So you want your branded content to be shared? You'll need to overcome several challenges. Viewable Media's chief analytics officer tells you how.
The marketing landscape has shifted dramatically in recent years from a model based on interruption to a model based on choice. In an iMedia Spotlight presentation, Seraj Bharwani, chief analytics officer at Viewable Media, noted that in the old interruption-based marketing model, the greatest share of voice belonged to the brands that spent the most money. But today, in a choice-based world, the greatest share of voice belongs to the brands that consumers choose to engage with.
The economics of a company's video ad spend revolve around the paid-to-earned ratio, Bharwani said. For every viewer that a brand pays to reach, how many additional viewers are earned via sharing of that brand's content? The larger the earned audience, the more efficient the marketing. And in some cases, such as with P&G's "Proud Sponsor of Moms" Olympics campaign, the efficiencies are tremendous: 46 earned views for every paid view.
But not every video campaign can expect such results. However, Bharwani noted, the data do conclusively show that brands such as Evian and Chipotle, which choose to socially spread their video content before airing it on television, see tremendous lifts over brands that roll their content out on TV first. To further boost the lift garnered during this pre-promotion period, Viewable Media leverages its data to help brands serve their video ads to the consumers who are most likely to share them.
That said, simply socializing video content before airing it on TV is not enough. "The data is here, but that doesn't mean this is easy," Bharwani said. "You have to do something different."
Indeed, brands still face several hurdles with branded video content that must be addressed with their media partners.
Creative
Brands looking to optimize their earned viewership need compelling creative -- but not just pieces that stand alone. They need to build compelling platforms for creative that can grow and evolve, as Old Spice has done with its "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" campaign.
Flighting
When and how should the brand leverage paid support? The creative is important. But so is the timing of its promotion.
Impact
Brands want a high percentage of earned viewers. But that viewership must then translate to the bottom line. So how do you prove that video views are actually selling more toothpaste? Brands must measure things like brand awareness, positive sentiment, and intent when trying to gauge the real impact of their campaigns, Bharwani said.
Repeatability
Finally, it's not enough to have a one-off marketing success. That won't move the needle. Brands must ensure their strategy can be repeated successfully for future campaigns.
With these challenges in mind, Bharwani said that brands need to be taking the following steps to ensure their branded content investments are both efficient and effective:
- Set the right expectations through the brief. Your agency and media partners need to know what you truly expect to achieve.
- Make the media agency accountable for specific earned-to-paid ratio targets.
- Push for earned viewership with clear attribution to KPIs.
- Create a template and align all partners along common objectives.
For more info, please contact Seraj Bharwani at sbharwani@visiblemeasures.com.
Lori Luechtefeld is editor of iMedia Connection.
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