Videos Wars: the fight for your attention

As video continues to develop at speed, the7stars’ Will Jellicoe asks what this means for content, consumers and brands

The competition for the digital video crown is becoming a rivalry of Game of Thrones proportions. The battle for attention is ferocious, whether it’s on-demand (Netflix), Semi-Live (Snapchat Stories) or Real-Live (Facebook Live) video. The digital giants are fighting for views on two fronts; technological innovation and original content creation.

The most recent battle lines are drawn by way of YouTube diversifying to become many YouTubes, each devoted to specific niches.

Facebook paying internet video stars to encourage experimentation with Live video. Amazon has announced a new service called Amazon Video Direct. Netflix has scheduled $5bn investment in original content. Snapchat has more than doubled video consumption in less than a year. And spying this growth, Instagram introduced Instagram Stories, a near perfect copy of Snapchat’s own ‘stories’.

YouTube has held the digital video crown ever since the video hosting site was sold to Google for $1.67bn in 2007, only two years after its conception, but today considered a relative bargain.

By launching three new apps – Gaming, Kids and Music – it aims to capitalise on distinct categories with large growing audiences, and to cater to viewers’ different ways of using YouTube. The format engineered for YouTube Kids is designed to keep children immersed in video for hours, featuring a simple interface and expanded parental controls.

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A focus on specific interests allows YouTube to filter its abundance of video – estimates suggest there are over one billion videos on the site – whilst also defending its position in relevant categories against Amazon-owned Twitch in Gaming, subscription streaming services in Music and a host of TV broadcasters for Kids.

Meanwhile, Facebook has set its sights not just on being a player in video, but owning video as a content experience. When Zuckerburg realised live video could attract ten times more engagement than regular videos, the company went full bore to dominate a market that Twitter had opened up with Periscope, overtaking Meerkat in the process.

At the end of July Facebook recorded second quarter revenues rose by about 59% to $6.44 billion and profits increased to $2.1 billion. Mobile is driving this, accounting for approximately 84% of ad revenue, up from approximately 76% of ad revenue in the second quarter of 2015.

Facebook Live is most keen on converting Snapchat’s teenage audience. When Snapchat decided not to take up Facebook’s $3bn acquisition offer in 2013, its self-assurance was backed by the vertical video provider being the choice of video consumption for 18-24s, with over 10bn global daily views.

The latest salvo from Facebook Inc. appeared at the beginning of August in the form of Instagram Stories and introduced on Instagram’s blog as “a new feature that lets you share all the moments of your day, not just the ones you want to keep on your profile. As you share multiple photos and videos, they appear together in a slideshow format: your story”.

If this all sounded a little familiar to Snapchat users, right down to the videos disappearing after 24 hours, that’s because Facebook has brazenly copied (stolen) the Snapchat setup. And when it’s clear to all then it’s probably not that surprising to hear Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom, in an interview with TechCrunch, says that Snapchat “deserve all the credit”.

Snapchat appears to have weathered this barrage, at least initially, with reports from App Annie, a third-party mobile app tracking firm that measures app downloads and engagement on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, claiming “Instagram Stories has not made a measurable impact on engagement since the feature launched“.

As the battle develops, we’ll see more platforms diversifying to engage viewers, innovating to deliver immersive experiences, and investing in quality original content. It’s not only viewers who will benefit from these developments; there is value in it for advertisers as well.

Brands will be able to reach engaged viewers with highly targeted ads, as audiences become more segmented according to their specific interests and viewing habits.

However, with an array of video touchpoints, there is greater emphasis on advertisers to create bespoke video content that is suited to its environment and the audience. Companies will need to focus on optimising video content for mobile consumption, including developing video experience innovations such as mobile vertical video and 360-degree film.

Cisco recently forecast that video will account for 80% of global internet traffic by 2019. As digital reaches a level of ubiquity the fight for your attention affects all visual platforms as advertisers and internet companies alike continue to promote video as the current belle of the ball.

Whatever the outlet and whatever the guise of video, be it ads, content, film, vlogs, 360 VR, live etc. the power is lost if the audience is not interested. To adapt the Howard Gossage quote: “Nobody views ads. People view what interests them. Sometimes that’s an ad”.

Will Jellicoe is a strategist at the7stars