Right year, wrong trend

Forget trying to celebrate yet another ‘year of mobile’ says Videology’s Anne de Kerckhove, and in 2013 raise your glass to the year of cross device consumption.

You know that feeling when you’ve been looking for something for ages; say a great deal on an iPhone 5. And then they bring out an iPhone 6: disappointment, frustration and resignation.

To be frank that’s exactly how you should be feeling if you’ve been searching for evidence that the increasing amount of time we spend using mobiles is showing up in ad spend.

For much of the last decade the hunt for the Year of Mobile has been like the search for gold at the end of the rainbow. Never found but always sought and consistently used as the justification for more mobile advertising.

But now searchers, your quest is at an end because consumer behaviour has changed. Mobile is no longer a standalone device, but one that consumers pick up as and when it suits them.

At other moments, devices such as tablets, PCs or TVs perform the same function. Mobile has become part of a media consumption continuum that stretches from TV, to PC, to tablet, to online. These devices have ceased to have lives that are independent of each other, but have become merely a part of the same consumer experience.

This is not simply an early adopter trend but mass-market behaviour. Data from IAB Europe MediaScope shows that almost half of UK adults – 24.7 million people – use three screens.

One of the key drivers for this trend is video, consumers are keen to watch wherever and whenever they are: at home with the giant TV, on the sofa with the tablet or commuting home from the office with the mobile.

That desire is being sated via improved WiFi (Vodafone offering connectivity at London Underground stations and O2 providing calling and texting via a very canine-acting feline) and faster mobile networks, both trends that continue to go onward and upward.

According to the Yankee Group, expansion of 4G connections will see the UK rise from just under 5 million this year to nearly 25 million by 2016. At the same time, Cisco predicts that mobile data traffic will rise from 30,224 TB per month this year to 265,412 TB per month by 2017.

The ability to access video across multiple devices in multiple locations is changing (and getting even easier), changing the video landscape. TV is no longer King, but first among equals. The question is no longer whether video budgets should be split, but how best to split them for a specific target audience and call to action.

It’s true that live TV – sports and talent shows – remains a powerful driver for traditional TV audiences but even there, consumption can be delayed by DVRs or accompanied by second-screening behaviour, giving brands more opportunities to be part of the message and engage consumers.

Our research – based on more than 500 million impressions in the UK – into the impact of video convergence illustrates this point. Online video alone delivered an impressive 33% average lift in brand recall among consumers who had seen the campaigns, compared to those who hadn’t seen any advertising.

However, three-screen campaigns boosted the same metric an average of 90% higher, compared to online video alone. So in the year of cross device consumption, advertisers need to take three key steps:

First they need to consider the context in which the message is likely to be consumed. Content needs to be adapted both to the audience and to the device (you can’t simply use the TV ad on a mobile or tablet, it’s much less powerful).

Second they need to consider their targeting. Reaching the right people, on the right device, at the right time is critical for effective video advertising. It’s now possible to use best practice techniques to follow consumers using cross device frequency capping and media spend optimisation across complementary devices to amplify TV impact.

At the same time, new digital metrics allow integrated planning from TV to digital. Tools such as Nielsen OCR and comScore vCE enable brands to ensure every penny they spend across the new video landscape is impactful.

Finally they need to consider the power of their content. We know that audio visual messages are incredibly powerful, that’s why TV advertising has been so successful for the last six decades but creative messages, formats and lengths also need to be rethought to fit the channel, the screen and the viewing environment.

Ultimately the greatest impact will be achieved when brands deliver engaging content.

Anne de Kerckhove is managing director EMEA of Videology.