Interactive video is an excellent way to engage customers with branded content. These video advertisements encourage active listening, which improves message retention. They can even offer a way for brands to engage consumers at retail locations and guide them to products in the shopping aisle. A customer’s ability to interact with branded content helps that brand improve the customer experience while also advertising in a fun and inventive way.
Interactive video helps consumers remember a brand, which is a critical part of the customer journey. Every purchase starts with brand awareness, but it can take several messages before consumers recognize the product. Interaction with a branded video speeds this retention as it engages the consumer with the advertising message in a more exciting and memorable way.
Improving Branded Message Retention With Interactive Video
Most recent studies indicate consumers see or hear an estimated 10,000 branded messages per day. It’s impossible for individuals to retain that much information, and there’s a scientific theory behind it. This theory centers on transience, or the ability to forget, and its role in brain processes. Researchers theorize that the brain actively eliminates memories of information not needed for decision making. This research is especially crucial in regards to marketing, as many marketing messages will come across as non-essential.
Using this theory, the ability to retain a message only occurs when that message will somehow impact the consumer’s decision-making process. A consumer who is hungry, for example, may be better able to remember a radio ad for a QSR over someone who isn’t. Their hunger triggers a subconscious desire to retain information about food choices.
Brands can use interactive video content to help trigger this retention. For example, if a consumer is engaging with an interactive video, they will likely remember the communication they had with that particular brand. This process drives brand awareness which starts the path to purchase.
Interactive Video Options Brands Can Leverage in Marketing
Interactive video isn’t a type of video marketers can leverage. Instead, it’s a category of options brands can study to determine the best choice for them and their target demographic. These campaigns rung the spectrum, from simple text overlays to complex omnichannel experiences. A few examples for brands include:
- Embedded polls: Polls integrated into video content can be a valuable way to gain insight on what consumers think of an advertisement. After viewing video content, brands can ask consumers what they thought of the message and adjust it based on feedback. Alternately, these polls can work to gain insight into consumer shopping habits by offering them instead of advertising content on sites like YouTube.
- Story engagement: In some interactive video campaigns, viewers guide the stories by making decisions between various plot points. As they make their selection, new scenes will play out and offer more choices. These campaigns are highly engaging because there are several possible scenarios, and consumers typically want to try out a few.
- Gamification: Brands can hide messages in video ads which help consumers discover new content. This strategy turns the individual from a passive viewer to an active participant as they try to unlock hidden content within the brand’s message. Gamification does not have to be video driven, either. Brands can leverage it through in-store mobile apps that encourage consumers to go on digital scavenger hunts to find products in exchange for rewards. In either case, gamification works by encouraging the consumer to seek out the branded product using a series of challenges and rewards for achievements.
- Immersive video:
Immersive video uses augmented reality teamed with video to involve users directly in the message. Bacardi managed an impressive, immersive video campaign using Snapchat as the platform, along with augmented reality features. Users were able to add themselves to a music video using a special lens sponsored by Bacardi. The campaign gained 42 million views in 24 hours and was considered a major success. - Rewarded video: Rewarded video is a type of programmatic video advertising where the interaction occurs before the video plays, typically available through shopping apps like Shopkick, as well as mobile games. With it, consumers watch branded content and receive rewards points. This form of video advertising is best displayed in a vertical format to not disrupt the consumer’s enjoyment of the app. This type of video interaction establishes permission between the consumer and the advertiser and improves the relationship.
Interactive video plays a critical role in the customer purchase journey as it helps improve retention for branded content.
Third-party options in interactive video are numerous. These third parties help brands test out various campaigns to determine which are most effective in engaging their viewers. The data from video interactions even allows brands to adjust their marketing strategies based on consumer response to their content.
Interactive video plays a critical role in the customer purchase journey as it helps improve retention for branded content. The next time the consumer is near that brand’s products, they’ll be more likely to choose them over a competitor due to their existing memory of the brand. Through video interaction, brands create memorable experiences that heighten the customer relationship and improve sales.
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