nteractive video is not just a flashy gimmick for advertisers to temporarily gush over. It’s going to be a big part of advertising going forward and needs to be taken seriously. As of October 2015, the majority of marketers believe interactive video will be more important in the future.
On top of being novel and very neat, interactive video holds significant benefits for both the consumer and the advertiser.
Consumers benefit from a more relevant and engaging experience, and advertisers benefit from the ability to learn how consumers are interacting with their creative.Bryan Segal, Managing Director, Videology Canada
Interactive video is better across the board for people in terms of attention, learning and format preference as detailed in the following chart.
Digital spending is on the rise and advertisers need to take advantage of that with the tools at hand.
With digital ad spends now outpacing TV, it’s time clients get access to the tools needed to truly take advantage of how consumers are spending their time.”Petar Bozinovski, President, Contobox
Here are six reasons you should be using interactive video.
1. INTERACTIVE VIDEO KEEPS VIEWERS IN LEAN-IN MODE
Instead of just watching a video passively, interactive videos have consumers constantly in lean-in mode by compelling them to click on tabs, play games, shop, find stores near them and whatever else a creative brain can come up with. This additional engagement is great at getting consumers to connect with a brand and lead them down the purchase funnel.
2. MORE DATA, MORE INSIGHTS
With standard video you can usually only track time spent, views and clickthrough rates. With interactive video you can track more engagement data because essentially every interactive feature is a data point. This leads to great learnings that brands can activate on.Farrukh Gaffarov VP, Technology & Development, Contobox
Interactive videos offer many more points of interaction to track and turn into useful data for your company. Find out which products users viewed the most or which story-line option at the beginning of the video was the most popular. A simple choice at the start of the video, such as having the user pick a car color, can give you valuable insights about what creative to use with the rest of your campaign. Especially useful is the call-to-action data that demonstrates real intent-to-purchase.
3. YOU CAN SUPERSIZE YOUR ENGAGEMENT TIME
“I can create a three-minute video, but I can potentially get 10 minutes of engagement time, because people are going to be reading an article, checking out an infographic or looking at a real-time stock chart.”Andy Regal, senior executive producer of WSJ video
Interacting with so many features in a video leads to a lot of good things, including lengthy engagement time. In a standard video, there’s a limit to how long the user can spend watching it (the length of the video), but interactive video allows for an indefinite amount of engagement time with amusing and helpful features.
Games can inspire an individual to lose an entire afternoon in the ad. While 360 video can keep viewers re-watching the same scenes to see them from a different perspective like in the Air Canada example below:
4. THOSE ELUSIVE MILLENNIALS LOVE IT
The elusive millennial audience is everywhere and nowhere all at once, and they’re evolving with the trends. We wanted to go where they are. Interactive video was appealing in its ability to offer consumers the freedom to create their own fashion journey.Jill Orsini Advertising Director, Cotton Incorporated
Millennials grew up with the internet and are largely experts at ignoring typical static advertising. They do, however enjoy novelty and the experiences which you get with interactive video. With an endless variety of compelling ways to interact with an ad, interactive video is a good way to communicate with those hard-to-reach millennial consumers.
5. RELEVANCE
In offering a variety of possible interactions interactive video makes ads more relevant to users. They can choose tabs that interest them, follow characters from shows they like or ignore that info and go straight to browsing shoppable items. Consumers get to choose what’s most relevant to them in a way that’s only possible in interactive video.
These interactions are tracked and can be used to personalize the ad experience the next time the user interacts with the ad. Although users are not in love with the industry’s current attempts at personalization, they do like the overall concept. According to a February 2017 survey from Adobe Digital Insights, less than one-third of respondents said they did not prefer personalized ads. By contrast, more than than half of those under 50 said they prefer personalized messages.
6. MAKING INTERACTIVE VIDEO DOESN’T HAVE TO BE COMPLICATED
So what’s holding marketers back? The following chart breaks down the main fears marketers have.
Time concerns and technical problems lead the way. But there are easy ways to get around most of these fears. Interactive Videos are less time consuming than before as with a little creativity you can transform your standard video assets into interactive videos. For example this Contobox campaign was created out of standard video assets with interaction points added so the user could continue the video:
And in terms of integrating your interactive video with other platforms and getting it on mobile devices there are more and more partners out there who can help. Our product Contobox Video lets advertisers deliver interactive video through in-stream and out-stream video advertising. Call that a shameless self-promotional plug but we really can help.