Opinion Last Christmas saw some of the most compelling and creative story-driven advertising ever. HM enlisted Wes Anderson. John Lewis broke away from sentimentality and embraced humour. And Burberry paid big money to get Hollywood A-list actors to tell the story of their founder. Yet, while many of these adverts would have been watched on TV, an unprecedented number of views (and repeat views) were online, on mobile, and without sound. For many brands, that’s a problem. Now every video marketer is asking the same question: How do I engage consumers with soundless video?

Understandably, given how much work goes into creating impactful videos, many brands have been reluctant to subtitle, preferring instead to auto-play sound, or just hope that the visual approach interests consumers enough to act. Some marketers don’t want to compromise their creative work, while others may not even have considered that many users have their devices set to silent, thus negating the impact of that beautiful backing track or informative voice-over.

However, new research from AdColony and Kantar Millward Brown has now revealed that the best way to circumnavigate the problem of ‘sound-off viewing’ is to subtitle it. Confirming to marketers everywhere what they really already knew: if you want to engage people, talk to them.

Consumers want control

Mobile video is a thoroughly modern trend. It’s quick, it’s compelling and it taps into the contemporary appetite for rich media over static imagery. With the best will in the world, subtitles are not necessarily modern. They hark back to a world of Teletext, rather than forward to one of VR. So it’s no surprise that many are a little unsure about using them.

But the fact is that many mobile viewers are happy to watch content without listening to it. And while that’s fine for 11-second football clips, or videos of cats knocking things over, for a visual that depends on an accompanying audio story to be understood, it’s a different matter. Just think of that HM example. With sound, it’s a funny and engaging Christmas story from one of the world’s most celebrated filmmakers. Without sound, it’s Adrien Brody running around a train.

Moreover, subtitling mobile content addresses one of the main drivers behind people setting their devices to silent – avoiding disturbing those around them. There’s nothing more embarrassing than when a video you click on accidently blares out in a packed train, much to the dismay of disgruntled nearby fellow travellers!  

Adding subtitles allows users to experience the content they are viewing in full, wherever they are, even when their device is set to “sound-off”.  It also means they still have complete control over their device. Research tells us that mobile users actively dislike not being asked for changes to their audio. With surveys in two key markets – entertainment and FMCG – suggesting that control is highly important to most people, especially when using their phones. Anything overly disruptive (such as ads where the sound just starts playing) is likely to result in a swift click of the close button, and a potential customer lost to the campaign. So while creative teams or brands might consider subtitles to be intrusive, that matters so much less in the mind of the consumer than being ‘that’ person on the train.

Importantly, it’s not just in user experience where research is showing subtitling to be an effective addition to mobile video marketing. It also helps planners and marketers hit their core campaign goals.

KPIs before captions

Overall, the AdColony research found that subtitled advertising just about outperformed non-subtitled across all focus areas for the companies tested. However it also found notable variances when the results were segmented by verticals and KPIs, demonstrating the vital role of subtitles on several levels.

For example, some subtitled creative campaigns in the entertainment category managed a 9.9 percentage point uplift when the KPI was brand awareness, benchmarked against non-subtitled equivalents (with subtitled creative in entertainment experiencing a 18.8 percentage point brand awareness rise overall).

This result was repeated when the purpose of the campaign was to boost intent to purchase, where subtitled campaigns were twice as effective as those without captions, and one example had a 26 percentage point boost in intent to find more content. As well as for campaigns aimed at communicating a key product feature, on which subtitles pushed the creative to fare 12.1 percentage points better generally, and helped 23 percentage points more people understand a manufacturer’s core message about the superior technology they use.

Clear messaging

The fact that subtitles can help campaigns hit their KPIs is obviously noteworthy from a media planning point of view. But it’s also important for creative teams. Several of the videos surveyed were film trailers heavily reliant on humour to be understood. While one video, for a technology product, needed to communicate key messages and boost product features, imagery alone couldn’t have achieved any of these goals. So if there were no subtitles, the essential content of all videos would have fallen flat, wasting some high cost creative work and advertising space.

Put simply, this research shows that far from being intrusive or distracting, subtitles are in fact crucial to the success of mobile video marketing, across verticals. They are also a proven, viable solution to the need for “sound-off viewing” for specific verticals. All brands need to do now is act on this need by talking to their customers in a way they already understand. With text.

Editor’s note: AdColony recently changed its company name from Opera Mediaworks with the goal of ‘unifying the brand, performance and publishing business under a single name, while continuing its commitment to quality mobile advertising experiences that deliver outcomes fuelled by creativity and data science-driven automation and artificial intelligence’. You can read MarketingTech’s original report on the research here.

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There once was a time when marketers could command every consumer’s attention, ask, “Where’s the beef?” and make their brand a national phenomenon.

That was back when video marketing was a relatively straightforward undertaking. All brands needed to do was create a few television commercials, book airtime on a dozen or so networks and voila, the entire country was exposed to its content. There were no “skip” buttons or fast-forward features; every consumer was forced to watch every ad for every product.

Unless you’ve been living off the grid for the past decade, it’s pretty apparent that the video marketing game is now much more complex. Cable and satellite television packages exploded to offer thousands of niche channels; digital-video recorders emerged to allow viewers to skip ads; and one-quarter of American households aren’t subscribed to any form of television.

Simply put, single-channel/commercial video marketing campaigns are dead, as your audience has not only migrated online, but has also become accustomed to parking its attention on its favorite platform, social media or website.

There will be a place for television in the future, and the “water-cooler” effect is a powerful phenomenon. However, in order to develop a direct line of communication with your audience, you need to know where it is and what it’s interested in and develop marketing content that’s relative to those interests.

Plenty of brands have taken notice of this shift, but not nearly enough are adjusting their video marketing strategies accordingly. They’re still creating the same type of content people ran away from on television, so it shouldn’t be surprising that 90 percent of consumers consistently skip the video ads they see online.

The power of fractionalization

On social media, consumers are living in an on-demand world. With just one click, they can skip, close or scroll away from any video advertisement that doesn’t immediately appear to be relevant to their interests. Beyond that, no two social media sites are the same. Each features a specific demographic of users who are expecting to have a specific type of experience.

In such a climate, it’s essential to take a fractionalized approach to video marketing. Rather than using their whole budget to create one or two ads that try to appeal to a mass audience, brands can improve their return on investment by using that same budget to craft many smaller pieces of content that are geared toward niche audiences across a variety of social channels.

This does take more time and creative elbow grease than the traditional way of doing things, but it’s what the online era demands—and it’s not as difficult as it may sound.

Here’s how to get started

Develop your big idea: Even with fractionalized content, the first step of a video campaign is the same as it’s always been—identifying your core offering and your core audience. This will reveal your “big idea” and provide the guide to your fractionalization.

It’s quite obvious that a razor brand’s core offering is razors and its core audience consists of people who want to have a great shave. In order to achieve its main objective of demonstrating that its razor line is of superior quality and to motivate men to care more about shaving, it developed the big idea of “Shave Matters.” This hypothetical big idea highlights the fact that men should care more about shaving, and this razor company has products that matter most for men of all ages, races and stages of shaving.

There are many different types of shavers in the world who all have different desires, and they’re all frequenting different social channels. This is where fractionalization comes into play.

Identify your specific subsets: Let’s take a closer look at the various types of people (or subsets) who fall into our imaginary razor brand’s core audience of men: frequent shavers, infrequent shavers, an array of age and income demographics—the list can go on and on. Especially on social media, it would be impossible for any brand to engage all of these unique potential customers in one 30-second ad.

By taking a fractionalized approach, brands choose to produce multiple ads that each broadcast a specific message that speaks directly to a subset. The ads match the look and feel of whichever social media platforms they are published on, thus ensuring that they effectively grab consumers’ attention.

Alter your content for each platform: Continuing with the razor company example, let’s pretend it wants to build awareness around three particular products: a cheap disposable razor that comes in several fun colors, an expensive everyday razor for men and a brand-new single-edged razor for experienced shavers.

Each product warrants a series of videos that showcases the brand’s big idea (“Shave Matters”) in a way that directly resonates with specific subsets on social media.

For example, knowing that colorful disposable razors are likely to appeal to younger consumers, the brand could hire a millennial spokesperson for a series of Instagram and Snapchat ads that promote the product through copy that highlights the fact that even though you may not be shaving very frequently, your shave still matters if you want to get the girl, get the job, get the promotion.

By using verbiage and selling points that only other millennial shavers would care about, these particular videos must take into account the fact that young people have incredibly short attention spans. The average Snapchat ad is viewed for less than three seconds, and because these ads don’t play until users click on them, each one must immediately feature eye-grabbing visuals and text that cause consumers to stop and watch.

The same logic and approach should apply to the other two products. Older men, for example, are more likely to use a more expensive everyday razor. Therefore, the brand should hire a silver-haired gentleman for that product’s series of videos. He should speak in terms that resonate with other grizzled shavers, and these ads should be posted on social media sites that possess high populations of this subset. Facebook would qualify as one such platform.

Lastly, the single-edged razor would be best marketed toward more adventurous shavers, such as hipsters who are looking to carve snazzy, sharp lines into their facial hair. The spokesperson hired to promote this product should fit the bill, the social media outlets that broadcast this ad should be full of people just like him and the key copy and story of the commercials will still highlight the big idea that “Shave Matters.”

Marketers are gradually learning that the most effective video content on social media is fractionalized and tailored to specific audiences. Understanding your demographic is just one piece of the puzzle, though; truly effective ads also stand out within each respective social media ecosystem.

Determine your big idea, identify your subsets and create unique content that speaks directly to a specific social media audience.

Chris Carter is chief marketing officer of REP Interactive, which is focused on helping brands take a holistic approach to their video initiatives.

Image courtesy of Yuri_Arcurs/iStock.

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President Trump’s Russian troubles are multiplying — and even some Republicans are wondering if the White House can stop the problems from becoming a full-blown crisis.

“I think they’ve handled it quite badly because they haven’t been forthcoming,” said Peter Wehner, who served as deputy director of speechwriting in President George W. Bush’s White House. “This is a classic case of drip-drip-drip, where they say certain things that are disproven as later facts are revealed.”

Wehner is among those Republicans who have long been critical of Trump. But even some of the president’s GOP supporters are critical of the White House’s response to allegations of Russian meddling.

A longtime Trump ally, granted anonymity to speak candidly, echoed Wehner’s “drip-drip-drip” description of the situation and complained, “They have handled this so poorly.” 

The issue of alleged links between the Trump campaign and Russia has been bubbling since last summer.

But it exploded once again this week when Attorney General Jeff SessionsJeff SessionsTHE MEMO: White House fails to fend off Russia questions Dem rep: I don’t trust House Republicans to carry out Russia probe Sessions talks voting rights, police misconduct with NAACP MORE announced he would recuse himself from any investigation into Russian interference in last year’s election campaign. Sessions’s decision came under pressure after the Washington Post revealed he had met twice during 2016 with Sergey Kislyak, the Kremlin’s ambassador to the United States.

Those meetings appeared to contradict Sessions’s sworn testimony during his Senate confirmation hearing, when he told Sen. Al FrankenAl FrankenTHE MEMO: White House fails to fend off Russia questions Members of Congress rightly stand up to Trump and #StandWithGavin The Hill’s 12:30 Report MORE (D-Minn.) that he did not have “communications with the Russians.”

The Sessions furor wiped out the sense of momentum that Trump had begun to build with his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday evening. The speech was widely hailed as one of Trump’s best moments since he became president. But the positive atmosphere lasted only about 24 hours before the Sessions bombshell hit.

The administration has already suffered the loss of one major name in a Russia-related controversy. Retired Gen. Michael Flynn resigned after the shortest tenure in history as national security advisor, amid reports that he had misled Vice President Pence over the nature of his conversations with Kislyak last December. 

The Trump administration has pushed back against allegations of chicanery involving Russian intelligence services with broad assertions that no wrongdoing has taken place.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer insisted to reporters during a Thursday gaggle that “there’s no ‘there’ there.”

The press secretary added:  “The bottom line is that, for six months now, we’ve heard the same thing over and over again — unnamed sources talking about nebulous, unnamed things … At some point, you have to ask yourself where the ‘there’ is.”

The president himself has sought to cast the Russian stories as part of a Democratic-led plot to delegitimize his election win. 

In a series of Thursday evening tweets, he defended Sessions and added: “This whole narrative is a way of saving face for Democrats losing an election that everyone thought they were supposed to win. The Democrats are overplaying their hand. They lost the election, and now they have lost their grip on reality.”

Those broad claims, however, have been hindered by the Flynn and Sessions controversies.

« Facts are stubborn things. Bad ones in particular. You can’t ignore them. Wish them away. Or deny them,” said Lanny Davis, who served as special counsel for President Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Davis is a columnist for The Hill and an expert in crisis management with Washington law firm Davis Goldberg Galper.

Davis said Trump could only bring the Russian travails to an end by observing the mantra of “tell it early, tell it all, tell it yourself.” 

“It’s coming out sooner or later. So you have no choice but to follow this advice and let the truth chips fall where they may,” he said.

In the absence of such a house-cleaning, however, the danger for the Trump administration is that it gets damaged by a constant stream of stories. Even if no single one is devastating, the cumulative effect could corrode the president’s standing.

There have been plenty examples just in recent days. 

Details have emerged of a meeting with Kislyak at Trump Tower that was attended by Flynn and Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner. 

Former campaign adviser Carter Page gave a contentious interview to MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Thursday. On his own encounters with Kislyak, Page said, “I may have met him, possibly; might have been in Cleveland.” 

And the Wall Street Journal reported that the president’s eldest son, Donald TrumpDonald TrumpTHE MEMO: White House fails to fend off Russia questions Black college president: Trump admin meetings were ‘troubling’ Merriam-Webster again needles Trump over spelling fumbles MORE Jr., was “likely paid at least $50,000 for an appearance late last year before a French think-tank whose founder and wife are allies of the Russian government in efforts to end the war in Syria.” 

It may ultimately be the case, as the Trump administration insists, that there is nothing damning in the substance of these stories. People close to Trump feel they have been unfairly treated in the media maelstrom.

In an interview with The Hill last month, former Trump adviser Roger Stone insisted that allegations he had ties to Russia were false.

“I had no Russian contacts, no Russian intermediaries, no Russian clients, no Russian money. It’s a canard. It just doesn’t exist,” Stone said.

Trump’s original campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, on Friday pushed back vigorously against reports, which originated with a reporter for the Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat, that he had approved a trip to Russia by Page last summer.

“I’ve never met this person in my life,” Lewandowski told The Hill, referring to Page. “He never worked on our campaign when I was the campaign manager.” 

Pressed on whether there could be any truth to the idea that he approved such a trip, Lewandowski replied, “Zero.”

But broader damage is already being done every day.

Wehner recalled his experiences in the Bush White House when a scandal erupted that ultimately saw Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby, then chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, convicted on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

“There is pressure and there is tension. You never know what other people may have done when you’re in there,” Wehner recalled. “It’s not fun.”

More ominously, Wehner added that the ineffectiveness of the Trump White House in pushing back against stories related to Russia was stoking ever-greater suspicion.

“The bigger question is less how they have handed it from a communications standpoint — which is poorly — but why they have felt the need to handle it the way that they have,” he said.

“The reason, I suspect, is that there is quite a hot fire under the billows of smoke.”

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage, primarily focused on Donald Trump’s presidency.

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Video Marketing Manager – OTT/IPTV/YouTube/Netflix/Facebook Live/UGC/FMC/Axure/UI/Product Shaping/Prototype Design

Location: Bonn (Germany) OR Reading (UK)

Permanent

Salary: Eur 80K – 100K per aunnum

Video Marketing Manager with 5-10 years of experience in TV/IPTV/Video industry NEEDED! My international telecoms client is looking for a OTT/IPTV/Video Marketing Manager to join their expanding team for Strategic Video Solution business planning and Product Development. Candidate with experience at Netflix/YouTube/Facebook Live or similar OTT video service providers or video equipment vendors are considered first.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Strategic planning, business planning and feature development for corporate level video solution FMC (Fixed Mobile Convergence), UGC (User Generated Content);

2. Work with carriers in the operation of the UGC Video Service;

3. FMC UGC Video is a solution that improves carriers’ network and IPTV service, aiming to help carriers to increase user.

4. To carry out market analysis of video strategy, pain point of video services and come up with strategic business approach;

5. Engage with key clients for strategic plan and business analysis of their video services.

Requirements:

1. Fluent Business level English, German (if working in Bonn)

2. bachelor’s degree or above in Media, technology and computer

If you’re interested, please get in touch or apply right here!

(MENAFN Editorial) Video marketing is getting popular on the Internet but making it stand out really hard and takes market share. That changes today when Videobold comes and reveals how big brands are using ‘story’ in their videos to convert their audience and get the message across. VideoBold is a brand new collection of over 200 ‘Storyline videos that ‘Big Brands are relying upon, to engage with their audiences and crush competition. Those new wave videos are basically human interest messages, which are location shot and tend to feature real people, in real places, doing the real thing.

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