It’s time to sync your TV commercials to Facebook, Instagram

DUBAI / Emirates Business

Mobile video is exploding. Over half of all video views are on mobile and mobile video consumption is increasing exponentially on Facebook. Mobile is where your customers watch everything from video ads to branded content—and it’s time to adapt yours to match.
Businesses around the world are experimenting with PockeTVC including Emirates in the United Arab Emirates. With nearly all metrics, PockeTVCs had a higher success rate than standard TV commercials and higher brand lifts than norms.
May Seow, Global Story Director, Facebook Creative Shop, says, “Every major brand has a TV Commercial but not every TV Commercial is optimized for the mobile environment. PockeTVC is a low-cost, low-barrier approach to optimize assets that brands already own, for the mobile audience. We’ve found that the more committed we are to experiment and deliver clear messages that delight, the better we will do in the mobile environment. Most TVCs have a linear story arc revealing brand or benefit only at the end. If the scrolling speed of mobile is averaging at 1.7 seconds, we must fundamentally rethink the first few seconds and capture attention quickly with our most arresting frames.”
People overwhelmingly prefer shorter ads to longer ones, according to Business Insider 2016, “Consumers prefer shorter video ads across all devices”. But on mobile, consumption is fast and attention is short—so the bar to and capture and keep attention is even higher. According to this year’s Facebook research, video- watching on mobile is fast, frequent and needs to work with or without sound.
Think about how you use your own mobile device, and those qualities will probably ring true.
TV commercials typically air in a ‘forced view’ environment where people watch the entire spot, so it makes sense to have the punchline at the end. But on mobile, 47 percent of a video’s value is delivered in the first three seconds, and 74 percent is delivered in the first ten seconds, according to Nielsen BrandEffect studies 2015, commissioned by Facebook Marketing Science —after that, attention starts to decline. If your brand message is at the end of a 30-second spot, this may mean people are less likely to see it.
What if you could optimize your TV assets for mobile?
PockeTVCs are “pocket television commercials”—a low-cost, low-barrier approach to optimizing as- sets that you already own for a mobile audience. As of January 2017, the Creative Shop has helped over 250 clients around the world to create highly effective PockeTVCs from their existing assets. Along nearly all metrics, PockeTVCs had a higher success rate than standard TVCs and higher brand lifts than norms, according to Facebook data 2017.

BRAND AND MESSAGE
Make sure your brand gets its credit and your message
gets delivered
Include your brand early. The earlier you can place your brand in the video and the clearer you can make the message, the better. Many mobile videos underperform because the message is unclear, the branding isn’t distinct .
Set the scene quickly. Most TV commercials spend a long time setting up context. On mobile, it’s important to capture attention immediately and plunge people directly into the drama.

TYPOGRAPHY AND GRAPHICS
Clarify your message using text, graphics instead of voice over
Create visual interest and the context is everything. To make your message meaningful, get people oriented quickly.
Make a cover for your story. This is a simple way to add words or context that would be delivered via audio in a TVC commercial.

CROPS AND RATIOS
How can you frame your asset to make the most of the content?
Optimize your ratios for mobile. Square and vertical videos often perform better on mobile.
Play with grids and stacked images. Sure, the mobile screen is small—but there’s so much you can do with it. Try splitting the screen to show two or more parallel storylines at once.

DURATION
Deliver a full message within an optimal time frame for mobile
Play with shorter spots. What can you communicate in an extra short time frame? Focus on the key takeaway or benefit.
Start with your most intriguing frame. Select one or two
key frames to bring your message together effectively and in
less time.
If your TV spot has good material that can’t be easily condensed, try splitting it up into a mini-series of short spots that end with the same message.
In short, look objectively at your TV commercial.