Retire Larry Tate and Bring On Larry Page
Shorter Mobile Videos Coming to Capture Your Attention
Facebook, Google (with YouTube), Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Twitter and Snap are evolving into major media companies. Many are producing incredible high-quality content. We’re undergoing a tectonic shift in the communications world bigger than when TV replaced radio as the public’s №1 choice for entertainment, news and information.
Even top television writer/producer Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder) is changing channels and moving from ABC to develop programming for Netflix. It’s an aggressive move coming after the announcement from ABC’s parent company Disney that it would pull its films from Netflix in 2019 and start its own streaming service.
A story written by Steven Mallas for Seeking Alpha says a six-second ad does much more to benefit a brand than longer ads do.
“In a mobile environment, native mobile video ads typically outperform more traditional ads. For example, when Tropicana launched its probiotic juice, the company tested 6-second video ads against 15 and 30-second ads. The shorter ads resulted in higher brand metrics across the board, including a 16-point lift in brand awareness compared to a 6-point lift for the longer ads.”
It’s clear, if your team is still pitching you to create 30- and 60-second ads to run on TV instead of a mobile video first strategy then they’re asking you to buy Larry Tate tactics (Google: Bewitched) in a Larry Page (Google: Google) world!
“Mobile ads when they’re video are shorter. The brand comes in faster,” Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg explained during the company’s 2017 Q2 earnings call. “They tell a story that doesn’t evolve but really gets you to understand the brand and the offering really quickly. We talk about it as thumb-stopping creatives.”
Even the legacy media is getting current. During the earnings call to discuss CBS Corporation’s 2017 Q2 results, CEO Les Moonves noted how the company has “dramatically changed” its overall revenue mix.
“Of extreme importance, during the quarter, we achieved a 60%/40% split between non-advertising and advertising revenue, which is a record for us,” Moonves told analysts. “That’s just 40% of our revenue that now comes from advertising. About 10 years ago, it was greater than 70%.”
The changing climate should be a red flag for advertising executives who rely on selling television ads. As an aside, local affiliates remain to be a source of revenue for CBS Corporation but, as the legacy networks move deeper into streaming, where does that leave local affiliates?
This morning, I got my news and local weather from Amazon Alexa, not the local morning show. I listened to satellite radio on my way into the office. I listened to a podcast on the way home. With Google Home and the coming entry of Apple HomePod into the market, competition for attention will be even more fierce.
Look, retro is great. My favorite band is The Beatles. But even the Fab Four is keeping with the times and recently released a new, remixed and repackaged for the 21st Century version of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The White Album expected to be refurbished and released next year.
The media ball is in the air. Where’s it going? If you think it’s going backwards to a time where we’ll sit on a park bench, read hard-copy newspapers and circle the next episode of our favorite show on the calendar so the family can gather around and watch it, then you’re mistaken. People want the content they choose, on their time with minimal (if any) interruptions.
Mobile first is where the NOW is. And communicating in the mobile arena requires thinking that is boldly different, flexible and visionary.
