The emerging space of editorial video content produced by brand marketers is so new that there are few benchmarks for a successful campaign, says GroupM chief digital officer Rob Norman. But he has identified at least one golden rule already.
“Make sure the first five or six seconds are really, really good – so that the pre-skippable (part) at least some imprint on someones mind, even if they don’t carry on watching it.”
YouTube’s TrueView video ad format lets viewers skip pre-roll commercials – which, these days, may just as well be editorial videos themselves – to get to their intended video.
Norman concedes branded content is harder to distribute at scale than conventional advertising, and means advertisers are paying for the privilege of simply placing content, not for some guaranteed consumer outcome. “You’re paying for the exposure – it’s on you, the extent to which the consumer stays there,” he says.
Norman was interviewed by TouchCast co-founder Erick Schonfeld at Beet.TV’s annual executive retreat in Vieques, Puerto Rico.
