Poetry over Prose | The changing landscape of digital advertising
A look into creating mobile-optimized content for Facebook and Instagram
Change:
Things change. Habits are perhaps its biggest driver - from improving your posture to changing our collective values as a society. To remain relevant it is important to study our habits, learn from them and incorporate them into our practice.
“The green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm.”
Confucius
How it pertains to brands
Cultural changes are part and parcel of brands, so (in the marketing world) keeping up with trends is synonymous with success. Attention span today is in short supply, however content is not. This disparity should be seen as an opportunity for brands to stand out in front of the noise. How? By tailoring creative to each platform’s best practices.
Facebook saw that most of its traffic is coming from smartphones and its users are sifting through content at blazing speeds. They responded by launching MobileWorks, a program dedicated to reformatting and re-envisioning the standard campaign films of their clients to help maximize their ad spend with more efficient content. The videos are reshaped from standard horizontal video (16:9) to vertical (4:5) to maximize real estate on the platform, can be viewed without sound and are re-cut to reveal its message sooner. They also added a resource called Blueprint to educate creators and brands on the best practices for sponsored content and details how its users are engaging with content. I encourage anyone to study the site to get tips on how to successfully advertise on Facebook and Instagram. We at Tema have been fortunate enough to partner with MobileWorks and Genero to successfully redesign several campaigns for companies like SongPop2, West Coast University and Walmart Mexico. If you need help creating new mobile-first campaigns or optimizing existing assets, feel free to call on us!
“Every major brand has a TV commercial, but not every TV commercial is optimized for the mobile environment. Most TV commercials have a linear story arc revealing brand or benefit only at the end. If the scrolling speed of mobile is averaging at 1.7 seconds, we must fundamentally rethink the first few seconds and capture attention quickly with our most arresting frames.”
May Seow, global story director at Facebook Creative Shop.
Death to 30 seconds commercials?
There will be a place for the classic commercial spot as long as Television and Film is a thing. But as media consumption on phones continues to rise, I think it’s necessary to pay attention to consumer habits and devise a strategy accordingly. Why tell a long drawn out story when a delicately-crafted, succinct haiku would make more sense? By taking a multi-dimensional approach, the effectiveness and over all success of your brand messaging will skyrocket. Yay!