Amazon.com Inc. wants to prevent holiday shoppers from straying to Google’s YouTube and Facebook Inc.’s social-media sites in search of product videos, so the e-commerce giant is working with merchants to match the effort on its website.

Pet supplies, baby products, housewares and electronics are the focus of the new push for promotional and instructional videos. Amazon this year began inviting some of its 2 million merchant partners to join a test program in which the online retailer coordinates these short product videos. The plan is to post many of them to the site by mid-December, when the holiday shopping season is in full swing, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg.

“You can move hearts and minds with video in ways you just can’t with text and standard display,” said Jason Kint, chief executive officer of Digital Content Next, a trade association formerly called the Online Publishers Association.

Amazon relies mostly on written descriptions of products, photos and reviews from shoppers to boost customers’ confidence in its wares. But the site largely lacks videos similar to television commercials or consumer reviews and how-to’s posted on YouTube and social media platforms. Amazon is offering merchants a discounted cost for 30-second video ads to encourage participation in the feature added to its Enhanced Brand Content program, the documents show.

The test is part of a broader effort to get more promotional videos on the site. Bose Corp. is one of the prominent brands that now has videos on Amazon, through a “premium” page program that costs $500,000, Advertising Age reported last week.

The Enhanced Brand Content video pilot program seeks content from smaller merchants in a wider range of categories that lack big marketing budgets. Some videos posted through the program include a demonstration of Coffee Gator’s French press coffee maker and a “how to wash your face” video posted beneath a facial cleanser.

The effort is targeted at the approaching holiday season, Amazon’s busiest time of year. Online sales are expected to increase by as much as 21 percent to $114 billion this season, according to estimates by Deloitte.

“Video is the latest feature addition to Enhanced Brand Content and we look forward to rolling it out further so more small businesses can create engaging, helpful content for Amazon customers,” Amazon said in an emailed statement.

Product videos are becoming an important feature for consumers before they make purchase decisions. More than 1 in 3 millennials, those in their 20s and 30s, find video demonstrations of products to be “very important” when shopping, according to a survey by Astound Commerce.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google has tried to turn YouTube into a prime destination for these marketing dollars. Two years ago, the search giant introduced a new feature that lets advertisers run customized ads for consumer products within relevant YouTube videos.

Amazon’s push with merchants comes as it works to build an advertising business to challenge Google and Facebook, which dominate the $83 billion online ad industry. The e-commerce giant is recognizing the value of its product search engine as an advertising platform because so many shoppers go to the site to find items and research purchases. Videos are increasingly part of that research, said Jonathan Bowen, owner of JLB Media Productions in Los Angeles, which shoots product videos for businesses.

“With electronics or a kitchen gadget, people want to see a video of what it actually does,” Bowen said. “Everyone knows what a spatula is, but for some of these products, pictures alone don’t do them justice.”

Now read: Intel and Amazon join forces on voice recognition

As the market for new vehicles tightens and the economic outlook is uncertain, making sure that every pound spent on bringing customers to the forecourt should be the primary focus of every automotive retailer.

Digital advertising has boomed over the last decade thanks to a laser focus on return on investment from the previous recession. The accountability of search engine marketing and digital display advertising allowed a more direct correlation to be drawn from pound spent and vehicle sold.

Technology has moved on in the last 10 years and social media has become the primary media platform in most people’s lives. Advertising on social media allows the individual purchase journey to be tracked against the advertising pound.

According to the Internet Advertising Bureau mobile accounts for 43% of digital advertising with year-on-year growth of 38%. It now accounts for 57% of all display ad spend, 70% of video spend, and 83% of social media spend.

People love watching online video and advertisers have followed them. More money is now spent on video ads than banner ads. Video now accounts for 35% of all spend going on display advertising. Social media is at the heart of this growth with spending on social feeds doubling, accounting for £363m.

Digital ad spend rose to 13.8% to £5.56bn in the first half of 2017. The exponential growth looks set to continue as platforms like Facebook expand as media and shopping platforms.

Some recent research by us at Radar Video showed that 42% of the largest dealer groups are wasting budget on Facebook by not using the platform’s tracking capabilities.

The study shows that while most dealers have a Facebook page and advertise on the social network, only six out of ten use a Facebook Pixel, which allows companies to track individuals who click on ads and serve them bespoke offers.

Retargeting on Facebook allows brands to target buyers with tailored offers, which maximises sales and the return on marketing investment.

Dealers must engage one-to-one with social media audiences, and the dominance of video means it’s more important than ever to grab interest with impactful content. The cost of production is dropped to such a level that each dealership can personalise its content for local audiences, with real-time and highly targeted offers.

It’s estimated that by 2019, 80% of the world’s consumer internet traffic will be video, while Reuters predicts that video viewership will account for 70% of mobile network traffic, growing 14-fold within the next five years.

Is it time for a social media first advertising strategy?

Amazon and eBay report that adding a video ad increases the propensity to buy by up to 35%. And according to recent reports, Google and Facebook will account for more than 70% of all money spent on display advertising online in the UK by 2020.

Consumers of all ages live their lives on Facebook. They research their next purchase, ask friends for recommendations and watch videos of their prospective purchases. If a dealership doesn’t have a social media advertising and content engagement strategy at the heart of its marketing plan, it is missing opportunities.

Derek Blair is the founder of Radar Video

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COLUMBUS — Gallia County Economic Development’s Aerial Marketing Video has been selected as runner-up in the “Economic Development Marketing: Small Community Category” at the Ohio Economic Development Association’s (OEDA) Annual Excellence Awards at the 2017 Annual Summit, held Oct. 18-20 at the Columbus Renaissance Downtown.

“We are very pleased the Ohio Economic Development Association recognized the efforts of our aerial video marketing project. We are continually looking for new and unique ways to market our community to prospective companies and site consultants.” said Melissa Clark, Gallia County Economic Development director.

Community Improvement Corporation of Gallia County President Josh Bodimer said,“The marketing video showcases available sites Gallia County has to offer to expanding companies. We hope this marketing approach reaches company decision makers in order to bring needed jobs to Gallia County.”

The Ohio Economic Development Association’s Annual Excellence Awards program recognizes the achievements of individuals and organizations throughout Ohio in the areas of economic and workforce development.

According to Clark, the video was produced by Neon Cloud Productions with financial assistance from a Local Economic Advancement Program grant provided by American Electric Power last year. The video makes use of drone technology and pans aerial shots of downtown Gallipolis, Dan Evans Industrial Park in Bidwell as well as video overlaid with statistics of Gallia’s area vocational and college opportunities and more.

“I had wanted to do something like this for awhile and saw a video that showed off the best parts of a Texas community on YouTube,” said Clark. “We visited around 15 sites in the county to give marketing consultants an idea of our area assets and to see what it’s like to live in Gallia.”

Clark had expressed a desire to engage in such a project when AEP awarded the development office grant funding. AEP offered suggestions to Clark in production services. Clark said, coincidentally, they found the same company which had produced the video she had watched on YouTube. The production company apparently specialized in similar videos for other small communities like Gallia in search of economic development opportunities.

Planning for the video started in the summer of last year and the development office made use of statistics from organizations such as the US Bureau of Labor and other databases to flesh out the informational needs of the video. The video was shot in little over a day and timing was essential to make use of good weather. The production team shot video over the weekend of last Labor Day. Editing video proved to be a longer process along with graphics rendering.

“We wanted to give the feel of the quality of life that Gallia can provide,” said Clark.

Clark said early story ideas aimed to exhibit a sense of “industry, education, health care and the community” to video viewers.

Clark said the production had cost upwards of several thousand dollars with much of the bill being footed by AEP’s grant.

For more information and access to the video, visit www.growgallia.com.

Staff Report

Lottie Laws, head of video at Twitter Australia, sits down for a one-on-one with BT to talk all things video advertising, and how the social media behemoth is in the prime position to capitalise on this space.

The way we, as consumers, engage with advertising has changed rapidly. For advertisers, this has meant they’ve had to find new ways to improve the user experience and make more engaging content – and it’s why many brands are choosing video advertising today.

Recent research by CodeFuel found that online users prefer to consume content as video, including ads. However, the format isn’t the only thing that matters – the ad also has to be just as engaging as the content, according to Laws.

“Our own research showed that 43 per cent of users said they would watch a full video ad if it had interesting content,” she tells BT.

“It also noted factors like whether the ad had an interesting offer or whether it was from a brand the user knew and liked. These elements should always be at the forefront of any video ad campaign.”

Advertisers should also keep in mind that a video campaign should be accompanied by a strong brand marketing campaign, Laws adds.

“If an ad is the first time someone is learning about a brand, the ads won’t be nearly as effective. Video ads need to be part of a broader marketing strategy,” she explains.

The Twitter take-up

Twitter has a range of video ad solutions, and most recently launched its in-stream offering for Australia in September, which gives marketers the opportunity to take a TV-like approach to audience buying in a brand-safe environment.

“The beauty is that advertisers can handpick the publishers they want to work with, and access and sponsor the best content from a single partner to build a brand association and reach their audience in multiple ways,” Laws says.

“CMOs and marketers talk to us about wanting more control of their ads, and in-stream video ads let them do just that. Brands are able to choose their partners, and target their content to specific events, at scale, against premium videos.”

Since launching in-stream video ads on Twitter globally, Laws says the reception from brands and content partners has been extremely positive.

“We already have partners such as BeIN Sports and Seven West Media on the content side, and Sportsbet, NAB and Woolworths on board as advertisers,” she tells BT.

“And we’re having regular conversations with brands and content partners interested in learning more about how they can leverage in-stream video ads via Twitter.

“A few things have become clear to us in 2017 when working with advertising partners on our video products: they want incremental reach, a differentiated audience, and truly premium content in a viewable, brand-safe environment.”

Proof in the pudding

Now, it’s all well and good for Twitter to claim that its video ad campaigns drive positive shifts in key brand metrics for advertisers time and time again, but where’s the evidence?

Well, across 406 Nielsen Brand Effect studies, those who saw video ads on Twitter said they were 50 per cent more likely to be aware of the advertiser’s brand, feel 14 per cent more favourable about the brand, and had 18 per cent higher purchase intent – versus those not exposed to video ads.

But why is this the case? Well, according to Laws, people approach Twitter with a discovery mindset, making them more attentive, responsive, and trusting of the video ad content they see on the platform compared to others.

“This leads to video ads on Twitter being almost twice as memorable when compared to the same ads on other premium sites,” she explains.

The future

Increasingly, people are shifting away from traditional ways of consuming video, with some audience demographics such as Generation Z are bypassing traditional methods altogether, and have gone straight to streaming on demand or live video.

Ultimately, Laws says it is these consumer trends that should, and will, inform how video advertising evolves.

“Twitter recently announced 16 premium deals at #Newfronts in the US, and APAC followed this trend in September by announcing more than 30 content partnerships at the All That Matters conference in Singapore,” she says.

“A number of these premium video offerings will include live streaming opportunities for advertisers, and this is a testament to the live nature of Twitter, but also the way the digital industry is moving.

“Five or 10 years down the line, the ‘cord-cutting’ and ‘cordless’ audiences will dictate how video is consumed even further.”

JJ’s ACUVUE has voluntarily recalled a limited number of its brand contact lenses due to unmet quality standards.

According to a press statement, the products impacted and distributed in Singapore is limited to 929 boxes, 0.03% of the total products sold since their release in the market. The recall affects products from its ACUVUE OASYS and ACUVUE OASYS for Astigmatism lines.

“At Johnson Johnson Vision, our top priority is patient safety and we hold ourselves to high standards for product quality and customer satisfaction,” the spokesperson added. When asked about the impact on marketing activities, the spokesperson explained that as part of its regular process, JJ reviews marketing activities and updates accordingly.

“As of today, we are working through this with our agency partners and internal teams,” the spokesperson said.

The JJ spokesperson said that no significant health risks have been reported due to the issues. Meanwhile, the company has taken measures to ensure the issues do not reoccur. It has also identified the root causes that led to the quality issues and has taken corrective measures to help ensure they do not recur.

As of yesterday, the company has also completed the retrieval of its affected products from optical stores and is working close with and quickly with the Health Sciences Authority, Singapore Optometric Association and eye care professionals.

In August, the company released an ad spot on YouTube promoting the ACUVUE OASYS 1-DAY Series. The spot featured a national bowler, national basketballer, and yoga instructor undergoing a vision challenge. The video garnered around 462,555 views on YouTube at the time of writing.

Most recently, the company released an ad starring local model Fiona Fussi. The video takes on a Korean theme and promotes JJ’s 1-Day ACUVUE DEFINE Radiant Sweet product. Since its launch on 11 October, the video garnered around 50,980 views on YouTube at the time of writing.

 

Singtel has launched a new campaign to showcase the strength and coverage of its mobile network. Called “You make the call”, the campaign also aims to show how the telco empowers customers to connect and stay connected with their loved ones.

In a conversation with Marketing, Diana Chen, vice president for mobile marketing, Singapore consumer, at Singtel, added that the campaign is targeted at younger audiences. This is especially for those who want to stay connected anytime and anywhere. The campaign runs on Singtel TV, Facebook, YouTube and in-store activations.

The spot showcases real life celebrity couple Shane Pow and Kimberly Wang on a video call which never seems to end, which each individual telling the other to hang up. The conversation eventually escalates into a global worldwide and viral phenomenon leading to a movie premiere and events where large groups of people rally behind Pow and Wang. Since its posting on YouTube, the spot garnered 829,713 views at the time of writing.

The campaign also features another spot to showcase technical details on how the network keeps the lovebirds connected on the “world’s longest video call”. This showcases two tech support Singtel staff in a behind-the-scenes video titled “You Make The Call: Behind The Tech”. This video showcases one of Singtel’s engineers getting calls from his mother in various locations which mirror the first spot. This includes jungles, heavily crowded locations and underground tunnels.

According to Chen, this is to show how Singtel’s engineers continuously test and optimise the network to ensure a consistently high quality experience for customers at all times. The spot garnered 296,826 views at the time of writing.

The campaign runs through mid-November. It was conceptualised by BBH Singapore and filmed by production company Freeflow. Success of the campaign will be measured through consumer engagement as well as the impact on consumer perceptions and behaviour.

 

The drivers of change are complex and interwoven into the world of digital marketing.

The trends are not islands but together amplify and accelerate the way we market and grow our businesses. Mobile phones made social networks even more viral and powerful and their inbuilt cameras just added more content in what was already a noisy online world.

Faster and cheaper wi-fi and telecommunication networks made broadband an essential utility that is now demanded just like electricity. This development allowed video to move from the desktop to the mobile and everywhere.

Complexity and even faster change are the norm.

So what digital marketing trends are driving change and what can we do about it?

1. The growing concentration of revenue and power

There are many platforms, apps and tools that we all use to create, control and market our brands.

But as the trend towards paid digital advertising accelerates Google and Facebook are becoming in effect a duopoly. Google and Facebook between them share 90% of the growth.

Image source: digitalcontentnext.org

This year the total spend of $83 billion in digital advertising will be dominated by the two big players. And Google is projected to achieve 40.7% of US digital ad revenues this year (double Facebook’s share)

Google will continue to dominate search advertising with an estimated $28.55 billion of spend in 2017 and Facebook will dominate display with a projected $16.33 billion in 2017 while Google’s will be only $5.24 billion.3

The rest including Twitter, Yahoo and other players will pick up the crumbs.

This dominance of revenue will then allow the duopoly to snap up more social networks, startups and technology companies that fit into its growth strategies and continue to concentrate power.

We have already seen this with Facebook buying Instagram, WhatsApp and the virtual reality company OculusRift.

This concentration of power is also creating other problems.

Reduction in trust

Trust is a big factor in who and what we believe. Marketing is no different.

Facebook has recently reported that its video metrics were inflated and YouTube (Google) has been running questionable ads next to brand content.

The rise of fake news, alternate truth and the domination of the walled gardens of Facebook and Google who are reluctant to provide transparency on their data is also reducing trust in the data reporting.

2. Marketing automation is now essential

The rise of social networks humanised the web.

Playing online was no longer just the domain of the geeks. It was nice and simple. You tweeted or published a Facebook post. You created content and built organic distribution by growing your followers on the social networks.

But it has become complex.

More social networks, complex digital advertising options and more types of content.

More networks

Despite the concentration of power there are still a lot of social networks to play with and new ones are still popping up. Mastodon.social is a grass roots bootstrapped alternative to Twitter that stuck its head up just 6 months ago. But has proven so popular that it been temporarily closed to new users until it builds out a more robust infrastructure.

More content

The types of content and media you need to master has gone way past the simple analog formats of print, radio and television. Now we have Interactive infographics, GIF’s and augmented reality media just to name a few.

What does all this “more” mean?

More tools…..or better ones?

The options within digital technology have also exploded and the number of technology tools just for marketing have been estimated at over 4,000.

But the only way to manage the rising complexity is with marketing automation. There are many options and just choosing is hard.

1. There are the platforms that aim to be “all in one” tools – Marketo, Hubspot, Infusionsoft are just a few that can assist you in scaling your digital marketing.
2. Then there are even tools for growing your social network followers with automation. These include Social Quant for Twitter and SociallyRich for Instagram
3. There are tools for automating the moderation of comments. Big digital publishers like TechCrunch need automation to moderate comments at scale and technology like BrandBastion provide the tech. to do that accurately –

Marketing automation is still just in it’s early phases and this next trend is where it starts to get interesting.

3. The rise of artificial intelligence

The rise of “AI” is a term that frightens some people and excites others.

The scary part is often seen as people losing their jobs to machines or even taking over the world and replacing humans. The good piece that others are embracing is taking away the drone work that de-humanizes workers. Artificial intelligence is becoming a necessity to enhance and scale repetitive and boring human tasks.

The rise of the robots has been predicted since we watched HAL in “Space Odyssey 2001” in what was another world in 1968. In the decades since we have seen the emergence of the personal computer, the internet, social networks and the mobile smart phone.

The intersection of these technologies is changing entertainment, business and our lives.

Social and mobile are obsessive technologies that have made us all publishers. We are now all video creators, selfie photo producers and writers that share by the billions every hour.

Why we need “machines”

The content explosion is overwhelming.

As the data volume has increased exponentially, the scale of the noise means that making sense of it needs artificial intelligence and machines with big powerful processors. Humans will need the machines to cope and make sense of the complexity and barrage of noise. This means we will “need” artificial intelligence marketing.

Artificial Intelligence Marketing can be distilled into 3 steps. Collect, reason and act.

1. Collect: There is so much data that humans can no longer cope with the volume and we need computers to collate and collect it
2. Reason: Making sense of the data and gain insights needs “AI” to perform it at scale
3. Act: Then to need to use that insights to create messaging and content that influences the buying decision

The benefits of AI for marketers

According to a survey by Demand Base the top benefits that marketers see for using and applying artificial intelligence include increased insights, analysis and prospect identification.

Image source: Forbes.com 

How is it it being used?

Where is this artificial intelligence being used that maybe you don’t even notice?

• Tagging of friends on Facebook with facial recognition
• Deep learning technology that is woven into Facebook’s suggestions, Newsfeed algorithms and trending topics
• LinkedIn uses “AI” to provide better job matching between business and candidate
• Pinterest uses the intelligence of the robots to boost image recognition and search
• News stories created by robots and humans: Washington Post is using an “intelligent, automated storytelling agent,” which they affectionately refer to as Heliograf. This smart technology scales the creation of accurate news stories to meet the 24/7 news cycle. This was used to report the 2016 Rio Olympic games

And this is just scratching the surface. Econsultancy.com lists 15 other examples of artificial intelligence in marketing.

Expect to see more of these technologies and trends emerge in digital marketing automation tools and beyond.

4. Paid digital marketing is now a necessary evil

Digital marketing has never been truly free. But social networks gave us a taste of that for a few short years. We all piled in and when Facebook reduced its free and organic reach in the newsfeed to single digits the crowd complained.

When most of us discovered digital marketing the only option to pay for attention was banner ads on websites. Yahoo was one of the big players then. That was about it. It was the 1990’s.

In early 2000’s the rise of Google led to a new digital advertising option. Search advertising.

This was a way to make money that offered rivers of gold as it was cheap to advertise online. But then Google changed the rules and increased the rates. Does that sound familiar to the big “F”?

It’s a 2 horse race

The concentration of revenue and the ownership of platforms means that advertising options maybe complex but still concentrated. Up starts like Snapchat are trying to muscle in after going public. But it has some major challenges to make any sizeable dent on the two giant incumbents of Facebook and Google.

This graphic from eMarketer shows the challenge it faces.

Today the rules of the game means that you need to either have the skills within your company or find a good partner.

Related Read: The Success Habit That You Should Not Ignore

5. Live video keeps booming

Live streaming video is maybe the hottest trend in digital marketing right now.

One of the first social networks to offer this was Google+. Google Hangouts was a great part of the platform.

But Meerkat was maybe the first live streaming video app that captured our consciousness. Then it was Periscope and then Blab. Only one of those survives and that is because it has a rich uncle called “Twitter”.

But when Facebook “Live” was launched in 2015 to a limited audience of celebrities the game changed.

But why use live streaming?

Mark Zuckerberg has suggested that people watch live streams 300% longer and comment 10 times more than regular videos. In marketing terms, more engagement is gold.

Image source: Digiday.com

But “Live” video is great except when you have people sharing video streams of consciousness that are not worth watching. More content doesn’t mean better quality. My Facebook news feed is full of it.

6. The rise and rise of algorithms

Google’s algorithms were the first taste of the machines controlling what content you saw in search results. Then when Facebook reduced organic reach the intrusion of algorithms that filtered what we saw in Newsfeeds.

But today we are also seeing the application of algorithms and filtering to the email inbox. Marketing emails are often going to the promotions tab in your Gmail account.

Digital marketers will need to keep on top of this to ensure they are optimising content that rises above the search engine, social network and email filters.

The battle of beating the algorithms will continue.

7. Influencer marketing takes center stage

The social web gave rise to global topic tribes.

Bloggers created content on fashion, food and thousands of other niche passions. They also built loyal followers and advocates on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. They constructed credibility and trust built on authentic content.

Image source: Twitter

As the noise increases online and reaching your target customer gets harder because of content clutter the influencer and thought leaders who have built reach globally are the new niche gatekeepers.

Brands are now paying to reach their admirers and devotees.

But there is a bigger challenge

The rise of an Internet of apps (not websites).

Most of us are used to a digital world where you created content on your own website and then drove traffic and converted them into readers or customers. The Internet of apps is a huge fundamental shift that you can’t ignore.

According to the New York Times the transition from an Internet of websites to an Internet of mobile apps and social platforms, and Facebook, in particular, is no longer coming. It is here.

It is a systemic change that is leaving many publishers (and businesses) unsure of how they will make money from their online assets.

Scott Rosenberg, a co-founder of Salon sums up my fear in this one sentence.

“With each turn of the screw, people began to realize, viscerally, that this is what it feels like to not be in control of your destiny,” 

One of the most exciting things about social media, when I discovered it in 2008, was that it was the democratization of publishing and marketing. I no longer needed to pay media moguls or the gatekeepers. That was empowering.

But the internet of apps is happening.

Buzzfeed was receiving 504 million visitors a month and in 2016 it had dropped to 471 million. But what has happened is that it has moved its content strategy to other sites. Where it receives over 7 billion visits and views.

What does this mean?

This emergence of the internet of apps and platforms has some big implications and challenges for marketers.

New growth avenues had to be found for views and readers. According to Buzzfeed, it is about a “Network Integration Strategy”. Pushing content out to other hubs like Snapchat, YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram.

Their strategy is now one of “Creating” (people making stuff), publishing to their websites, uploaded to apps and distributed on multiple social channels. Then they keep measuring and iterating from the big data.

So is Mark Zuckerberg becoming the new gatekeeper?

What should you do?

Here are the top things you need to do to master marketing in a world of constant change.

1. Hire geeks that can read the data that allows you to keep iterating and adapting.
2. Keep an eye on tools that use artificial intelligence.
3. Master efficient paid digital advertising. Don’t pay for advertising unless you can measure it.
4. Use automation to scale and manage the complexity.
5. Keep learning. Continuous education is essential.
6. Experiment and then implement what works.
7. Stand out by telling stories.

So…….strap yourself in and keep creating, evolving, pivoting and reinventing. There is no other option.

(Disclaimer: This post was originally published in LinkedIn by the mentioned author and has been reproduced with permission. Techstory is not responsible or liable for any content in this article.)

About The Author:

Jeff Bullas is a digital entrepreneur, blogger and CEO at Jeffbullas.com.

He also finds time to be an author and keynote speaker. His mission. “To inspire and educate people to win at business and life in a digital world”

Also Read: This One Trait is the Secret to Success