The Stress-Free consumer trend is driving a new reality for brands. More than ever, American consumers are searching for entertaining content, spending over half of their leisure time watching TV content.
source: https://www.bls.gov/charts/american-time-use/activity-leisure.htm
According to Think With Google, people are turning to YouTube to access a diverse and growing selection of visual and auditory videos to help them de-stress. Interest in videos related to “relaxing” is rising, with watch time increasing over 70% in the past 12 months. Some elements of this trend will be familiar — meditation and yoga videos, for example. Others might be a little more surprising, such as aquarium videos and slime ASMR. Interest in videos related to stress management is also on the rise, with watch time increasing by more than 60% year over year.
Humor Me.
When we look at the list of YouTube Ads Leaderboard: Global Year-End 2018, we see corresponding trends. First of all, the importance of a good laugh – or cry. With a rise in gaming and social media activity, consumers need more stimulation to keep them interested; but when they are interested, they can remain interested for a long time – another myth busted.
Best in Humor: Alexa Loses Her Voice – Amazon Super Bowl LII Commercial
1:30 minutes, 50,366,030 views, a great piece of drama and fun.
Amazon manages to showcase many of the Echo’s advantages – without diving into functionality.
Similarly, Samsung Galaxy uses storytelling to say that the new iPhone upgrade is switching to Galaxy, through a story of the wrongs of one mobile phone brand, instead of discussing functionality. This 1-minute long ad has 17,457,459 views.
Apple takes visual engagement further, reaching the music-loving consumer with a video clip featuring the stress free properties of a voice assistant, in this 4 minute long ad directed by Spike Jonze. 16,549,407 views.
Inspire Me.
2 minutes long, Nike’s Dream Crazy manged to inspire and engage viewers, with 27,481,163 views from Sep. 2018.
Playing the same game, Gatorade built a virtual world around Lionel Messi on the theme of “chasing your dreams” and received 14,436,575 views for a 4-minutes long ad.
Brand Power.
With gaming on the rise, licensing becomes more important than ever.
Turkish Airlines managed to register 25,711,116 for a safety video – based on the Lego Movie.
Personalize It.
A Lego ad lets you “pick your own path” – with Lego Jurassic World.
As part of this trend, Walmart recently announced its strategic entertainment joint venture with Eko, a developer of interactive video technology. The joint venture includes plans to develop “original, interactive content that will enable Walmart to connect with customers in new and more meaningful ways, with the goal of driving deeper and more frequent engagement”, allowing viewers to participate in and shape stories as they are being told.
And lately, Netflix launched a “pick your ending” episode in its hit series, Black Mirror, as part of its interactive shows strategy. With Facebook’s “Watch Party“, we presume interactive options will be shaped live in the future, subject to the viewers’ choice, especially with the rise of Twitch, the live streaming platform owned by Amazon.
It’s All A Game.
Watching TV adverts is nothing compared to the hours spent by children, tweens and teens playing online games – and consuming game-related video content.
This year’s gaming hero is, of course, Fortnite, and the Season 5 trailer uploaded July 2018 already won 48,708,096 views.
The Fallout 76 official trailer received 34,013,998 views, and one of Red Dead Redemption’s trailers registered 28,263,317 views.
YouTubers, Twitchers and other influencers are shaping the advertising industry, as companies provide them with more tools to influence and convert views to sales: see Amazon’s new Blacksmith tool, for example. But beyond this evident trend, advertisers need to understand, and connect to the experience provided by gaming, to imitate the level of engagement created by games. No wonder, then, that PwC predicts VR to experience the highest CAGR % over the next 5 years, compared to other digital advertising segments.
source: https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/tmt/media/outlook.html
Over the next five years, PwC expects data traffic levels will grow by a 22.3% CAGR, reaching 397.8 trillion megabytes in 2022. PwC attributes the growth in data consumption to consumers’ growing appetite for video content, which will account for 85.6% of total data consumption in 2022. 5G, as mentioned above, will contribute to this boost.
(Other advertising trends to look for include the rise of virtual assistants and Amazon Advertising; but this post has to end here, wishing you all a Happy and Healthy 2019!)