You wouldn’t stream a cassette tape…
…so stop peddling old ad formats on social, writes Rachel Hatton
Perhaps this sounds like one of those ‘Piracy. It’s a crime’ ads from an old DVD, but it’s true.
You wouldn’t stream a cassette tape.
It wouldn’t work. So why are we still trying to push outdated ad formats on social?
Advertising is changing. Consumer habits are changing. We’re told this every day, yet the same people mistakes are made over and over. Advertising on social media is in dire need of modernisation, but that’s to achieve when those in charge have buried their heads in the sand.
The problem, and the solution, is threefold.
The three-second moving visual must die
It’s an old format in a new medium: the TV ad mentality. It’s not an effective way of doing things, yet it’s somehow become the accepted format. It’s lazy marketing.
It’s lazy because marketers have essentially tried to retrofit the TV ad into social. It’s been clumsily transposed and chopped-down, but it’s the same thing, the same story.
The thinking is in the right place: ‘We need to get people’s attention, fast!’. The execution less so.
We scroll through around ninety metres of social per day – this is where the three-second moving visual was born. Of panic and haste. The average watch time of a Facebook video ad is ten seconds, and given the recent social phenomenon of watching video without sound, it’s such a tough nut to crack.
But leaning on the past is no way to launch into the future. Marketers and brands have barely scratched the surface.
Real-time marketing is more than a buzzword
Of course, you can dismiss it as such. Along with ‘innovation’, ‘disruption’ and other serial offenders, it’s a term that’s been oversold industry-wide. But on the other hand, it’s the only way to truly complement the lightning-fast speed of social. Therefore, it needs to become a bigger part of the conversation.
Live videos are the obvious comparison to the three-second offender. After all, Facebook said viewers stick around three times longer for live content than traditional on-platform video.
Live content makes users feel a part of something. It’s active, and it’s the future – Cisco predicts that 80% of the world’s Internet traffic will be video by 2021.
But (before we panic again), good content doesn’t just have to be video.
Oreo’s real-time Twitter retort to the 2018 Superbowl blackout is a standout example. It was empathetic, current, playing on viewers’ emotions and search patterns. Designed, captioned and signed off within minutes, the simple “Power out? No problem. You can still dunk in the dark” message amassed over 10,000 retweets in an hour.
At OLIVER, we take a similar newsroom-style approach when necessary. Following the news that Article 50 was to be extended, we swiftly delivered our ‘Hard Breakfast? Soft Breakfast? No Breakfast?’ campaign for Marmite across print and social. It was an in-house job that went live within 24 hours, reading the mood of the nation and securing 80% positive social sentiment (which, let’s be honest, you wouldn’t expect from Brexit-themed creative). It wasn’t video, but it was super effective.
Collaboration with social platforms is vital
As mentioned before, we’ve only just scratched the surface. Social ads could be so much more effective – new platforms are popping up all the time, with TikTok dominating last year. There’s potential to really understand how people interact with the platform and shape new experiences.
It’s not about reinventing the wheel – it’s about inventing new modes of transportation. To achieve this, both marketers and social giants have to work together. Otherwise, it’s just a guessing game.
(Unless someone figures out how to effectively stream cassettes to wireless speakers, that is.)
Rachel Hatton is chief strategy officer at OLIVER