Marshall McLuhan’s famous quote still holds true, today: the medium conveys the message. So what are the marketing strategies – of newsprint ads, paper fliers – of the past communicating? What changes when we incorporate video? Read on to learn why you should be using video in your attempts to reach new customers — and if you already are, read on to find out why you should double-down on your investment.


Why does Kellogg’s, a company with over 1,000 employees and 8 manufacturing plants spend 70% of its advertising budget on YouTube?

When we use video-based marketing we are communicating movement, motion, and the nuances of life not caught in an image or text. Industries and sectors can change quickly, and the motion implied by video helps subconsciously communicate this. Beyond the heady intellectual reasons to use video there’s also a slew of pragmatic and real world reasons:

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Return on Investment (ROI)

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Radio is great for touting 12:1 conversions on advertising dollars spent to dollars earned–at least according to a study by Westwood One, a radio company in NYC. Conflict of interests aside the ROI of video-based advertising is both more potent and harder to quantify. Why is this?
  • It can be used across multiple platforms: TV, as well as the Internet and all its derivatives (Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Linked-in, Etc. Etc.) – this is a strength AND a weakness, as it makes ROI calculations more difficult
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  • People are watching more video, all the time: Youtube reports that viewing data DOUBLES every year, with users uploading 65k and watching 100M videos a day, and that complicates attribution of where and when they saw the ads
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In spite of this, 83% of marketers who use video say this medium gives them a good return on investment4 , and 87% of businesses are now using video as a marketing tool–up from only 63% in 2017. More specifically:

  • 88% of businesses who’ve used Instagram Video for marketing say it was successful4;
  • 85% say the same of Facebook Video;
  • 84% say the same of LinkedIn Video;
  • 80% say the same of Youtube;
  • 74% say the same of Facebook Live Video.

So video-based marketing is good enough for Kelloggs and many other small to large companies, despite concrete ROI numbers. Part of this may be because…

Video Has its Own Built-in Analytics!

Where does someone’s mind go while they are listening to a radio ad? For which parts are they attentive and when do they tune out? What is their activity before and after the advert? These are just some of the kinds of insights you can get with video-based marketing on a number of platforms. Rather than spending $$ to poll your demographic to find out how effective your advertising campaign was, you can now simply view the video analytics. FINALLY you do not need to have a marketing degree, or be a math wizard to understand: how long specific or average viewers watched your film, when they checked out (when did it get boring?), mouse activity, if the video was paused, if they clicked through to your website, possibly where they went after viewing your website (via cookies), etc. etc. These juicy data-pockets represent real, valuable feedback loops for businesses hoping to optimize their advertising strategy.

65% of viewers watch more than ¾ of the average video; where are you losing your potential customers?


Internet (Video) Killed the Radio Star

When combined with the Internet, video-based marketing is without-a-doubt THE most powerful way to evoke emotions in an audience. In the age of being bombarded by adverts in every aspect of our life, people are hungry for authenticity–and thoughtful video production can be chalked full of it; when websites have a video component on the homepage users click through (called landing-page conversions) 80% more often As we move forward, we will all be consuming more video-based content: it is expected that this year 80% of all web traffic will be claimed by video, nearly half of all video will be watched on a mobile device, and 68% of consumers would rather watch a video explaining your business than read about it.

But what about Data Load, SEO, and Google Analytics?

We hear you. Danger Dynamite is located in Saskatchewan, Canada, and I personally grew up in the north end of the province in the boreal forest. We’re all on data budgets, and video can flex (and even break!) the budgets of your users. That being said, Google loves video — and with Alphabet’s recent acquisition of YouTube, this is only going to skew search results more toward video in the future. Even your facebook timeline prioritizes video. All told, most recent numbers suggest you are 53x more likely to show up on the first page of Google if you have an embedded (important!) video5. Beyond this, the environment is also moving toward live video. 

Create Urgency 

Live video (Facebook, in this example), as you may have picked up earlier in this post is still rated lower than produced video (74% vs mid 80’s) for satisfaction when used. We think this is part of a changing tide, as live video creates a kind of urgency and authenticity. Whether you be hosting live Q and A sessions, conducting interviews with top influencers, advertising-style sessions with local businesses, or beyond, live video is compelling in a different way than produced video. This is evident by the quick adoption by most digital institutions: Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram ‘stories’ are just one example of this. We live in an ephemeral time, and consumers are reacting to that.

Be a part of the future : include video in your next marketing campaign!


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