2018 at a glance: The rise of ephemeral and constant video content

Chanda Sharma, Regional Head (Operations - North) WATConsult, writes about some dominating trends in the digital marketing space and how brands increasingly leveraged technologies such as Voice Search in their marketing strategies. 

It’s that time of the year again when you can’t help but look back at the what made the loudest noise and what had the greatest impact in marketing. A year of disruption and innovation yet again, but a different degree is what digital was about . Technologies evolved and adoption of formats by consumers forced marketeers to experiment, step up and in some ways course correct. Going by what dominated, 2018 looked like the year that will possibly be rite of passage in the world of digital.

The rise of ephemeral and constant video content was a big thing in the year gone by. Video content dominated as a format of storytelling. We saw a major chunk of brands that extended their interaction with their consumers via video content, not necessarily restricted to product stories. Interestingly, most of the campaigns orchestrated by us in 2018, too, had video content at its core. 

Instagram and Facebook indeed paved the way for ephemeral video. It means that as marketers, we produced content that aimed at offering something new to the consumers every 24 hours and in turn, also battled the decreasing reach of Facebook and Instagram. 

Voice Search and voice controlled assistants saw increased adoption in 2018 and this is only likely to rise in the year to come, posing both as an opportunity as well as a challenge for brands. Brand strategies in 2018 had Voice Search as one of the key pillars and we are only hoping to see brands evolve to take this up in the year to come.

Another thing that popped up was Social Media influencers gaining a lot more influence this year. But it became a competitive space not just from the lens of recruiting and deploying influencers, but also from the standpoint of dealing with an evolved consumer who looks out for authentic collaborations and does not refrain from calling out inorganic associations. 

Rise of retail, the social way 

With the addition of purchase buttons and e-shop features, customers rarely had to leave their social feeds to buy an item that caught their eye. Similar to Voice Search, integrating social shopping contributed to brands accelerating consumers’ path to purchase and increased basket sizes. 

When it comes to a trend, I feel ‘Augmented Reality’ will be mainstream and is likely to rule a shopper’s experience in 2019 by fusing together online shopping with brick and mortar retailing to add value to real-world shopping experiences.

Conclusion: 2019 will be one of the most interesting years with existing technologies getting smarter, consumers becoming savvier and marketeers becoming more experimental. Technology & video will rule the roost while data definitely will be the method to the madness that marketing is.

 

Media
@adgully

News in the domain of Advertising, Marketing, Media and Business of Entertainment

More in Media