Sarah Sheeran
Head of Digital
Whilst taking down the tinsel and putting the Christmas jumpers away for another year, we’ve decided to beat those January blues by looking ahead to what 2014 might bring and reminisce on what a year 2013 was for video marketing. The expansion of high speed broadband nationwide, the increasing ubiquity of smartphones and the meteoric rise of content marketing meant video marketing was bigger than ever.
As purveyors of all things video in the digital world, here’s our thoughts on the hottest video marketing trends of the year ahead…
1. Mobile video
Over 50% of Irish people now own a smartphone, and with 4G roll-out now a reality in 2014, mobile video is snowballing. We saw a 25% rise in the number of our clients’ videos streamed on phones in 2013 and this stat is only heading in one direction. Why is this so exciting for marketers? Mobile is more personal than any other device and video marketing on mobile brings your content deeper into people’s lives. Whether they are shopping, bored on the bus or showing a friend something cool in the pub. 2014 will also be the year when real-time mobile video marketing really takes off – before long you won’t be able to walk down Grafton Street without getting real time offer alerts on your phone to entice you into stores, restaurants and bars. You heard it here first… !
2. Augmented Reality
Augmented reality (AR) is getting a lot of marketers in a frenzy, but the really exciting thing is that this type of technology is no longer the preserve of those with mega budgets. What’s got our cogs turning is the potential to combine AR with video. This year, delegates at a conference could hold their smartphones up to a video on a large screen and using visual recognition technology be taken straight to a data capturing registration page on their phones. By holding a smartphone up to a print or billboard ad could customers could watch a live action video of the advert customised to their location. The possibilities are endless and still very novel. Our advice is get their first before everyone starts doing it!
3. Authenticity
This trend spans the spectrum of marketing channels, but nowhere is it more apparent than in video. Grand corporate messages are being replaced by real people telling it as it is, talking heads now share the room with case studies. It’s not flash, showy or uppity, it’s real. Big corporates are giving employees at every level of the organisation a chance to say their thing on camera. Even kids are getting a look in. Need convincing? This is what the Independent had to say recently about our video case study of florist Dorothy Margey for eircom Wholesale, screened at the Business Journalism Awards.
“Business reporters are a cynical lot – so it was interesting to watch the whole room be charmed by an advert.” Read more here
What could warm the hearts of a bunch of world weary hacks? Watch the ad here.
Here’s to an even bigger year for video in 2014!
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