by Jerome Mouton The annual “Top 20 Most Shared Ads of 2013” report from Unruly is out, the rankings based on the number of shares across Twitter, Facebook and the blogosphere, as opposed to just the number of views.
This is a good indicator of the target audience actually engaging with the branded content and finding it relevant and entertaining.
Brands must remember that, if you provide people with entertaining content, they won’t just watch it but share it. More marketers are realising a successful social video campaign has a mix of paid and earned views; no earned views only means one thing — a very high cost per contact.
“Shares are the currency of social success and, for leading brand marketers, discovering how to create and distribute highly shareable content repeatedly and at scale is now at the top of their wish list,” says Richard Kosinski, US president, Unruly.
“Challenging the value of a view”
“Marketers are challenging the value of a view and instead are focusing on creating content and distribution strategies which drive deeper levels of engagement, such as sharing, data capture, brand uplift or online purchases. Dove Real Beauty Sketches is a great example, as the ad that not only elicits strong emotions from consumers, but also gives its viewers a strong reason to share it within their social networks.”
What we have seen globally over the last 12 months is that more and more brands are embracing the role of content creator.
After watching the top 10 videos, one thing is obvious: popular videos all use emotional hooks to cut through the clutter.
On the one hand, social video trends show that videos that elicit strong emotion are twice as likely to be shared, meaning an increase in earned views and a higher ROI. Generic TV ads, on the other hand, only get engagement by investing heavily in paid views.
Jerome Mouton is founder and creative director at 34 South Media, a video-content agency specialising in branded entertainment. He contributes the monthly “YouTube Views” column, focusing on YouTube marketing, best practice and viral videos, to Marklives.