We’ve talked about videos and marketing before, but today we’ll talk about consumers and how they are trending with regards to video media. What’s new for 2020? Quibi.
Quibi will be a mobile-only streaming service offering serialized dramas, comedies, thrillers, reality shows, and other so called off-beat programs. You’ll be able to watch on your phone in bite-sized chunks. Each episode will be about seven to 10 minutes long. It’s the perfect length for a commute, waiting for your connecting flight, a lunch break, or waiting in line at the DMV. Great content, however, is still the reigning king.
But the trend towards viewing short videos a la Snapchat on our smartphones is the real growth factor. Fewer sedentary humans will sit for 125 minutes of The Two Popes and fewer still have the 24 hours it would take to watch every episode of Stranger Things. With the backing of Hollywood big hitters and a slew of A-list Celebrities on board, it will be interesting to see how consumers with so many streaming options react, reject or rejoice. Do we want a buffet, a smorgasbord, a snack, or a feast of content? Do we want it all? Will we pay to have it all?
How Consumers Are Changing with Regards to Video Media
Out with the old…
Older generations of media producers are having a hard time connecting with a more diverse and younger audience who demand new content, new stories from new authors, directors and creatives. With AI artificial intelligence and Algorithms they can now hone in on a trend, patterns of viewing, psychographics and cookie cutter story lines, but the output feels measured, calculated and stale.
Most all great films in the last years have come out of left field, they surprise shock and stand out because they feel fresh and approach topics and trends not dealt with before. They turn their backs on the audience in a way, they are more personal, more passionate. They tell more human stories.
Where you can find audiences today
The overall viewing audiences for streaming is rapidly growing globally but they grow by tribe, smaller clusters of viewers with distinct likes, dislikes, culture interest, creative interest, and lifestyle interest. So yes, there might be a Bigger Audience over all, but they are SCATTERED.
Gone are the days of millions gathering around a TV set and watching Cheers. The real growth is overseas in foreign markets, so the tribes will get smaller and smaller, more cultural insulation, language barriers, religion, customs, and the returns on investment less and less. It will cost more and more to create the content for a smaller and smaller audience. This is also true for the future of branding & marketing. And thus, the days of “Don’t squeeze the Charmin” on every TV set, in every home, running 10 times daily, (think hypnotism), well those days are over.
What do today’s audiences look like?
The audience for streaming snack-sized videos is 18 to 34 years old. For You Tube it’s a cash cow! Snapchatters watch over 10 billion videos a day. A majority of Snapchatters are 24 years old and under. 1/3 of Snapchatters use the app because their parents did not.
So the trend is real but the users are younger, hipper and don’t want content that feels overly produced, glossy, nor Hollywood-endorsed. And they will shy away from the glare of big names and Hollywood type production. Today’s younger viewers are in desperate search for new creators, new thinkers and new storytellers. Even Quentin Tarantino was wise enough to realize he has maybe 10 good stories tell. It’s time for something radically new, and new isn’t the snack vs. buffet. Rather, it’s still about original brilliant content and taking risk on young new creators.
So, How Does This Apply to Marketing? Well, Minutes Count
If younger audiences have less attention spans (life moves faster today, how can we blame them?), then we give them what they need. Information in bites.
For some more info to reach this younger audience, read this helpful post:
Snapchat and social media marketing
You can even use livestreaming to both advertise a marketing event, or use as an educational tool for wide-spread use.
Here are some great tips for integrating the real world with the virtual one:
Integrating the real and the virtual
Pretty much everyone has a Smartphone, and marketers are all the wiser to take advantage of this fact in every campaign.
For 4 ways you can use phones in experiential marketing, read this super helpful post:
Using phones with experiential marketing
-contributed by Michael Petan, MOGXP Trends Consultant
This year, make your audiences remember you!
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