A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE

A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE
TO BRANDED VIDEO
KEY SOLUTIONS TO TOP BRANDED VIDEO CHALLENGES
EVERY ADVERTISER NEEDS TO KNOW
Branded video is already over a third of brands’ digital video budgets and is expected to grow
10% in 2016 based on findings from AOL’s 6th annual State of the Video Industry Report.
Though advertisers see branded video as a key tactic to develop emotional connections with audiences
through sight, sound and motion, research reveals they do face tough challenges.
While the obstacles range from cost to scale, it is clear that connecting emotion and technology is
key to overcoming each. To make the most of branded video’s potential, brands must tell their stories
as part of an engagement continuum—an immersive content cycle built on meaningful insights and
powered by leading ad technology.
Learn how to solve the top challenges in branded video with the key solutions every advertiser
needs to know in this guide.
A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO BRANDED VIDEO
02
CHALLENGE #1
PRICE/COST
OF ADVERTISERS
BELIEVE THAT PRICE/COST
IS A CHALLENGE.
SOLUTION: CUSTOMIZED CONTENT PACKAGES DON’T HAVE TO COME
AT A CUSTOM CONTENT PRICE
As it stands today, branded video can be an expensive investment for advertisers. With custom
creative for each campaign, brands often invest high budgets for human resources, talent deals,
production costs in addition to longer timelines to market. While big custom programs with top
name talent and producers create deep engagement with audiences with high impact, there are
other ways for brands to create emotional connections through content without such high
CONTENT SOLUTIONS
LIKE CURATION AND
PACKAGING HELP ALL
BRANDS COMMUNICATE
THEIR STORIES IN A WAY
THAT IS LESS RESOURCE
INTENSIVE BY ALIGNING
WITH PUBLISHER CONTENT.
barriers to entry. Content solutions like curation and packaging help all brands communicate
their stories in a way that is less resource intensive by aligning with publisher content. Brands
without deep pockets can use these content solutions to align their brand story with publisher
content in a way that feels authentic to the brand, while brands with big custom programs can
also use them to supplement their campaigns and extend their message even further.
A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO BRANDED VIDEO
04
CHALLENGE #2
ROI VS OTHER MEDIA
OF ADVERTISERS
BELIEVE THAT ROI VS OTHER
MEDIA IS A CHALLENGE.
SOLUTION: EMOTION DRIVES TRANSACTION
Advertisers know that some tactics are meant to drive efficient acquisition while others prime
your audience by developing a connection with them that ultimately leads to buying. Branded
video falls into the latter category: communicating your brand story through valuable, engaging
66% OF CONSUMER
ONLINE SHOPPING
MOMENTS HAVE
AN EMOTIONAL
COMPONENT, AND ARE
NOT INTENT BASED.
content that connects with audiences to leave them with a better impression of your brand.
In fact, 66% of consumer online shopping moments have an emotional component, and are not
intent based.1 Emotions play a powerful role in building brand certainty before consumers are
in market to buy and greatly influence their purchase decisions.
However, advertisers often need to prove the ROI that ultimately is driven by branded video to
their CFOs in order to validate funds spent and sustain those resources or risk shifting to other
channels. Custom content effectiveness research helps advertisers prove the impact of branded
video campaigns on the emotional connections with consumers and shift in perception, including
affinity, interest and consideration. When comparing to other media, like TV, advertisers must
also consider attention in addition to reach and frequency metrics to measure the true impact
of branded video on consumer attitudes.
A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO BRANDED VIDEO
06
CHALLENGE #3
QUALITY OF CONTENT
OF ADVERTISERS
BELIEVE THAT THE
QUALITY OF CONTENT
IS A CHALLENGE.
61% OF CONSUMERS
DON’T CARE IF
CONTENT IS CREATED
BY A BRAND AS LONG
AS IT’S GOOD.
SOLUTION: INSIGHTS DONE RIGHT
Quality is a main challenge for advertisers and rightfully so—quality makes or breaks your
branded video efforts. In fact, 61% of consumers don’t care if content is created by a brand
as long as it’s good.2 So how do brands create good content?
Quality of production is important, but quality of the story itself it critical to its success.
Content itself must be fully consumer centric: the goal is to add value for consumers in
some way rather than exclusively promoting what brand wants to communicate. To
accomplish this, brands need a complete understanding of audiences including their motivations
and expectations for viewing video. With this information, brands can adjust their video topics
and messaging to provide value to consumers in an authentic way. For example, entertainment
is a major influence for why people watch video, but other motivations also exist including to feel
good or stay updated socially.3 Brands should develop a portfolio of video content to provide
value to consumers in multiple mindset to resonate with a larger portion of their audience.
With an understanding of human insights combined with pre-testing techniques and media
analytics, advertisers can create video that is strategically programmed to resonate with their
audience rather than shooting in the dark. Branded video rooted in insights enables advertisers
to connect deeper with audiences in a way that’s more relevant for them.
A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO BRANDED VIDEO
08
CHALLENGE #4
AUDIENCE & CAMPAIGN MEASUREMENT
OF ADVERTISERS
BELIEVE THAT AUDIENCE &
CAMPAIGN MEASUREMENT
IS A CHALLENGE.
SOLUTION: BY THE NUMBERS
Not only do you need audience insights at the start of your branded video campaign to develop
effective content ideas, advertisers also need audience and campaign reporting throughout the
duration of the campaign. Today, many media vendors provide social analytics through an easy
access dashboard that media planners and clients can view in real time. This sounds exciting,
but the social journey of a piece of content is only a snapshot of its true performance. Promotion
TRULY USEFUL CUSTOM
CONTENT DASHBOARDS
MUST PROVIDE AN
ALL-INCLUSIVE LOOK
AT HOW THE CAMPAIGN
IS PERFORMING USING
ACTIONABLE DIGITAL
ANALYTICS.
heavily influences how viral a piece of content is. Was this content shared on the publisher or
brand’s social media accounts when others were not? Was it promoted on the home page?
Reporting based on social reach exclusively doesn’t show advertisers the true impact of their
content on consumers.
Truly useful custom content dashboards must provide an all-inclusive look at how the campaign
is performing using actionable digital analytics, including metrics like traffic, social efficiency
scores, video completion rates, and engaged time. These are used as intermediate sign posts
to determine if advertisers are on the right track to a successful brand building effort, which
should be paired with custom content effectiveness reporting to measure the brand impact of
the campaign. This measurement helps advertisers understand how the campaign performed
against their KPIs, and which content and ads performed the best, in order to determine any
areas for improvement and opportunity.
A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO BRANDED VIDEO
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CHALLENGE #5
SCALE
OF ADVERTISERS
BELIEVE THAT SCALE
IS A CHALLENGE.
TO BEST BENEFIT
ADVERTISERS AND
DRIVE THE SUCCESS
OF A CAMPAIGN,
PUBLISHERS MUST
USE THE TECHNOLOGY
AVAILABLE TODAY TO
DISTRIBUTE BRANDED
VIDEO AT SCALE
THROUGH LARGER
REACH NETWORKS.
SOLUTION: DISTRIBUTION AT LARGE
Distributing branded video content at scale to the right audiences is another challenge for
advertisers today. The root of the problem exists on the publisher end. Currently, the majority
of branded video publishers distribute assets through their owned and operated sites and
owned social media, while only 33% of publishers scale branded video through video distribution
networks.4 Without a video network, discovery of the branded video is very limited, significantly
hindering ability to scale. To best benefit advertisers and drive the success of a campaign,
publishers must use the technology available today to distribute branded video at scale
through larger reach networks. If a publisher partner does not work with a distribution platform,
advertisers can license their video and partner with external partners for scale. Even further,
programmatic video and programmatic creative distribution enables advertisers to extend
their branded video to targeted audiences at scale using advertisers’ own data, third party or
even real time user interaction data. This also unlocks optimizations by content and audiences
against pre-determined KPIs to maximize results. Instead of reaching a fragment of your target
audience through exclusive owned and operated distribution, advertisers can reach all of them
with the right distribution technology.
CONCLUSION
Fusing content with powerful data and technology transforms branded video campaigns and
fuels deeper connections with consumers. By expanding custom with affordable content solutions,
measuring results and ROI through advanced analytics, enhancing quality through deeper
human and media insights, and scaling with distribution partners, advertisers can unleash the
power of branded video to drive deep engagement.
A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO BRANDED VIDEO
12
ABOUT
Partner Studio by AOL empowers brands to connect with consumers like never
before by fusing the emotion of content with the efficacy of technology.
SOURCES
1
AOL, Unconditional Shopping, Oct 2015
2
AOL, The Alchemy of Connection, Mar 2015
3
AOL, Content Segmentation, Nov 2015
4
AOL, 2015 State of the Video Industry Report, Oct 2015
©2015 AOL. All rights reserved.