By now you’ve probably heard many people predict video will take over the internet by 2019.
And yes, video is being consumed by the droves -- a billion hours worth of video per day on YouTube.
But what are some trends for video you can anticipate for this year?
In 2017 online ad spend finally outpaced TV commercials.
Chief among the reasons: Companies can in the span of two weeks test a video ad with a few hundred dollars to a specific target group. Then reiterate based on video playthrough rates and scale up the budgets to six figures or more.
Along with CPCs going up as companies continue to shift their budgets, we’ll continue to see personalization with videos tailored to behaviors and contextual creative.
With sponsored content, it's only beginning in proliferation. Industries that have shown success on one platform (such as Food and Drink on Facebook) will see an even greater presence across influencers and other social networking sites.
Brands will continue to tap into the trust of influencers to try their products. Influencers on their end must keep their credibility by being transparent on when content is sponsored. Otherwise, the influencer’s audience will move on from them.
Call it Content Marketing 2.0. Brands are moving beyond videos around their core services onto episodic content addressing the pain points of their customers.
Xero’s series, The Advisors, explores the personal desires of financial professionals and how they wish to engage their own clients. All within the context of showcasing their customers through brand films.
Some of the most successful campaigns will occur as brands gamble on the next big way to advertise whether it’s on the exclusive content Facebook is paying influencers and high traffic YouTube channels to produce on their site, or sneaking their brand onto a Netflix original.
Providing accompanying text within videos will be even more important as Chrome users have the option to disable audio on any sites they choose. Additionally, in January 2018, Chrome will block autoplay video unless the audio is muted by default or does not contain an audio track. Chrome’s development blog notes exceptions to this when the user has shown specific interest in the site.
More big brands will be shifting away from freelancers to staffing in-house. Right now many companies run into a few different issues outsourcing production:
Instead of using a freelance videographer, or just having one person within their company in charge, brands are hiring from production houses. From the initial key hire, that person is building entire internal production teams.
“With this they can ramp up more video instead of one hero piece. You can produce a bunch of videos with really precise jobs so they can have videos for every funnel stage and customer segment,” said Rollo Wenlock, CEO of Wipster.
Looking onward, while it’s tough to predict if video will actually take over the internet as many forecast, some of the integrated technologies big brands will be keeping tabs on and using are VR and AR. As these mature, even more, hyper-localized targeting and other opportunities are likely possible.