Dive Brief:
- Marketers are warming up to the potential behind live-stream video via services such as Periscope and Facebook Live video.
- Live-stream video offers marketers two opportunities to provide audiences an authentic experience with brands. The "anything goes" nature of live video allows brands to be more playful, and video gives brands a chance to get the message out about a new product or event in a way that creates excitement and urgency in the audience.
- So far Facebook has taken a cautious approach to advertising on Facebook Live. Meanwhile Twitter has been selling promoted tweets to advertise live-streaming video on Periscope, the live-stream platform the micro-blogging site scooped up in 2015.
Dive Insight:
Target is one brand that has been actively using live-stream video, leveraging Periscope for a Lilly Pulitzer fashion event in New York, and Periscope, Facebook Live and Snapchat to promote a live commercial featuring Gwen Stefani during the recent Grammy awards.
Kristi Argyilan, Target’s senior vice-president of marketing, told the Financial Times that “the requirements of marketing have evolved in the last five to seven years, away from paying for slick packaging for messaging to force on the consumer." She added that it was important for brands to present themselves authentically and for customers to want to engage in a dialog with brands.
Even though Facebook is keeping ads off of Facebook Live, at least for now, it is bringing the video ad format to its Instant Articles app, according to the Wall Street Journal. In the change to the app’s policy for publishers, both autoplay (with the sound disabled) and user-initiated video ads can be placed in Instant Articles, and publishers can include pre-roll ads before editorial video content.
Video has become top of mind for brand marketers and publishers alike in the past year. With more brands testing the video and live stream waters, there will be more use-case scenarios to compare from. And as they see more opportunities and returns on their investments on the channel, the category will likely continue to gain a greater share of marketing budgets.
