With mobile video ads on the rise, new research from the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) uncovers five key themes to crack mobile video advertising.
Based on the largest ever research study on mobile video, conducted by Millward Brown, the MMA has published a guide in conjunction with video ad technology company Tremor Video to help improve the quality of mobile video ad campaigns.
Entitled Crème de la Crème: A Guide to Creating Successful Mobile Video Advertising Units, it reveals five foundations for success based on Millward Brown’s analysis of over 300 interactive video campaigns, in which each individual piece of creative was tested with consumers to gauge their receptiveness to each ad.
“The bulk of online video advertising today is simply repurposed television spots, yet the devices where consumers spend the most time are completely interactive with just a swipe or tap,” said Alex Macnamara, Tremor Video’s UK managing director. “We want to help marketers realise the opportunity in front of them: the potential for a consumer to spend nearly a minute with a 15 second ad.”
Sheryl Daija, the MMA’s Chief Strategy Officer, said: “With consumer consumption of video on mobile devices continuing to increase at unprecedented rates, it’s critical for the industry to provide marketers with actionable insights and guidance for them to harness the power of mobile to develop stronger and closer engagement with consumers.”
The Five Foundations are:
• Entice and Intrigue: Give consumers a taste of your brand so they have a reason to engage – meaning, start the story but don’t tell the whole story. This applies to both getting people to pay attention to the ad (completion rate) and encouraging them to interact (engagement rate). In fact, the results showed that high-performing mobile creative outperformed even TV benchmarks.
• Bring Them In: Great design begins with visual appeal but it’s important to align design, technology and medium to strategically create engaging ad units. Don’t push consumers away from your ad with “tap-out” features in hopes that they’ll spend more time with your brand; let them stay in the video overlay and make the conscious decision to interact. Clear branding is not the enemy of creative success.
• Symphony Not Noise: The ad should sing and flow like a story. Make sure the ad and the engaging overlay have a consistent theme and messaging throughout the layers of content. It’s tempting to overload the ad unit by utilising every tool in your belt, but too many messages,
graphics and functions cause confusion and dilute the effectiveness of the ad experience.
• Make Them Feel: Consumers have an emotional connection to their mobile devices so take advantage of that and create experiences that trigger an emotional response. The ads in this study generated more interest and excitement than we tend to see with TV or online video norms. Remember: emotion is the heart of why advertising works.
• Catch the Moment: Mobile devices serve as a first-screen so much of the time, that it’s important to get people in the relevant moment. Find a way to keep consistent creative messaging across different platforms while harnesses the unique role of each device. Design for a diverse set of potential situations to make your own luck and not rely on chance.
Ron Amram, Senior Media Director of Marketing, Heineken said: “It really challenges marketers to understand how mobile video will quickly evolve and change how they talk to consumers. These learnings will not only impact our media thinking but should also change how creative agencies think so that advertising and brand content can be more effective across platforms and screens.”
“You can’t box great creative, while communicating rules sounds anti-innovation, but we know good analysis generates insight and illuminates patterns,” said Anthony Rhind, Global Chief Digital Officer at Carat. “The work of Tremor Video, Millward Brown and the MMA has identified very valuable foundations to help frame thinking as client and agency teams approach the development of video campaigns. I hope it helps lift the waterline standard of video creative, to drive marketing outcomes and attract a greater share of budget into mobile video.”
Ann Green, Millward Brown’s Senior Partner, Client Solutions and Innovation said: “The mobile video environment offers a great opportunity to create intimate and immersive brand experiences but brings with it many new questions about how best to generate engagement and to build brands. We don’t yet pretend to have all the answers but the five foundations from this research provide some clear and practical tips about how to maximise creative response. I hope this helps brands and agencies to develop great interactive mobile video that really packs a pocket punch.”
www.mmaglobal.com
www.tremorvideo.com