Web Commercials Vs. Television Commercials - What Makes Them Fundamentally Different & Which Format Is Best For Your Business

One of the most common issues that business owners and marketing professionals face when creating commercial content is deciding which medium it would be most suitable for - Television or web.

While major corporations that are working with large agencies will typically have an abundance of content on both mediums, small and medium sized businesses don't usually have that luxury, and often need to choose between producing a 30 second commercial that is intended to air on TV, or producing a longer format spot that can be used online. 

One of the biggest mistakes that many businesses make when struggling with this decision, is to produce a single commercial spot that they will use both on television and online. There's absolutely nothing wrong with showcasing a television commercial on a company YouTube or Vimeo account as supplementary content, but as part of an overall marketing strategy you can't expect to get great results online by taking this approach. The reasoning behind this is two fold: Audience behavior can be vastly different on TV and web, and differences in the mediums call for variances in the creative approach.

Most often, commercials that are aired on television are all about brand recognition. The idea is to expose the viewer multiple times to the same engaging commercial content and connect with them on a fundamental level so that the brand name, logo, and jingle stick with them well after they have turned off their television set. On the other hand, web commercials are often only viewed once by target customers, since they are typically found as the result of a google or YouTube search, and as such all of the creative parameters change drastically. Most web commercials have more immediacy to their messaging than television commercials do, as the idea is to get the viewer clicking over to the company site/shopping cart as quickly as possible. Conversely, television commercials (as we touched on above) are more about creating brand familiarity and recognition and are less concerned with the call to action sequence. There are exceptions to this rule of course, such as infomercial style, direct to consumer products that often focus heavily on a hard sell/CTA sequence, but the vast majority of television commercials today currently perform better with a more subtle approach. 

When businesses attempt to use the same commercial content on both television and web, the length and timing of the spots becomes a very obvious problem. Television commercials are most often aired as :15s or :30s spots, which are not ideal timeframes for a web commercial, which normally would benefit from a longer format (1:30 - 2:00), for a number of reasons. Yes, it is possible to buy television commercial slots that are longer in length (1 or 2 minutes), but these are extremely expensive, and going this route will mean that you will need to air your commercial far fewer times (for the same media budget) as opposed to airing your shorter spot more frequently. Even if money isn't a factor though, and your company can afford to buy the extra air time, there is still the fundamental issue concerning the huge variance in audience between the two mediums, which makes sharing the same content across both platforms an ineffective strategy.

What Do We Recommend?

Every client's needs are different. For some clients we have strategized a campaign consisting of both television and web content (different spots of course), but more often than not we choose one or the other. Certain businesses that have a big e-commerce component to their sales model might benefit more from a web commercial, while others that sell products or services primarily through retail outlets might benefit more from a television campaign. It's also quite common to start off by producing a web commercial initially, and based on it's performance, re-edit the existing footage into a television commercial, which can create a best of both worlds situation by keeping costs low for our clients. 

If you are considering having a commercial produced and are unsure of the format and usage that would best suit your business or brand, be sure to get in touch with us. We have a deep understanding of both mediums and have successfully run campaigns for our clients on both television and online. Be sure to e-mail us at info@creativerebellion.com for more info.

The Creative Rebellion Team. 

Why 2 Minutes (Or Less) Is The Perfect Length For A Web Commercial

Many entrepreneurs are tempted to create long-format web commercials, corporate videos, or promotional spots in order to share as much information with their viewers as possible, but statistically shorter spots perform far better on any online platform. Below, we'll let you know just why that is. 

Firstly, let's talk about the purpose of your web commercial - To drive interest, traffic, and sales to your company or brand. In order to do this, you want to tease your viewer, giving them just enough information to spark their interest, but not too much that they become overwhelmed and disinterested. The 2 minute mark is really the sweet spot for length, as it allows for enough time to convey your message effectively, but not too much time that the idea can start to become tangential. We posted an article on this a while ago titled: "Less Is More, Why Too Much Information Can Hurt Your Corporate Video" - Be sure to check out the link for further insight on the topic. 

It's also worth noting that the vast majority of viewers that are going to be exposed to your web commercial simply don't have the time or interest to sit through a longer format video. The internet is all about accessibility to information quickly and efficiently. We get news updates on twitter in 140 characters or less, 15 second advertisements on instagram, and more Facebook video/web shares than we know what to do with - So you can imagine that trying to hold your viewers attention for 10 minute long web promo is nearly impossible, no matter how strong your content or idea may be. 

Video based marketing always boils down to knowing your audience. And if you audience is online (which of course is the case with a web promo), they aren't viewing your spot in an environment where 5 or 10 minutes is going to fly. Especially if they aren't seeking out your content in the first place - and let's hope they aren't, because the idea with web spots is to attract a new audience, not to provide content for your existing audience. That's what branded/informational videos are for.

So why is 2 minutes the sweet spot?

There may not be an exact science to this, but it has been recognized time and time again that viewers are most likely to click away from your video after the 2 minute mark. While in some rare situations, it may be fine to go over 2 minutes (for instance if you have extremely engaging content that couldn't otherwise be told in a shorter format), generally it is a risky game to play. You want to leave your audience wanting more and seeking out information on your business because they want to, not because you're telling them to. Sometimes 30 seconds of fat on a video can be the difference between your viewer connecting with your brand or losing interest, so short and sweet is always best. 

The other great thing about limiting the duration of your video is the fact that it forces you to boil down your message to its most important, relevant, and impactful form in order to fit within a shorter time frame. If you're thinking that 2 minutes isn't enough - take a look at some of the most successful television commercials on the air today. Look at how much insight and information you take away from them after only 30 seconds, and then just imagine what's possible when you have 4 times as long to get your message across. 

Commercials, whether web or television oriented, are all about efficiency. You are telling a story in a very short amount of time and it needs to be equal parts engaging and informative in order to not only secure an audience, but more importantly drive them to your brand.

For more information on web commercials or how we can help you develop a campaign that is right for your business, e-mail us at any time: info@creativerebellion.com

The Creative Rebellion Team

Creating Low-Cost YouTube Content To Drive Huge Traffic To Your Company Website

One of the most effective and cost efficient ways for any business or corporation to dramatically increase their website traffic is by releasing video content via YouTube on a regular schedule.

YouTube Corporate Branded Content

Often when creating an SEO (search engine optimization) strategy, business owners and marketing pros will focus primarily on their existing website, and often won't look for other sources of online traffic. A big emphasis is typically placed on their website copy, the URL structure, and so on. However, it is arguable that it's equally, if not more important to focus SEO efforts on other platforms as well, such as YouTube, in order to draw from a more extensive and responsive pool of potential customers. 

Many people are surprised to learn that YouTube is actually the second largest search engine in the world, (next to Google of course), and since Google now owns YouTube, it makes perfect sense that YouTube videos are now heavily integrated into Google's search engine results. What this means for business owners, is they now have an alternate method for ranking highly in search engine queries by creating dynamic video content that is valuable to their target customers, rather than just relying on text based website copy. One of the big benefits of harnessing this ability is the fact that there is simply less competition on YouTube, which means theoretically it is easier to get a high ranking on Google using YouTube videos, than it is to get a high ranking with a traditional website. 

Here's an example of how branded YouTube content could help a business drive traffic in a real world scenario:

A restaurant chain wants to start selling some of their products through their website (barbecue sauce, cookbooks, etc.). Rather than simply optimizing their website and hoping that they will get some traffic from users on Google searching for their brand of sauce or cookbook, they can opt to produce low-cost, regularly updated video content that will help them rank well in Google and YouTube searches. The restaurant chain might choose to release a weekly 2 minute video spot where their head chef speaks to camera, giving cooking advice on a specific type of cuisine, and throughout the video he/she could be plugging their products and directing the viewers to their website.

This formula is quite simple and extremely adaptive in that in can be used by nearly any type of business, and there is no limit to the amount or type of content that can be released. That said, there are two key components to having this strategy be successful: Consistency and quality. First off, you don't want to just produce a single video, put it up on YouTube and wait for the traffic to roll in. Unfortunately no matter how great that video is, it just doesn't work that way. Much like website content, your YouTube channel needs to updated regularly in order to ranked well, and in regards to the quality - it simply has to be there. Yes, these are web videos and they don't need to have feature film level production value, but they should look very clean and professional, and the content should be well thought out and deliberately planned. 

Many of our clients are pleasantly surprised to find out that this type of content can actually cost very little to produce, and can yield some dramatic results in regards to their sales. In fact, YouTube content is probably bang for the buck the most effective way of marketing online when done properly. In comparison to a traditional corporate video (which has it's own advantages), YouTube content typically requires less supplementary footage/b-roll, which means more videos can be produced in a shorter amount of time. It isn't uncommon to shoot 10 - 15 videos in a single day and release them weekly over the course of several months. 

We work with many businesses to create concepts, develop strategies, and facilitate the production of YouTube based branded content that is intended to drive traffic and increase sales. For more information on how this works and how you can tap into the power of YouTube content, feel free to contact us any time - info@creativerebellion.com

The Creative Rebellion Team

How Much Does A Great Corporate Video Cost?

One of the first questions that we typically get when working with a new corporate client is "how much is this corporate video going to cost?". While no two corporate spots are the same and all have different requirements (some are more commercial based, some formatted for web, etc.), generally this type of work falls into three categories.

Below is a breakdown of three different categories that the vast majority of our corporate and commercial work falls into. As a business owner or marketing professional, it's important to have these budget categories in mind when considering a corporate spot so that you can help to streamline your process:

Low Budget - Under $3000

This is the most common budget range for most small business owners, especially those getting video work done for the first time. The cost covers all of the basic necessities of any production: concept development, pre-production, production (crew expenses, rentals, talent, etc.), and post production costs (editing, stock material, music, etc.). Even on a smaller scale production such as one that would fall under this budget range, a lot can be done to produce an extremely high quality and effective final product. In fact, sometimes the challenge of working with less budget is actually helpful creatively, as it creates limitations that can help to focus the creative direction of the project.

Medium Budget - $5000 - $15,000

The next step up are the mid-sized projects that are most often requested by business owners or marketing directors that have had videos produced in the past and understand how dramatically video can help their sales. Projects that fall into this category include all of the basic development and production necessities that are covered in the low budget category, but build upon them further by offering more development time, a larger crew with additional support equipment (for higher production value), and more time spent in the editing room on motion graphics, custom titles, and original music. Projects at this level start to have a lot of longevity as the added production value makes the piece stay current for longer, and allows it to transcend mediums and be dual purposed (for web and television for instance) at the clients discretion. 

High Budget - $25,000+

Our more seasoned and experienced clients will often opt for a higher budget production for a number of reasons - but primarily because of the potential to reach such a large audience when working on a project of this scale. While a low budget or medium budget project can still have very high production value, on a higher budget project, additional time is spent developing a release strategy for the corporate spot to ensure that it gets seen by the most amount of targeted viewers. At this level, we place a premium on the campaigning of the spot, so that for example, if our clients goal is to dramatically increase traffic to their website, we will craft the idea and release strategy around that specific goal to ensure that we drive substantial amounts of potential customers to their website. 

Which Is Right For Your Business?

This largely depends on what is affordable for your business and what your goals are for the video. Many of our clients have started out by producing videos in the low budget range, and after seeing dramatically increased sales or traffic to their websites, they have opted to invest more in their projects, eventually working up to the higher budget range. With that said, we also have had clients that have opted to produce a medium or high budget project for their first video, as they recognized the value of investing in other aspects of the process as well.

There is no right or wrong way to produce a corporate spot, and no perfect budget that suits every project, but investing in a corporate video of any scale will inevitably have a much larger affect than not investing at all.

For more information on what we do, or if you have any questions about what a corporate video might cost for your business or brand, please contact us at any time. We are located in Los Angeles and Toronto, but also service many other markets all across North America.

The Creative Rebellion Team

Less Is More: Why Too Much Company Info Can Hurt Your Corporate Spot Or Commercial

One of the most common problems with corporate videos and smaller scale commercials today is that they can become overloaded with information very quickly. It can be tempting for business owners or marketing professionals to cram in loads of information about their company into a video, but throughout this article we are going to describe how that can work against you and why it will cause your message to get lost. 

First off, it's worth noting that the primary purpose of a corporate spot, commercial, or any other promotional video is to create awareness and brand identity for the viewer. This notion is generally understood by just about any professional looking to produce video content, but it's during the writing and development stage however, that issues start to arise. 

Investing in video content can be one of the wisest decisions a business can make, but only when the content accurately conveys their message. It's tempting for a business owner (especially on a first video project) to want to include as much information about their business as possible in hopes that the final product will be versatile. The fact is though, to create content that is versatile (and memorable), there needs to be a focused message that is clear and identifiable, and this message shouldn't be buried under a heap of unnecessary information. There is only so much information that a viewer can retain in a minute or two, and the more information that is present, the less time is left for the viewer to digest any of it - meaning that it never takes on any personal significance to the them.

For instance if a chain of restaurants wanted to produce a web commercial, they might be tempted to include all of the menu items they offer, the ingredients, where their locations are, interviews with the chefs, and possibly even more. But in this hypothetical situation, the key selling feature of the restaurant may not be any one dish, ingredient, or chef, but it may be the comfortable atmosphere and home-cooked feel of the food. If this is the case, the best thing to do when producing a commercial spot would be to simply focus on the experience of eating at the restaurant. Everything else can be shown with imagery: The food, the chefs, various locations, etc. Five seconds of carefully constructed video can give you more information than five minutes of clunky copy, so focusing on the simple message as the primary focus and using imagery (B-Roll) to deliver the smaller details, is a much more effective way of getting the message across in a memorable and relatable way.

I'll often use Apple's ad campaigns as a reference point for the 'less is more' argument, as they understand that minimalism in advertising can be critical. Most of their commercial spots (web or television) contain little voiceover and when they do, it is implemented creatively in a way that is filmic and almost poetic, rather than informational. The spots are primarily hinged on images that evoke emotion within the viewer and when something is said, it is relevant to the messaging. I'll leave you with one of Apple's recent spots as an example of how this technique can work: