OTT PLUS TV CAN BE A MAGICAL RECIPE

The Technology Headlines

In 2020, consumers’ attention will only continue to be more and more fragmented throughout their day and via multiple devices. With this reality comes an opportunity. It is always advantageous to view changes as opportunities. Those who were raised with just the basics and not much more had to make more out of what was provided. Call it resourceful or call it creative, either way, brands, businesses and marketers are going to have to think about how and where they are going to deploy marketing assets and dollars to be in front of their potential customers at whatever point and place they choose to do business with you.

According to Variety, television cord cutters in the U.S. will increase to 55 million in 2022, from 33 million in 2018. This makes advanced TV a must have for broadcast advertisers. Even though OTT is growing every year the power is still TV. That’s why it’s critically important to have a multi-channel approach with all marketing efforts. Ironically, OTT viewers are just as engaged as the traditional TV viewer. But now, thanks to OTT, marketers and advertisers can zero in on audience needs.  Non-linear TV brings with it an audience that is more targeted and it comes complete with emerging interactive capabilities. The smart branders can create a truly state of the art advertising interaction.

One of the biggest ways we can facilitate such a scenario is by creating content that tells a consistent story about a product or service.  Content that is not just creative and laser sharp towards a specific audience, but also native to the platform.

Long gone are the days of cut downs and repurposing the same content to fit a platform– these messages will have to be presented in a way that takes into account the behavior and the mindset that a potential customer is in when they are considering you and your product. If you use TV to introduce your messages, you need to tell your entire story and be extremely focused on the one thing that will create the action you are looking for. If your customer sees you on Facebook, you must make the message short, engaging and actionable. If you are on Instagram, your message should be more beautiful, high quality and have a storyline thread that allows your customers to see different creatives selling the same product, so they are not bored. Because of algorithms and user behavior, they are going to be exposed to different creative executions at random. Effective video marketing in 2020 must have an offensive mentality and mix it up. When you do that, you will stand out from your competition.

Of course, OTT continues to grow.  But again, you have to take into consideration viewing habits and customers behaviors after they watch a particular show. People most likely have a specific show or series they are watching on a consistent basis. With that as a fact, not a hypothesis, if you continue to serve the same ad over and over again, your message will be the victim of ad fatigue and you will eventually be ignored. The cure for that for smart marketing in 2020 is multiple creative messages very focused on a target audience. Because targeting is so sophisticated, you have to be laser focused, not broad. We say the riches are in the niches–By having multiple creative executions, you eliminate ad fatigue. If you have done a really good job with your storytelling and created a thread  of messages that build off one another, you will win.

Effective marketing moving forward will utilize all of these different platforms and creative needs and continue to refine the message in all retargeting efforts.  Customized video assets are not a nice to have, they are a must.  They are also the price of admission if you are going to stand out and compete and eventually win.