The Future of Video Advertising
The future of video advertising is upon us, with the emergence of a shorter, more concise video format.
The Six Second Video is Upon Us.
Back in January at a six-second hackathon at Sundance hosted by Google, the new format of utilizing the six-second video in advertising has picked up. Both Fox and Facebook have announced their decision to get on board with this format and YouTube has seen brands begin to feature these mini clips calling them “bumper ads”.
Google recently tested over 300 bumper ads, with results indicating that 9 out of 10 drove a significant lift in ad recall and 61% raised brand awareness. These short ads are being used to drive upper-funnel goals like ad recall and awareness. This cost effective approach ensure you can reach your target audience and ensure your message is heard.
These ads can be shown on their own, or paired with a campaign to increase deliverable reach and frequency. Larger companies like Michelin are getting on board with the six-second ad, and testing this new format to measure its success.
Michelin is able to utilize this video format to continue their goal to reach younger demographics – chasing after the elusive Millennials and Generation Z age groups who are known for having shorter attention spans.
For marketers, the six-second ads forces brands to be more specific and focused, there’s no room for excess information and only the most important information. Stories are told in a successive format or through a series, driving customers to come back for more. Facebook also announced in June that they were going to work on their own six-second ad game during their second-quarter earnings call.
Overall, these ads are short on time, but not short on impact.
With technology constantly changing our team has to be ready to take on new challenges for our clients. We recognize that we have to be ahead of the curve, which is why we are always Thinking Ahead. At Linx, we know that learning must be done at a rate greater than or equal to change so when the market shifts and the six-second video emerges, we’re ready for it. We are driving our clients not only understand new marketing approaches like the six-second video, but work with them to utilize these approaches to make their brand thrive.
As we move into the fourth quarter of the year, it’s time to consider your marketing strategy for the coming year and what will be a part of it. Should your business incorporate the six-second video in your marketing plan? Is this format right for your business? These are questions we can help answer as you build your 2018 strategy. Give us a call today.
Summer of Love Press Release Featured on PR Web
We are pleased to announce that our press release discussing our celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love and our own rebranding at Linx has been featured on PR Web.
It’s been 50 years since the original Summer of Love, and to celebrate we are asking people to let us know what they believe America will look like in 50 years. We are looking to have 1 million people respond to our survey and join us in Thinking Ahead to 2067!
If you haven’t already, you can take our survey by visiting www.linx.com/thinkaheadsurvey. Please share this link with you family, friends and colleagues and don’t miss out on this opportunity to be a part of history.
The full press release can be viewed here.
To read the full story behind the survey you can visit our CEO’s blog and read his post here.
Linx Helps Client Celebrate 30 Years of Innovation and Thought Leadership
Linx was excited and honored to help our client, VJ Group, a global leader in x-ray inspection solutions, celebrate 30 years of innovation and thought leadership by planning, producing, managing and promoting “The Future of NDT Symposium” that took place near their headquarters in New York, USA, October 12th – 14th.
The symposium provided the opportunity for the company’s leaders, employees, partners, and customers to come together to look at how technology will impact the NDT industry and the world in the next 30 years and beyond.
Linx worked with VJ Group to create a theme around the event that captured the thought leadership and forward-thinking essence of the brand, complete with imagery and messaging around their newest cutting edge technologies. Planning and managing everything from the email invites to the registration process, and the day-of production to the PR, we were able to witness the event transform from an idea into a milestone for the company and its partners and friends.
Over the length of the 3-Day event – including a networking social, technical presentations from worldwide industry leaders, facility tours, a celebration dinner, and even entertainment and NYC activities – we heard stories from the past 30 years about how VJ Group was started, the heritage of the brand and the vision for the future. It is this emotion that sparks our interest and fuels our passion as we work with our clients to help them communicate their brand’s story to their clients and the world. And, as our clients share with us their visions of the future, we Think Ahead to help them make that vision a reality.
After the event, we developed and presented an analysis document that allowed us to understand the areas of improvement for the next event and we sent a post-event survey to all the attendees to gauge their feedback and ratings. Overall, the event was a huge success!
What happens when you pull your brand out of branded content?
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU PULL YOUR BRAND OUT OF BRANDED CONTENT?
SEPTEMBER 11, 2017ADVERTISING, BUSINESS, MARKETING, MEDIA, SOCIAL MEDIA, STRATEGY, UNCATEGORIZEDNO COMMENTS
If you pulled your brand out of your branded content what quality of content are you left with? A strong narrative with a solid story to tell, or a weak sales pitch that isn’t going to catch any potential customer’s attention?
As you ponder this question, take a look at some of your favorite ads and see what happens. For example, if you were to pull a brand name like Delta, Nike or Apple out of one of their latest ads, their content (should) still carry a strong narrative and tell a captivating story. Inserting their brand name into that content should then serve to strengthen that narrative, rather than take away from it. Branded content is increasingly more important because young audiences no longer want to be sold to; they want genuine ads and a reason to connect with your brand. This requires marketers to re-evaluate their approach when writing content.
Brands must learn how to resonate with their audiences in a new way, whether utilizing new video approaches (like the six-second video), social media, retargeting ads or emails – audiences need to make an emotional connection with brands before committing to them.
Your content matters, the intention behind your content matters, as does the story you tell and the voice you use. Being a storyteller requires marketers and brands to think ahead, looking to what consumers are looking for both now and what they will want. It requires your story to constantly stay ahead of the curve, learning how to utilize new technologies and leverage them with their marketing attempts. In this instance, when pulling you brand from your content is necessary to accurately sell a narrative you have to know how to tell the story through the written and visual content. Content is still king, but in today’s world it doesn’t always look the same.
The quality of your content measures the level of your success, which means you need to make sure your content can stand on it’s own two legs. We understand the power of good content and how impactful it is for converting customers.
Linx helps CMF launch new program; Heroes with Heart
Being hospitalized can be scary for anyone, but for a young child it can be traumatizing. That’s why the Children’s Medical Fund works tirelessly every day to bring a smile to the faces of these young patients and their families. Here at linx communications we are excited to launch a new program with our longtime client, Children’s Medical Fund to bring some a happiness and fun to children’s hospitals across Long Island.
The program, Heroes with Heart, is a very unique opportunity in which hospitalized children get to meet their favorite superheroes and have a well-deserved day of fun! These children deal with difficult circumstances every day, which is why we felt it was important to help put a smile on their faces and remind them that they’re not alone in their fight.
This August kicked off the first Heroes with Heart event at Cohen Children’s Medical Center and it was beyond successful. Six superheroes, including Spiderman, Iron Man and Wonder Woman visited Cohen Children’s Medical Center “Patient Party”, interacted with the kids and their families, partook in activities such as games and crafts, took pictures and brought carts full of super hero toys. The children, their parents and families could not stop smiling; they enjoyed every second of the event.
We were able to attend the kickoff event and watch Heroes With Hearts turn into a reality, which was an incredible experience. Being able to see the program in action and witness its success was more then we could have ever imagined.
The Heroes with Heart program would have not been achieved without the help of the generous sponsors that supported this amazing idea and helped make the kick-off event at Cohens Children’s Hospital extremely impacting and memorable. Rubie’s Costume Company donated six super hero costumes for our volunteers to wear as well as donating over 100 children’s costumes for the children to wear on Halloween, this left the children ecstatic. On the day of the event 1Motion Media helped capture all the smiles and fun had by all the children with video production. Overall, here at Linx we are extremely happy with the results the kick- off event. We look forwards to helping CMF launch Heroes with Heart in children’s hospitals across Long Island.
If you would love to learn more or are interesting in donating to Heroes with Heart program, donation options and additional information can be found at http://www.cmfny.org/introducing-heros-with-heart/.
Linx revamps newest client Creme Allure’s branding
Linx’s newest client, Crème Allure, a Gourmet Ice Cream and Ice Cream Gifts retailer, came to us in need of new marketing strategy that would help them accomplish their goals of growing their online business. When they came to us, their website and outreach materials did not accurately represent their brand and unique product offerings.
We started with the company’s branding and positioning to help them elevate their brand look and feel and elevate their brand positioning. With some upgrades to the logo and brand color scheme, we were able to take Crème Allure to the next level.
Next, we created what we call a “mood board” to help us outline the look, feel and inspiration that captures the essence of Crème Allure’s brand. This document then becomes the foundation for all artwork and creative production that we develop.
The next undertaking was the website. As part of the marketing plan Linx created for them, we completely renovated their website to emulate their friendly, bold, fun, and quirky brand persona. But it was more than just a design issue. After analyzing the current user behavior data and online store paths, we discovered that there weremajor flaws in the structure of the UX/UI (user experience/user interface). Like many of our strategies for e-commerce companies, we had to bring the customer to the center of our efforts to create a user-friendly online shopping experience. Part of this strategy included an interactive custom product builder that allows customers to build their own dessert platters and baskets on the website!
While the website is currently in development, we are now preparing our strategies for outreach programs to promote the new website and drive traffic and online sales. A big part of this approach will be social media advertising and promotional tie-ins that the company had not been executing before.
As we help grow the business our goals will lead to enabling Crème Allure to create new distribution channels, better engage with customers tobuild brand loyalty, gain new customers, and ultimately expand their business nationwide.