but not least, Canadians also don’t just watch videos – they take action. Out of those surveyed, 18% follow up after online video watching whether it’s searching for more information, social networking, sharing, visiting or purchasing.

Also, some great news from our neighbours down South:

US has reached a new record of video advertising impressions in one month! 

It’s true, online video advertising impressions surpassed 8 billion for the first time on the record with 181 million Americans watching video online in March.

YouTube is dominating but take a look at who is next in line:

Great month in our industry!

Let’s keep this up,

VMG Team.

Sources: TechVibes & REELSeo
Images:  DigitalTrends, Klaszter.

It’s safe to say that having online video as part of a company’s marketing efforts is finally universally accepted. 

Measuring online video Return On Investment (ROI) is not much different than a traditional marketing campaign. If anything, it presents opportunity for analytics that a traditional campaign would not be able to deliver with a much more targeted reach. When videos on YouTube are able to receive millions of views within days and Comscore releases reports stating that on average a person watches 14.8 hours of online video a month; it’s not the matter of trying to prove that online video marketing is effective.The quick pace of new media in today’s marketing landscape has us trying to keep up with the latest trends more often than not with C-levels wanting to see numbers justifying these efforts. The C suite wants to know that the marketing dollars are achieving the highest value and ROI while receiving the desired results.

So how do you measure ROI of online video?

No matter what kind of video initiative your company wants to execute – whether it’s internal communications or consumer oriented – you’ve got to be able to show the results. Here are some tips that can help you.

1. Know your objectives.

The most essential component of executing a campaign successfully is having clear goals. The simplest way to measure return on what you’re investing is knowing your target audience and what message you are trying to deliver.

Your objectives may vary. For example, if you’re trying to promote product sampling, your objective may be to have individuals register for a coupon on your website after viewing the video. On the contrary, if you’re executing an online video for internal communications between various offices, your objective may be saving on travel costs. Whatever it may be, figure it out prior to execution.

2. Use Available Analytics.

With various analytics tools, it is easier than ever before to evaluate how others are interacting with your video. You are able to examine which videos are being watched until the very end, at what point others may drop off, the demographic of your audience and how far the video is shared.

You are also able to create a model to calculate what the engagements are worth based on your messaging objective and how others are interacting with your video. If you’re looking to promote sampling and want to calculate what the engagement is worth, assigning a value for each sign up is a great way to measure success. For example, every person who watches your video and engages fully by registering for your sampling promo can each equal to $100 of investment. Working with these numbers will make it easier to draw comparisons between media channels.

Similarly, ROI doesn’t necessarily have to equal a dollar figure. It can be social interactions, conversations around your brand and those very important recommendations by your brand ambassadors. If your video is getting shared by your target demographic and this audience is recommending your video to their friends, the reach and engagement is just as valuable as a dollar figure.

3. Partner up with experts.

There is no point in producing expensive high quality content without a distribution strategy. Online platforms have an advantage over traditional platforms in being able to target the right demographic and this is something your campaign should benefit from.

It’s rare that a video goes viral and is shared without a push and without a doubt, a successful online video campaigns require the same level of planning for a targeted distribution to ensure desired exposure to a relevant audience.

If you are able to, it’s beneficial to partner up with experts to help your campaign achieve maximum return – whether it’s perfecting your analytics or helping your video receive the target views it needs. Video marketing agencies like VMG Cinematic specialize in not only producing broadcast quality content for the web but also ensuring that the video gets in front of targeted eye balls.

Let’s take Canadian luxury fashion retailer, Holt Renfrew, as an example. At one time, The HR YouTube channel hosted 22 videos with a total of 92,000 video views; however 84% of those views came from only 2 of the 22 videos with the help of VMG. Furthermore, these two videos have also accounted for total of 84% of total consumer interaction on brand’s channel. 

Partnering up with online video industry leaders can provide you access to numbers and reports that provide in depth analytics and more importantly, results that justify your online video ROI.

4. Don’t be afraid to get creative.

Measuring online video ROI isn’t always an exact science and with a non traditional platform, you have room to come up with creative and different ways to validate your efforts.

Online video can often drives traffic back to your website and one way is to look at what that traffic would have cost if it had been acquired by a push advertisement.

For example, comparing the pay per click model and the received traffic you can use the following:

Running banner ads on a website with $3 per click which results in 300 unique visitors to your website. This traffic of 300 people to your website is then worth $900.

Although this approach offers an easy dollar figure, it’s crucial to note that the difference in pay per click banner ad traffic and organic post video engagement differs greatly and the value through organic engagement is much higher.

To conclude, online video enhances and creates the most engaging online user experiences. When it comes to ROI, the measurement metrics differ greatly depending on the specific goals. However, success lays in in the ability to target a specific audience based on demographic, geographic and contextual parameters.

I have been hanging out with a lot of kids lately. It’s my age, it seems. The tables have turned and there are no longer get-togethers with friends and family in which small offspring are not involved. I have been watching them, in their new lives, as my parents and their parents before must have also, with fascination. Marveling at how different the realities of their childhood will be from my own. A case in point, my parents didn’t own a computer until my later years of elementary school and Duck Hunt was the biggest, most technologically advanced thing to happen in my living room!

Children of the current generation are already on Facebook just days, sometimes minutes (serious social media dedication on their parents’ part) after birth. They comb through playlists searching episodes of Dora the Explorer from their strollers in the grocery store. They sit tucked in bed curled up with an iPad alphabet game instead of a book. This is reality and, understandably, new parents are wondering: is this ok?

In chatting with friends and in researching more scholarly debates, schools of thought on the subject of social media and kids are as varying as Twitter handles. Some believe that children should be shielded from social media, and media overall, for as long as possible. They argue that social networks fail to really educate kids about the real world, substituting video games for books, cyber chats for community or human interaction and promoting mindless consumerism over serious learning.

Others feel that media-savvy kids are genuinely unavoidable and necessary. They feel that it is a modern parent’s responsibility to allow their children to be on social networks, because children should learn about the world and technology – and media and the worldwide web are highly effective and realistic ways of doing so.

Of course in any debate there are many sides. I do appreciate them all and not being a parent myself, I have yet to come to any truly definitive social media child rearing intentions. However, having invested a career in marketing and social media communication, I appreciate and recognize the fact that it is only going to play more of a role, not less, in the future of our society. This being the case, perhaps efforts to keep children from it might be fruitless?

I was most surprised by the concerns about “reality” (and social media’s detachment from it) that came up in some of the perspectives I uncovered on this topic. I recognize that video games and TV are not reality, and that children should be taught the difference. But online social interactions with other individuals, be they Facebook comments, YouTube responses, or general emails, are very much real. Rather than shy away from social media, for fear of it not being a meaningful interaction, shouldn’t children be encouraged to recognize that what they put out into cyberspace is in fact received by other people in the real world? Most importantly, they should be taught that there can be both positive and negative repercussions when interacting via online forms of communication, which can mirror those of speaking face to face.

Like any other lessons in life, the next generation will need to be taught the values and risks of social interaction online. How to be safe. How to communicate, yet at the same time harbor discretion for personal protection and privacy. How to embrace it, as an enjoyable and positive element of their social development, a forum for creativity and expression. Most importantly, we should help our children understand that they can all hurt, anger, influence and inspire with the messages they send and persona they project online.

At times kids can surprise us, in their ability to digest information and entertainment with an exceptional level of candid maturity. They have the ability to distinguish reality from fantasy, right from wrong. This is made evident through one of my subscribed YouTube shows, “Kids React to Online Videos”. Their responses are not only hilarious, but also showcase how easily they recognize non-sensical entertainment for just what it is.

Charlie Sheen

Fred

Undoubtably there are media dangers: teens posting unmonitored material, lost cognitive skills through video game comas, and it is true that these are unique to our generation as parents. However, risks in child rearing are not new. My grandmother, in the mid-fifties, used to let her children out for the day into the once suburban woodlands of Mississauga and just hoped that they would show up for dinner. That must have been a bit concerning too!

In summary, a child can be safeguarded for only so long. After all, documentation of their formative years no longer live in dusty basement albums, but rather on their parents’ Macs or, more likely, Mum or Dad or even Grandma’s social media page. What hope do they really have of avoidance? So for now, I aspire to offer my future children opportunity, confidence and wisdom in all aspects of their life. With some diligence, if such principals are applied to a strong and dedicated Social Media upbringing, perhaps my kids might just blog and tweet for the better!

Here to stay…

Awhile back I attended a copywriting workshop where the instructor proposed a question regarding the constant evolving marketing industry and technological advances. As he went around the room seeking an answer, he wanted our input on what we thought was the best business to consumer strategy. While I looked around, I could see people staggering to his question unable to provide a solid response realizing that perhaps it was no longer so easily defined… As we all further discussed this, the only concrete observation we were able to conclude with indicated that companies are now more than ever investing in 360 marketing and incorporating new nontraditional media channels. Social media and digital distribution are becoming a necessity as they are now greatly integrated with TV and print in attempts to continuously engage the public and acquire every possible wandering eye (and finger) …

So which one is most effective? Well that’s yet another question to which the answer is not straight forward but speculations often lead in the same direction. The speed in which trends evolve on the internet can often be baffling; however, with more and more Canadians increasing their time spent online specifically on social media websites, social media marketing is definitely experiencing a steady and fast paced accumulation.

Marketing Magazine hosted a study which found that social networks get a lot of press and are becoming the dominant communications tool therefore making the increasing concentrations of people at these types of websites very attractive to online marketers and businesses. For example, 56% of all online Canadians now have a social network profile up from 39% just 18 months ago and of those with a social network profile, 85% are with Facebook.

“As the consumer continues to spend increasing amounts of time in the digital world, businesses and marketers are paying increasing attention to the Internet,” says study author Mark Laver. “However, online social networks tend to be extremely personal and this creates a dilemma for marketers and businesses—how to communicate in a personalized setting without upsetting the target audience.”

This leads us to the next question:

How (and why) should marketers use social media to their advantage?

(more…)