We all hate being interrupted by an annoying video ad. Whether it’s a pop up invading your screen or a clip tacked on before a video you wish to watch, we all are counting those dreadful seconds until we can ‘skip ad.’
How can you move away from consumer interruption and towards consumer engagement? Long form content may be your yellow brick road.
As the age of video content is ushered in, creatives originally thought short-form video content was the best way to engage consumers. Now after recent research it has been shown long-form content may have its own set of benefits.
With the average human attention span at about 8 seconds, advertisers are constantly looking for new ways to capture consumer attention and one-up competitors. This has polluted the environment with a great deal of noise. Advertisers have successfully cut the length of their ads and have the ability to pack minutes of content into 15 seconds, but as consumers proactively seek to cut noise, efforts are surely wasted.
The most important element advertisers are missing is user engagement rather than interruption. Users are more willing to engage in a 2-minute video which they view as more valuable content than 15 second video bombardment.
However, it is not as easy as it sounds. There is a narrow window for advertisers to truly engage with users. Users will quickly make decisions with minimal information and what is considered valuable or interesting will vary depending on the user. You have one moment to get it right and engage consumers.
What is the key to long form content?
Everyone is familiar with the ole marketing maxim ‘Content is King’, but his younger brother Context has lived in his shadow for far too long and now deserves his own throne. If you really want to engage with consumers, yes content plays a role but so does context.
Context is the segue harmoniously moving consumers from interruption to engagement by perfectly placing video content of interest, when consumers are already engaged with similar content.
When considering context, it is also important to understand context extends beyond the page. Today as more and more users’ primary platform for engagement shifts to mobile, you must also place equal importance on platform selection.
On Single’s Day last year “Alibaba said that sales via mobile devices accounted for 82 percent –$14.6 billion – of its total haul.”
Video on mobile will be the real sweet spot as we continue to see the merger of content and context. The opportunity has presented itself, but it is up to you to find that perfect moment of consumer engagement through proper placement of video content within a contextually relevant environment.