Caption: At CES, LUMA Partners analyzed winners/losers of streaming.

There’s been a lot of buzz about the potential winners and losers of the streaming wars. Long-term, Galloway predicts Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+ will be the winners due to their access to capital and distribution*. But, who are the marketers that will win in this new media?

The entire industry is closely watching to see which streaming platforms will end up on top, but curiosity is also peaking about the ad formats that will be available on some of the platforms. And, an increasingly pressing question is... how do marketers best reach consumers with commercial messages on this new playing field?

Some marketers are already including CTV/OTT in their campaigns, but for many the use case may simply be reach extension to follow viewers to the new platforms. This is an effort to maintain the audience integrity of their broadcast brand-building campaigns on television, and that’s certainly a valid application. However, this means the industry may still be missing the boat on the opportunity to tap into the targeting and personalization capabilities available with these new platforms.

Traditional media-driven marketing approaches including “funnels” and allocating media dollars according to media channel (TV, Digital, Print, OOH, etc.) will evolve. In the new order, media buying is increasingly based on individuals and their characteristics and behaviors that put them in the target audience for a brand’s product or service. Media buying must be dynamic in order to follow them across streaming services and other platforms, yes, but also to be relevant at each step along the way.

What does this mean in practice?

First, think about our industry’s propensity to think in silos. The industry tends to think of addressable TV, connected TV/over the top (CTV/OTT), and digital video separately, but they are all targetable, premium video platforms and should not be approached separately. When you separate planning and budget, the risk is hitting the same consumer with the same advertisement multiples times. Holistic planning, buying and measurement is now a requirement to effectively engage consumers and prevent waste, and this can only be managed by fluid budgets that operate outside of silos.

Second, let’s think about the balance between brand building and direct response. Because CTV/OTT is targetable media and flexible for personalization, people question what will happen to the mass, brand storytelling for which traditional TV is primarily used. The reality is that CTV/OTT is simply becoming the new TV, the way large segments of consumers access premium TV content. As we see by its use for reach extension, CTV/OTT is a medium through which mass brand messaging can continue going forward. The fact that it is more targetable and measurable than “old TV” enables marketers to elevate and personalize their messaging when appropriate.  So, it can be the best of both worlds. CTV/OTT are traditional TV’s complement or substitute depending on goals and target audience.

Finally, industry players including marketers and their agencies are thinking about how to evolve their organizations to support dynamic media buying in practice. Programmatic technologies provide the capability to process data and action media buying on insights dynamically, but often the organizational challenges are steeper mountains to climb than developing the technical capabilities. And there is also the issue of knowing what data is relevant.

More data isn’t necessarily better; winners will put the right data and technology to work for the right reasons. Marketers who can do this the quickest and most effectively will be the additional winners of the streaming wars.

Originally published by GroupM for CES 2020

Short video messages between six and 15 seconds are playing an increasingly important role in marketing, especially when advertisers leverage omnichannel strategies. They help increase brand lift, recall, and intent to purchase.

In a study by Facebook, six-second ads delivered an 11% increase in estimated ad recall, a 12% increase in return on ad spend, and a 271% increase in video completion rate over 30-second ads.

Further research from Google and Freewheel also highlights that advertisers can reach and influence consumers who are increasingly engaging with media by leveraging shorter video formats on mobile devices.

Fortunately for marketers, it's getting easier to integrate short-form video into current media strategies and capture those all-important moments of consumer attention thanks to advancements in programmatic advertising.

Many uses

Short-form videos can be leveraged for a variety of campaign objectives, including:

• Increasing reach – finding audiences (such as millennials or Generation Z) that may be less accessible in other formats.
• Reinforcing branding and messaging to consumers who have previously been exposed to messaging on other screens.
• Creating sequenced stories across those screens to help guide consumers along the journey from awareness to consideration and intent.
• Delighting customers with less interruptive messages in shorter-form content environments.
• Increasing video completion rates and cutting down on abandonment, improving the cost-effectiveness of media budgets.
• Engaging consumers on the web and in-app. (Apps account for over 90% of internet time on smartphones, according to eMarketer.)

When used by themselves, short-form videos can be key drivers of awareness and intent. However, it is when they are deployed in concert with other channels as part of an omnichannel video strategy that they become force-multipliers.

How is this accomplished? Here are four important best practices for managing short-form video as part of an omnichannel video strategy:

1. Think mobile

Advertisers need to reach people where they are most active and engaged. 77% of Americans own a smartphone and will spend an average of three hours per day on their device. For one in five Americans, their smartphone is their only access to the internet, and people who only access the internet through their mobile device are significantly more active online than those who access it through a desktop device, according to Pew Research.

Unsurprisingly, consumers prefer that any interruptions on mobile screens are short.

2. Leverage new technology

Consumers accept longer ads in long-form programming on desktop and connected TV players. Marketers are using that to their advantage by sequencing longer ads with short-form video insertions on smaller screens.

Because of advancements in technology (such as device graphs), we can make connections between the household and a connected device as well as with mobile IDs and cookies.

That allows us to understand who a user is across the devices they're leveraging and if a user has completed an ad on their connected TV. With that data, we could then retarget the user with a shorter, six-second ad on their mobile phone.

3. Think creatively

Pre-roll or interstitial messaging can include short-form videos combined with interactive elements that allow consumers to engage and learn more about the brand or to return to their media. Advertisers and consumers both win in this scenario, with interest-driven engagement and/or a full completion of the ad.

The Google research shows that six-second videos effectively tell stories while positively engaging consumers. This is especially true when a story is created to be told in sequence across both long- and short-form media.

Advertisers can now also leverage programmatic creative with short-form videos, targeting chosen segments with the creative elements proven to be most effective.

4. Test and iterate

Marketers can use six-second videos to drive toward desired business outcomes, shifting budget to the areas that work as learnings increase. We encourage a "test-and-learn" mindset to capture new opportunities, while using budgets effectively in the new technologies.

As technologies evolve, the strategies with which advertisers go to market should evolve with them. To achieve the best outcomes, we must work with clear goals and sound strategy. We must also maintain a progressive perspective that responds to consumer behavior. This is best accomplished through constant vigilance and a commitment to flexibility as market conditions change.