Brands Missing Online Video Opportunity in Australia
Sydney, Australia, 15 June 2010 – A Burson-Marsteller survey of 101 Australian brands found that less than half have established a local online video presence within the top social video sharing sites. The study found that locally relevant branded video content represents a tiny proportion of the one billion videos that are consumed by online Australians every month1.
The study tracked the 101 non-governmental advertiser groups / advertisers and their key Advertised brands2 that ranked in The Nielsen Company’s 2009 Top Media Advertiser’s Report. The Nielsen report, which tracks estimated media spend in Australia, identifies the top 25 biggest buyers (advertisers and advertiser groups) and identifies their ‘key brands’. The key brands highlighted in the Nielsen report do not necessarily account for the advertiser’s total ad spend in 2009, nor are they all necessarily the top advertising spending brands in Australia.
For the purposes of its study, B-M tracked the number of official corporate and product/promotional video channels for each advertiser and its related key brands; as well each channel’s number of videos, subscribers and total view count. Corporate channels are defined as relating to ‘whole of company’. Product and promotional channels related to a short term competition, marketing campaign or special offer.
“Online video is a compelling form of media for brands that want to reach and engage their customers online,” said Daniel Young, Director – Digital, Burson-Marsteller Australia. “Busy and increasingly mobile consumers are looking for content and information that is entertaining and easy to consume. Studies have found that they are three times more likely to select video content over text. Consumers are using social video sharing sites to search and discover information, participate with brands and communities and comment on and share content. This is only likely to increase as more and more consumers access social media via mobile devices.”
More than half (65 per cent) of the 101 advertisers and brands surveyed did not have an online video channel within the top social video sharing sites. Of those with online video channels, 67 per cent had one or more corporate channel and 33 per cent had one or more promotional channel. Only ten per cent of the advertisers and brands surveyed offered both corporate and promotional channels. More than 50 per cent of the corporate channels were designated as ‘inactive’ having not been updated for more than two months.
The average view count across all channels was 12,298 with an average of 13 subscribers per channel. The study surveyed brand presence on YouTube, Metacafe and Vimeo. YouTube hosted 98 per cent of the channels studied, making it the number one video social network for Australian brands.
“The survey does not assume a direct correlation between media spend and development of video content for social media. Brands need to develop engagement strategies using video which support and reinforce advertising campaigns and media spend,” said Young. “The evidence demonstrates that online video-viewing is central to digital consumer practices, which means that brands without a strategy for online video may be missing out on opportunities to reach their audience.”
The branded video study follows on from B-M’s March 2010 Online Newsroom Study, which found that twenty top Australian brands were failing to leverage rich media and video in conjunction with their news content. Only 15 per cent of the twenty brands covered by the newsroom study offered image downloads via their newsroom and just 10 per cent made video content available.
Notes to editors:
1 An April 2010 comScore Video Metrix announcement identified Australia as the third largest video-viewing market in the Asia-Pacific region, with more than 10.6 million people viewing 934 million unique online videos in the month of January 2010.
2 B-M included nine advertiser group brands in its analysis (where the corporate brand is distinct from key brands) and 92 key brands relating to the 25 advertisers/ advertiser groups.
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About the Study
B-M extracted key non-governmental advertisers and their key brands from the Nielsen Top Media Advertisers report for 2009 (101 brands in total) and researched official presence in the top social video sharing sites; YouTube, Vimeo, and Metacafe. The study examined the number channels per advertisers or brand and the nature of each channel. Channels were categorized as corporate (relating to whole of company) or product/promotional (relating to a competition, marketing campaign or special offer). B-M measured the number of videos, subscribers and the total views (all videos combined), as of April 2010.
The results of the study are included in the B-M Branded Video Report for 2010, along with some examples of best practice in Australia. The report is available on request or can be downloaded from the B-M Slideshare account.
For more information, please contact:
Daniel Young
Director
Burson-Marsteller Australia
Tel: +61 2 9928 1589
Email: daniel.young@bm.com
You can follow Burson-Marsteller Australia at twitter.com/BMAustralia