Making services and products extra accessible to widespread and useful audiences is the final word objective for manufacturers all around the world. And in Europe, they’re succeeding an increasing number of—thanks, largely, to content material advertising and marketing. About 71 % of European entrepreneurs created extra content material in 2015 than they did the yr prior. In Finland, 80 % of entrepreneurs use unique content material to focus on their prospects; in Denmark, that quantity raises to 86 %.
Whereas output ranges are excessive, so, too, is high quality. Manufacturers are pushing the envelope by experimenting with new codecs and discovering recent methods to leverage the tried-and-true techniques they’ve used previously.
Right here, we have a look at the newest European advertising and marketing traits to look at how high manufacturers are persistently creating world-class content material advertising and marketing campaigns.
Cell video
With greater than 1 billion energetic cell subscriptions in Europe, video consumption on smartphones and tablets has been steadily rising, and European audiences are amongst these devoting extra time to cell video. In Austria, 34 % of customers stated they watch extra cell video now than they did a yr in the past. In Italy, that determine was 35 %; in Sweden, 36; and in Denmark and Finland, 39 %.
Different research present that smartphones and tablets are gaining on desktops. It’s a neck-and-neck race between tablets and desktops in Germany, whereas practically as many Italian customers select to observe movies on their tablets as on a desktop pc.
Because of this evolution, entrepreneurs throughout Europe are shoring up their cell video investments. For instance, since 2013, Philips has been operating a digital marketing campaign to advertise its Click on & Type shaving toolkit that makes use of cell interactive video to let potential prospects experiment with shaving. Created by Ogilvy & Mather Düsseldorf—and utilizing video expertise from Rapt Media—the marketing campaign, out there in 4 languages, was touted as “the world’s first totally mobile-enabled interactive video expertise.”
“Designed to Play” produced some spectacular outcomes: The common viewing time of the cell video surpassed 4 minutes, and customers engaged with the media a mean of three to 4 occasions.
As Lenze Boonstra, head of the worldwide advertising and marketing crew for Philips Private Care put it, “Given the truth that we’re the primary ones to launch a mobile-enabled marketing campaign like this, I feel we’ve delivered one thing promising.”
Social media-exclusive content material
Manufacturers are rapidly realizing the significance of offering their social media followers with unique media property. Let’s look once more at Adidas. For six months previous to its 2014 FIFA World Cup marketing campaign, the German athletic model and its social media company, We Are Social, collected pictures and photographs of Adidas-sponsored soccer gamers.
This unique content material was pushed out for the model’s “#allin or nothing” social marketing campaign. With 1,000 pictures and 160 movies at its disposal, Adidas doubled its YouTube viewers, attracted over one million new followers on Fb, and generated 2.1 million mentions on Twitter—greater than some other FIFA World Cup sponsor.
Able to rumble. #allin or nothing #WorldCup pic.twitter.com/Jtnp0zIgch
— adidas Soccer (@adidasfootball) June 14, 2014
“The work Adidas did throughout the 2014 World Cup was excellent by way of content material planning at scale,” Della Dora stated. “It created 1000’s of items of content material so as to have the ability to react to each single essential second of the competitors in actual time on social. It was an enormous success and created an actual relationship between a soccer ball and the soccer fanatics.”
Adidas has stated that it achieved document soccer-related gross sales amounting to 2 billion euros because of the marketing campaign. Eight million jerseys and 14 million soccer balls within the Brazuca design have been bought. That’s 1 million extra balls than Adidas bought in 2010.
Along with greater than 1.5 million social conversations, Adidas obtained 5.8 million new followers throughout all social platforms and 917,000 #allin hashtag mentions on Twitter. And the @brazuca Twitter account grew by 603 %, producing over 530,000 person interactions.
Model sequence
Longform video, particularly the idea of the model sequence, is a quickly rising format amongst entrepreneurs, who promote the whole lot from blouses to beer with collections of high-quality movies that embody the spirit and life-style related to their manufacturers. Since 2012, Prada’s ladies’s-only Miu Miu label has been enlisting feminine filmmakers to assist craft its female movies, which collectively are referred to as The Miu Miu Ladies’s Tales. Along with being out there on-line, the brief movies are routinely screened on the Venice Movie Competition. In line with the cell video pattern, they will also be seen by means of a project-specific app.
Perrier’s five-part model sequence, referred to as Tales of the District, makes use of animation, narration, and its distinctive shade of inexperienced to inform the story of a person who’s besotted by the hostess of fictional locale District Perrier, which followers can discover on Tumblr.
Dutch brewing firm Heineken, in the meantime, earned itself greater than 6.5 million views for The Experiment, a three-minute unique video that’s a part of the continued international mission “Take pleasure in Heineken Responsibly,” designed to encourage ingesting carefully. Launched in 2014 with the slogan “Dance Extra, Drink Sluggish,” the marketing campaign has been promoted in additional than 20 nations and demonstrates how an incredible DJ can lower the quantity that party-goers drink. Extra video content material, like a behind-the-scenes look at DJ Armin van Buuren and a video providing much more perception into “the experiment,” creates an in-depth model expertise.
Inspirational storytelling
Video could also be standard, however don’t let it detract from the worth of longform written content material. French mountaineering gear model Quechua makes use of it on its weblog, Climbing on the Moon, the place readers can discover inspirational journey tales of mountain-loving prospects like photographer Théo Giacometti by means of episodic posts. With the assistance of articles in each English and French, images, maps, and video, the viewers can comply with him by means of Norway’s Hardangervidda Nationwide Park, the place reindeer run wild.
The Swiss beverage model Schweeps has additionally coated immersive territory with the digital tradition and life-style journal Villa Schweppes, which options articles on music festivals, Parisian bars, and trend traits together with cocktail recipes. DJs, designers, and mixologists designed to encourage readers to undertake the model’s hip nightlife vibe.
Widespread influencer advertising and marketing
Final yr, a Dutch startup referred to as Influencers at Work launched Europe’s first totally automated influencer advertising and marketing service, and already, we’re beginning to see main manufacturers together with Lancôme Italy and Beck’s Brewery embrace influencer campaigns.
To advertise its Hypnôse Quantity-à-Porter mascara, Lancôme just lately partnered with social media influencers and bloggers to create a sequence of Fb and Instagram movies. The marketing campaign reportedly reached greater than 5 million customers and noticed engagement charges as excessive as 2.5 %. For Beck’s, influencers helped the beer model promote a shopper contest with 30 social media posts, which reached 6.8 million customers and generated 170,000 social interactions.
That is an excerpt from the e-book “State of Content material Advertising: Europe.”