In today’s surplus of online travel content, consumers are savvy in making choices and discretionary when it comes to absorbing information. The responsibility of travel brands now lies in their flexibility, connecting with consumers wherever they are on-the-go. Getting that digestible, exclusive and mobile-friendly content into their hands will remain a goal for travel brands, one that they must evolve to keep up to terms with.
Be it airlines, hotels, destinations, tourism bodies, traveller comparison websites or Airbnb properties, they are all aware of the consumer’s purchasing cycle prone to change. This change is as much as their social media habits and content preferences.
In view of this constant fluctuation, travel brands need to reconsider their marketing strategy and pump resources into interactive channels. Today, social channels are the default space where people ask for recommendations, chat with live chatbots, look at social posts of a place and watch dynamic videos.
Instead of polished Photoshopped destination videos, consumers trust bloggers’ instincts, word-of-mouth from Instagram influencers and what is most frequently shared as what they trust and rate worthy.
Here are some of the features that consumers look out for in a video that helps to influence their decision and give the right prompts and action.
Fashion brand videos are usually about sculpted models in glamorous landscapes or trendy locations and nothing more.
Abercrombie & Fitch brand long recognised as an icon of adventure and the outdoors has created a coming of age campaign targeting its audience of 21 to 25 year olds. Featuring young adults in significant transition points such as breakups, squabbles with colleagues and moving out of their childhood home, the videos compress stories into 30 and 60-second spots. The fashion brand focuses on the unique stage of adulthood where experiences pivot change and explore issues in a refreshing and personable manner.
For more information on how videos can empower your brand and maximise your reach, please visit www.wootag.com. To view more winning content ideas on video, please have a look at us on LinkedIn.
Last week, we took a look at what leading travel brands are doing to make their videos compelling and engaging for audiences.
Flipping the turntables, we approach travel videos through the lens of the consumer and ask what content gets them inspired and forward-looking for their next adventure?
Google has drilled down the user journey to four differentiated components that capture the experiential edge of travel using moving stories. They are
Can’t-wait-to-explore moments (Focus on experience)
Be it engaging with your viewer or raising awareness to build loyalty, video captivates audiences on all of these moments: “I want to get away”, “time to make a plan”, “let’s book it” and “can’t wait to explore”. It offers collaboration and interactivity that will induce interest in your audience. With a crystal-clear storytelling format and personalised message, a video is the platform-of-choice to differentiate your brand and sets you up for a rewarding and purposeful consumer journey.
Here are some of the qualities that videos should have such that consumers are enticed to begin their journey.
It’s about time travel brands started relating to Asian audiences better with removing stereotypes and killing restrained storytelling. Never think tourism videos need to be static with cliched storylines and aspirations are driven by the Western media.
Destination Canada, the official tourism board of Canada has unveiled an anime short story that focuses on a romantic adventure in the Great White North, famous for its rugged landscapes and natural beauty.
This moving and stylised short film was designed to boost international tourism and shift perceptions of Canada limited to the 3 Ms: moose, mountains and Mounties. With representations of Canadian icons from the Vancouver sculpture ‘the Drop’ to a downtown Toronto ice skating rink, the video looks set to reinvent representations of Canada as an alluring wintertime destination.
For more information on how videos can empower your brand and maximise your reach, please visit www.wootag.com. To view more winning content ideas on video, please have a look at us on LinkedIn.
Travel brands are non-conformists and juggernauts in reinventing themselves to attract new eyeballs. The importance for them to adapt lies in destinations not being as new or exotic as before. The lack of novelty goes in line with the industry’s increased online resources and more competitive prices.
Be it airlines, destination campaigns, comparison websites or travel apps, travel brands are constantly evolving with their audiences having to keep up with ever-changing consumer expectations of what a place has to offer.
According to Think with Google, some 67% of views of travel videos fall under professionally released or brand-related videos. A report from Skift points out destinations have the keenest interest to put in place a video content strategy as over 70% of YouTube searches are for destination names.
Interactive videos, in particular, are a surefire way of unfolding a constructive conversation. This two-way dialogue allows the user to respond to the video through feedback or participation and learn more about the product objectively. For the travel industry, Instagram feeds and Facebook live are defining travellers’ experiences through unique and shareable social content.
With the younger millennials, travel brands will need to drive content that has an emotional connection, aspirational theme and that is intellectually nourishing. This includes finding insightful ways to tell stories from a local perspective.
Video is the perfect platform for stories that feature a greater sense of adventure and authenticity, build the curiosity of understanding the world and a desire for immersing in a local culture. Jason Dorsey, a marketing author and the speaker says, “Today’s traveller is technologically dependent and that dependence is merely a conduit through which to dream, research, share and experience travel.”
We look at some travel brands that are creating a meaningful user experience and engaging them through authentic and unusual storytelling.
Movie marketing is no longer confined to trailers and static videos as audiences have become more accustomed to something with a twist and in different formats.
The latest fast-food brands war between Burger King and McDonald’s sees Burger King trolling McDonald’s with the motto “Never trust a clown” in the screening of horror flick ‘It’.
The film involves a creepy clown as the arch villain in the movie and by making reference to it, it displays Burger King’s brilliance in combining satire, guerilla marketing and product placement then woven into a major blockbuster. What a Whopper Burger King!
For more information on how videos can empower your brand and maximise your reach, please visit www.wootag.com. To view more winning content ideas on video, please have a look at us on LinkedIn.
Marketers face a formidable challenge in trying to reach a broad audience across market segments and geographies in the shortest time. For CPG plans, this can be particularly complex. Where video was formerly used to tell stories and create brand awareness, there is a need to distill it to product awareness, acquire customers and drive sales. A video will drive purposeful intentionality and originality, and similarly, tackle these priority goals of a conversion funnel.
The potential and promise of video lie in its interactivity. This interactivity requires the user to participate by making decisions and taking actions. With a well crafted interactive video, you can enjoy more substantial viewing times, greater brand and product awareness and higher rates of engagement. The more thoughtful and relevant video also leads to generating more insights into your user’s profile and an ability to optimise content effectively for the right viewership. Fit your brand’s narrative with your viewers’ personal brand and you’ll have a meaningful relationship that’s built to last.
With a bird’s eye view of audience understanding, conversion, engagement and awareness, you’re set up to succeed at adding a human touch to a rich digital experience. Know what you stand for, who you are and what sticks and ticks with the person you are trying to speak to. By thinking interactive, you’ll have a combination that blends personalised touchpoints, collaborative formats and relevant stories.
Keen to learn more the human touch for digital engagement and sight and sound that stir brand loyalty?
Download this free e-book which will walk you through tactics for making sure your videos are interactive and personalised drawing you closer to your viewer. Get your brand from ‘many’ to ‘one’ and moving to stay true to itself.
Creating a user experience that will keep you hooked whilst providing useful guidance is a tough act to follow. Lowe has long been associated with their DIY hacks and with the help of an idea from Facebook, they’ve pulled off something worthwhile in your toolkit. Narrow, unattractive spaces are given an extreme makeover with a nudge and a lift using Instagram stories and transformed into something beautiful and usable. Audiences have the liberty to play architect, interior designer and engineer at once as Instagram Stories provides the framework and flexibility. Innovative? Check! Plenty of fun? For sure! Helping people with their projects in an easy to follow and independent away? That’s something special and you can start work anywhere! For more information on how videos can empower your brand and maximise your reach, please visit www.wootag.com. To view more winning content ideas on video, please have a look at us on LinkedIn.
Video updates are all over your Facebook and Instagram feeds these days and it’s vying with the volumes of text-based content shared daily for eyeballs. Videos are increasingly becoming more powerful for storytelling and prolific in widening your reach. Everything imaginable from gadgets, travel destinations, entertainment, celebrities to business decision-makers are using the high energy, hot-off-the-press video approach to give ‘live’ updates that create immediacy and exclusivity.
Personalisation is also the other big trend sweeping the social space. Marketers can reach their users across all platforms and devices and they can distribute personalised videos with customised aesthetics, shoppable tags and real-time analytics.
Through a case study showcasing the accomplishments and product uniqueness or an in-house video update, your brand can shine to its extent. You can have its identity shared to viewers you’d usually find hard to track and create exposure for the product variants that fall under it.
Interactivity is also another big game changer in keeping audiences on their toes. Passing on the baton to the user to participate in the video leaves them in the driver’s seat, be it quizzes, contests, photo filtering, following a user guide and identifying trends.
By making decisions and responding to provoking questions, this pushes engagement levels and awareness of the user up. Interactivity in an otherwise static, undifferentiated video results in more substantial viewing times, relevant capture of data and is spot on in keeping them curious and compelled to learn more.
Here are some examples of personalised and interactive video we think are worth your admiration and you could consider cherry-picking ideas from …
Changing the hiring game in Deloitte
Think of recruitment videos and you’re usually uninspired imagining talking heads in suits selling rehearsed corporate fluff. Deloitte decided to make its usual recruitment process more colourful and approachable. In the video which takes a look at an employee’s typical work day, viewers can decide their reaction to a variety of job-centred situations such as how to respond should a printer fail or how to inform a colleague about a stain on their clothes. Clever way to attract potential hires and see if they are a suitable fit!
Have your event invitation in bright lights says Marketo
Event invitations are fairly predictable with the usual upsell of what the event has to offer and promotional messages teased out in the video. Marketo decided to create an event invitation that is memorable and that creates a sense of excitement and personal value. How a user connects with a business is integral and will shape the relationship that he or she has with it. In their Marketing Nation Summit invite, you’ll see a stylish customisation that has your name in blinking neon lights on the celebrated “Welcome to Vegas” sign and alongside Hollywood A-listers. Wouldn’t you just click to learn more about the event?
Fast and furious joyrides with Honda
How can an automobile brand be perceived in a more light-hearted and friendly way whilst retaining its trust and quality assurance? Honda found the trick by unfolding a video that gives viewers the liberty to choose between dual storylines.
By allowing them to plug and play their own narrative, it creates a sense of energy and uniqueness and lets them decide which aspects of the brand they identify with most. One of the narratives is about a daughter being picked up by her dad and on her way to a school party. If the viewer hits ‘R” on the keyboard, the story gets an exciting twist and the father is revealed to be an undercover cop with secret dealings!
The user experience is heightened becoming more suspenseful and leaving the viewer with the aspirational, emotive qualities of the Honda vehicle.
Giving chocolates with a smile urges Cadbury Glow
Chocolate is more than just another candy and is a meaningful sentiment and has types to suit every occasion. Understandably as chocolate in Asia is not that common a gift, Cadbury decided to create a “happiness” campaign to encourage gift-giving of chocolate. In a sweet treat of an exercise, users can personalise their gift of chocolate by having photographs and names roped in from their Facebook profiles. The campaign shows that beyond a like or a share, successful engagement lies in the emotional contagion where a user shares his or her positive impressions with a wider network. With substantial engagement and creating a warm authentic feeling, Cadbury has shot the bull’s eye in winning the hearts of its consumers.
Chatting your way through Pringles potato chips
We’re tired of food adverts that don’t try anything new. Imagine now a chatbot that asks pointed questions allowing you to customise a music video of your choice. Fronted by the popular mascot of Pringles, Mister P, users are asked on their prefered flavour and genre. They then have their dance moves filmed before sharing their music video. A visionary and ingenious exercise at merging back-end data and cloud platform delivery whilst providing users with endless entertainment and a reason to remember Pringles!
Personalisation and interactivity make a winning pair
Interactivity and personalisation are unique ways of getting people to remember your brand. Aside from brand call, it also allows users to keep learning more about what they provide, how they work and the product variants on offer. When done right, you’ll enjoy high traction rates and see your video be shared across channels with an impressive reach and worthy sentiment.
Shed aside stale storylines and well worn production techniques and create a video that designs a unique user experience and engages users regardless of where they are based. With personalisation and interactivity, look forward to building and engaging with a vibrant community!
Be it from the sensational to the moving to the uplifting, we are always on the look out for videos that capture us and speak to us. In any vehicle, it is the human that is in the driver’s seat and that is what Volvo does skilfully pointing us to reflect on our identities, our behaviour and our expectations. It’s ads like these that make us think “they get me”, urge us to look forward to what’s to come and appreciate the environment around us. Celebrating human achievement with innovative branded content is a smart move says Andy Lockley from Grey Group, “These remarkable stories depict people who are doing amazing things in the space of human-centric innovation. In turn, they share the same values of the Volvo brand and the way in which they design their cars.” For more information on how videos can empower your brand and maximise your reach, please visit www.wootag.com. To view more winning content ideas on video, please have a look at us on LinkedIn.
