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Every time there is a new video platform or social network, marketers get to work on exploiting it, or trying to.
When Snap first caught fire, content makers and advertisers jumped quickly into the short-form storytelling method. Despite its ups and downs, Snap was declared the “mobile HBO” with Snap Originals. One show, Endless Summer, captured 28 million viewers in its debut in 2019. And as Snap likes to tell it, that was more than those who watched the Game of Thrones finale. (Sure, Jan. But just like the North, marketers remember.)
The lesson: Short and vertical worked pretty well.
When TikTok exploded in 2018, brands quickly jumped onto the platform. And right on cue, TikTok has been working on its own curated content too. New content creators are amassing millions of followers and generating dance memes faster than teens can learn them. I’d be surprised if there wasn’t some sort of ad during Super Bowl LIV inspired by Charli d’Amelio dancing the renegade to K-Camp’s “Lottery” or “Roxanne” by Arizona Zervas.
Social channels are constantly experimenting within their platforms. Instagram’s “What character are you?” trend, Twitter topics and lists, and Facebook curbing deepfakes all come to mind. But one thing they aren’t taking into consideration is the physical interaction of interfacing with your phone.
The lesson: Experimentation, memes and dances are really good.
Enter New Video Streaming And Ad Formats
In 2020, we’re going to see even more channels for advertisers to experiment with. New players are still jumping into the streaming wars, including ad-supported Peacock and Quibi, which some have called the “Netflix for the Instagram and TikTok generation.” And to complicate things, there is also a new Vine replacement for those originalists looking for only six-second videos. It’s called Byte.
While ad-supported content is nothing new, marketers will now support mobile devices like never before and will need to deliver streaming ads and short ads for platforms like TikTok, Byte and Instagram Stories, as well as “turnstile,” a video format that allows viewers to watch mobile video in both vertical and horizontal formats.
Turnstile is what separates Quibi from Snap and TikTok—the ability for viewers to shift between portrait and landscape mode on their phones with slightly different content. The platform starts with $5-per-month ad-supported versions, where brands like Proctor & Gamble, PepsiCo, AB InBev and General Mills have already bought up all of the platform’s $150 million in inventory, all on the backs of 175 original shows and 8,500 videos from Hollywood big names including Steven Spielberg, Bill Murray, Catherine Hardwick, Guillermo del Toro and Chrissy Teigen.
The lesson: Users switching from vertical to horizontal on their phones is very cool for our TV ads.
The Battle To Counter The Scroll
For the cynical, what most of these new formats, platforms and inventory are really doing is finding new and inventive ways for users to do what they were born to do: skip ads. Marketers are notorious for ruining most things with more ads. Ads have created fast-forwarding past ads, ads that are now called skip ads, and scrolling past ads. Every new evolution creates a negative user reaction to ad formats and technology.
I’ve heard a lot of millennials demanding more from brands to improve their ads experience. In my opinion, the solution is for brands to use turnstile and shoot the same ads they always have but allow viewers to switch from portrait to landscape for different content or views.
Advertising’s Response
When YouTube started, it put its TV spot unedited on YouTube. When Facebook and Twitter ramped up, they put their ads on social as-is. When 30 seconds proved too long, they started making shorter, 15-second cuts. When Instagram needed shorter and vertical ads for the feed and Stories, they birthed the pre-roll and the six-second skip ad.
At first glance, advertisers are diving into turnstile. Mountain Dew’s demo Quibi features a car giving you those alternate angles.
The possibilities for multiple views and creative storytelling such as Netflix’s Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and its different-ending framework could break us out of the “skip ad” mentality.
Brands and their agencies have to be very mindful of the space their ads are occupying. You can’t expect a really cool vertical video to do just as well on Quibi as it might on the Instagram feed. The horizontal video from your turnstile shoot isn’t going to magically translate to the Twitter feed. Rethinking the whole production and exploring how the story can be told on all these different canvases is going to be the key. We have to invent new ways of creating and consuming content, preferably ones that don’t involve the words “skip,” “exit,” “pause” or “leave.”
As Jeff Beer wrote in Fast Company, “Platforms should be imploring brands to make advertising adaptations that treat audiences like actual audiences. If you want people’s attention, you’re going to have to earn it.” If consumers do, in fact, want shorter, high-quality shows, marketers will need to make short, high-quality stories that match the platform’s vibe.
And that’s what advertisers need to think about creating: unique content for its own sake. Rather than continuing to shoot ads the same way we have for TV, we still have to rethink how the content is done to tap into culture and not just pay lip service to it.
