Digital Strategists: 3 Ways to Differentiate Using Mobile and Video Storytelling

The opportunity to differentiate by tapping into under-invested mobile video is now and using video storytelling is how to break through. As a graduate student at Northwestern in Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) and a research and strategy professional, I've found two articles that you will find interesting. 

Our friends at Adage recently published an article titled, Mobile Ad Spending Lags Use, But Not for Long, eMarketer Says, which states that consumers are watching less TV, but engaging more with video in other formats. While this isn't necessarily breaking news, the gap in spend among mediums is. The eMarkerter study found that:   

• TV makes up 90% of video ad spend and 77% of time consumers spent with video
• Mobile gets only 3% of video ad spend and makes up 12% of time spent with video
• Total time spent on mobile devices is up to 2 hours and 51 minutes per day, likely as a result of simultaneous device usage

With time on mobile devices steadily increasing and the lower share of video dollars spent on mobile, there is a great opportunity to capitalize and reach viewers. 

http://www.havasmedia.co.uk/2015/01/the-future-of-video-and-its-consumption/

Adage also recent helped break news that the video game Guitar Hero is getting refreshed. The article, Guitar Hero Live: Activision Updates Classic For New Generation, explores some of the new updates, which includes live action video. The new live video elements or video storytelling, puts the consumer at center stage (literally) and builds a strong emotional connection with the consumer. The new game uses the theme of Stage Fright, an emotion that research among consumers showed was greater than even death. Guitar Hero Live builds upon the emotion, using video storytelling and a fictional band (made up of real actors) to show how stage fright can impact performance. As Activision CEO stated, "putting the player on a real stage, in front of a real audience -- and creating this sense of stage fright was the "meaningful, breakthrough reinvention" that made a new game launch worthwhile." The experience that the video storytelling created, was the driving force behind the launch. 

There is an opportunity in mobile and video storytelling can help to seize it. Here are the three steps that should be taken to capitalize on mobile opportunity using video storytelling:

1. Go mobile-It is an efficient way to reach your users and there is less clutter than with other platforms
2. Get focused-Learn about key customer moments or emotions and use them in your video content
3. Tell stories-And maintain them throughout all aspects of your campaign, it will help differentiate

Differentiate video content by putting the customer first and using video storytelling. Ensure that the customer's experience is felt within your video to help it separate from the clutter. Use these experiences and build upon them to create relevant content throughout your brand interactions.

Brian Blake is a student at Northwestern University pursuing a Master’s degree at Medill School of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC). He leads the Research and Insights team at a CDW. He has experience in brand and corporate strategy, brand research, copy testing and VoC.  @brianblake_me 

LinkedIn

Feeling empowered by Big Data

In today’s economy, business leaders and marketing executives must understand customers’ needs and behaviors to strengthen their competitive advantage. These valuable insights can be discovered by sifting through Big Data and identifying patterns. I’ve focused on analytics and behavioral marketing as a graduate student at Northwestern’s Medill IMC program to strengthen the skills that lead to such valuable discoveries. 

"Big Data: Cutting through the Noise"

In a recent article on the Discovery Channel’s News website, Big Data collected through self-tracking methods was predicted to become more prevalent with every advancement in data processing speeds. Experts in economics, psychology and health care expect “that personal monitoring devices will become so cheap and unobtrusive [in a few years]...that they'll be ubiquitous.”

Nick Barthram of Indicia offers several suggestions on how to more accurately identify true insights from Big Data rather than allowing “confirmation bias” (among other evolutionary traits in humans) to lead us to spurious correlations in an article he wrote for WARC’s AdMap: September 2013.

So don’t get overwhelmed with the thought of having to find (and of course validate through testing) an insight from massive data sets. Just follow three actionable steps:

    1) Embrace: As time passes, only more data is collected so avoiding it or ignoring

              what the data might be telling you is not an option if you want your

        company to be successful

    2) Challenge: Don’t blindly trust what the correlations an algorithm have formed from

         the data; as Barthram says, “Use testing to repeat the situation and

         check that it still stacks.”

    3) Stay Patient: It’s easy to rush to a conclusion and implement the information into a

business plan but time is for once on your side. The longer data spans,

the more likely it will show certain correlations as opposed to influences from external forces.

It’s time to take control of Big Data and make it work in your favor. That doesn’t mean drawing faulty conclusions to support a hypothesis, though. Stick to your clearly defined business objectives that support your strategy. Big Data is only going to grow so feel empowered by the opportunity to discover valuable information from it. The old adage of “knowledge is power” has never been more true than it is today.

Marketing Strategy: Beyond Behavior to Intent

Marketing strategists know how important it is to find the insight that sparks a creative and effective strategy.  Behavior has become the be all end all to understand consumers, as opinions and intent have been deemed low-quality data that consumers may fabricate and misreport.

But what about when we can determine intent as a result of behavior?  With all the data that marketers and retailers have about consumer behavior, we can now better understand why they do what they do without even having to ask them.  And this information can take us even beyond what they have done in the past and help us take a step closer to understanding what they will do in the future.  I recently came across two articles that presented evidence for just that.  The first article is about Target's new holiday promotion plan, and the second is about how advertising strategy can be leveraged in the face of device-fragmentation. 

These are the intent-based insights that can be gleaned from these reads:

Timing Breeds Intent…

Target’s early promotions are specifically targeted to those customers that they define as “planners.”  Another group of their customers, whom Target calls “doers,” may behave similarly and be just as profitable, but it is understanding the differences in intent between the two groups that allows Target to appeal certain promotions to one particular group.  The planners want to start shopping as early as possible, and Target’s new holiday promotion will let them know that Target is here to help them do just that.

Timing is key in understanding consumer intent

…but it can also Breed Contempt

Target is touting that their new holiday promotion will begin earlier than ever before.  The convention of holiday shopping starting on Black Friday is as old as whoever non-ironically bought you your last Christmas sweater.  Target’s new promotion will actually start even be Halloween.  Talk about scary!  They claim that consumer research presents a need for earlier holiday promotions, but there is sure to be a sizeable sect out there sick of the holidays creeping up on them.  With most other retailers also pushing up their holiday promotions, the question becomes whether to compete directly (like Target) or if waiting on your promotions can become the great differentiator.  In any case, the timing of these promotions is as vital as the content or media.

Look Past Media Channels

The fragmentation of devices in today’s world also reveals the importance of intent.  It really doesn't matter whether you have information on a customer who uses mobile, or PCs, or watches television.  What matters is how that person intends to act as a consumer, regardless of device or channel.  If you sell shampoo, you don’t want a mobile user or a PC user; you want someone who’s intending to buy shampoo.  The consumer probably doesn't care which device he uses to find what he’s looking for, and neither should you.  You should only care that he’s looking.

Take Action
Now that you understand how to leverage intent, it's time to put it to action.  Here's how:

1. Use your behavioral data to understand how consumers will want or need to act in the future.
2. Determine how, and just as importantly, when, to reach these people.
3. Talk to them as consumers of a particular good or service, not as users of a particular channel or device.

When you use the information you have about consumers to look past behavior and toward intent, you can look beyond what they've done in the past and begin to understand what they will do in the future.

Matt Slater is an IMC student and soon-to-be professional in Chicago.  He is interested in marketing strategy and analytics.  And baseball.  Questions or comments about the blog or anything else?  Find him on Twitter @MattSlaterIMC.