1. Today's Video Advertising Market Landscape
According to the study done by Cisco, around 80% of mobile data traffic will be ruled by videos by 2022.
I am sure many of you have had the experience of getting addicted to Netflix or Amazon Prime especially due to COVID-19. User viewing apps will be distributed across various different app platforms on mobile going forward.
One of them which has been getting a lot of attention lately is Facebook Watch. According to the most recent data, it has grown rapidly into a video media with 1.25 billion viewers per month and is quickly chasing after YouTube.
2. What are Facebook In-Stream Ads?
Facebook In-stream Ads are video ads that are displayed within publisher video content on Facebook and generally range from 5-15’s however longer form placements are also accepted.
Ads are either skippable or not by the user depending on the ad setting.
Since Facebook In Stream ads appear in the same video format to users who are watching the video, they offer an ideal environment to drive upper funnel brand objectives such as Awareness.
The creative considerations for creating an in-stream ad are as follows:
Facebook In-Stream Ads are expected to accelerate as Facebook Watch grows and Kaizen Ad has a vast knowledge and experience in this area.
3. Similarities and best practices with YouTube, the leading video media
Kaizen Ad is the official creative partner of Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. We have been hacking the best practices of mobile video advertising for many years.
Based on our experience, we believe that there are multiple similarities between Facebook In-stream Ads and YouTube, as well as the viewing behavior.
I'm sure many of you have seen video ads on YouTube. A 6 second video ad at the beginning of a video and the video ad longer than 6 seconds which is actually the in-stream video ad on YouTube.
Sample: Big Fish Games (US), Mercari (JP), Pokoccha (JP)
The difference between bumper and TrueView can be easily mixed up.
Sample: YouTube creative sample (JP)
Here are some best practices for skippable mobile video ads on in-stream
Capture attention within first 2-3 seconds
Mobile video ad best practices applied with fast-paced transitions and large text
Custom 2D animation and motion graphics to support the main message
4. One of major factors attributed to performance is really the "sound".
Based on Kaizen Ads experience with YouTube, we discovered that "sound" is an important factor in advertising effectiveness.
Most of users are watching YouTube and Facebook Watch turning on the sound. So adding not only sound but also voice-over to the video can make a world of a difference in terms of effectiveness of the advertisement.
Refer to the following examples to get a better idea of how it works
Version A below is the sound-only video and Version B is the video with the voice-over added.
Version A: creative sample with BGM (JP)
Version B: creative sample with Narration (JP)
Which one captured your heart as a user?
As you can imagine, it was probably B that had a better advertising effect.
This means that sound is also very important for Facebook In-stream Ads.
5. How to further maximize the effectiveness of video advertising?
As far as maximizing the effectiveness of a video ad, it is essential to produce different patterns of video ads so you can compare their performance.
Rather than polishing and perfecting one single video, we recommend creating multiple video patterns and narrowing down the winning one based on performance and the results.
In the following case study of Baskin Robbins Ice Cream in Japan, we created videos based on three personas: "women who like ice cream," "women with children," and "men with children," and conducted A/B testing within the same campaign.
Version A: creative for women who like ice-cream (JP)
Version B: creative for women who has family and kid (JP)
Version C: creative for men who has family and kid (JP)
The results are kept a secret! But we are continuing to create a deep dive based on the personas that performed the best out of the 3 videos.
Creativity is a relentless pursuit. However, there are best practices and framework to examine the effectiveness of video as which I wanted to share with you today.
If you are interested, please contact Kaizen Ad for more information.