With smartphone-carrying, tablet-wielding Canadians in a near constant state of connectivity, their video viewing habits have changed forever. But Canadian marketers are unsure about how to update their advertising strategies in response, according to a recent survey of Canadian consumers and marketers.
Content sponsored by Videology
According to research from Videology, Rogers Market Research and Marketing magazine, there were a number of surprises about how Canadians are watching video, but the overall message is that video consumption on the whole is on the rise and happening across screens, said Ryan Ladisa, vice-president sales at Videology Canada. “We are watching more video on laptops and desktops, smartphones and tablets but very importantly, our viewing on traditional TV remains strong, too.”
The report, “Consumers Lead Marketers on Path to Cross-Screen Convergence,” surveyed more than 1,000 Canadian consumers and 104 marketers.
According to the study, 84% of Canadians still subscribe to cable or satellite TV services, they spend about 14.3 hours a week watching live TV, and another 4.2 hours watching recorded shows.
The big shift comes in the ways traditional content is being supplemented with web-based content: 75% now watch video online, about six hours a week of video is watched via the web, and “second-screen” viewing is common with more than half of Canadians.
“Perhaps more importantly for advertisers, the study also revealed that 20% of respondents are using their second screens to actually research and review the brands and products they see on TV,” said Ladisa. “That’s an indication of just how strong that TV and mobile story is and will continue to be.”
The lines between traditional and web-based video are blurring. Consumers will happily watch video on their TV sets in traditional fashion, but they don’t want to be constrained by traditional models either. They want to watch whatever they want, whenever they want and wherever they want. However, the research also shows marketers haven’t yet adapted their advertising strategies for this new reality—a reality that is undeniably more complex but one that holds enormous opportunity.
It’s clear that CMOs know video is important and that consumers are watching across devices, but aren’t sure about their strategies to maximize their video advertising, said Ladisa. “I feel that we, as an industry, have identified the opportunity but we’ve been slow to act on it.”
Fully half of Canadian marketers say digital video is something they work with or think about every day, but they haven’t actually come up with a digital video strategy to effectively reach consumers. (Just 8% said they have a formal digital video strategy and approximately 42% said they have an informal strategy.)
“Marketers don’t really have any clear direction as to what they should be doing differently to respond to changing consumer video habits,” he said. They believe video beyond TV will become even more common (more so than consumers in fact: 23% of consumers say they expect smartphone viewing to increase compared to 84% of marketers), but many feel they lack an understanding of the tools and technology that already exist to plan and buy media that will reach the consumers they want to target.
They’re not sure of how to proceed and that uncertainty becomes paralyzing, said Ladisa. “It may be that we’re just stuck in our traditional models.”
However, marketers also predict the game will change even more in the next few years. They expect video budgets to increase, with more across-screen, programmatic audience buying and better targeting. What’s more, this shift to multi-screen video consumption will bring fundamental changes in how marketers and their agencies plan and buy video inventory: 85% expect planning for online video and linear television will merge.
So why aren’t marketers doing more now?
“There are risks involved in changing your strategy and I think that it is hard for brand marketers to break their paradigms and redirect budgets away from strategies that have worked well in the past, despite clear signs of progress,” said Ladisa.
“The solution starts with taking the first few small steps,” he said. “Nobody is saying put your entire budget there, just start testing.”
