The trend of brands taking the long-format route is
not new, but 2015 witnessed a surge in the number of brands that adopted the
long-format narration. From brands across categories, this was one of the most
prominent trends last year. Insurance companies like Birla Sun Life, Tata AIA
and HDFC Life highlighted the beauty of relationships
and abstained from cliche representation. New age-start-ups and e-commerce
brands like Urban Ladder, Oyo Rooms and OLX released emotional long-format
films around special days like Independence Day/Diwali. There were also brands
like Anouk, Omron, and Ziggy that brought taboo subjects like same-sex
relationships, corporate bias towards pregnancy etc., to the fore.
Most of these ad campaigns focussed on
demonstrating the purpose of the brand, rather than the product. By choosing
topics, with which the youth can relate to and with an attempt to stay
connected with them, brands didn’t hesitate to experiment. These films (3-7 min
duration) went viral and garnered lot of hits and shares, but the question is-
has there been any effective brand building?
We spoke to advertising and digital experts to
understand their take on long-format films and the viability of this trend:
Santosh Padhi, Chief Creative Officer & Co-founder, Taproot Dentsu:
If
you see, then actually the trend of long-format story telling has been
there around the world for more than 3-4 years now. For the last two
years, it has only caught up in India.
The reason behind this is at one point of time, brands and consumers
were being bombarded with too many ads which generated a level of
fatigue. But now, these brands have started realising that they need to
be friends with the consumers today. As a result of which, we will
always have to find newer ways of story-telling because we can’t
continue to talk to the consumers in the typical way.
Santosh Padhi, Chief Creative Officer & Co-founder, Taproot Dentsu:
If
you see, then actually the trend of long-format story telling has been
there around the world for more than 3-4 years now. For the last two
years, it has only caught up in India.
The reason behind this is at one point of time, brands and consumers
were being bombarded with too many ads which generated a level of
fatigue. But now, these brands have started realising that they need to
be friends with the consumers today. As a result of which, we will
always have to find newer ways of story-telling because we can’t
continue to talk to the consumers in the typical way.
Santosh
Padhi, Chief Creative Officer & Co-founder, Taproot Dentsu:
If you see, then actually the trend of long-format story telling has
been there around the world for more than 3-4 years now. For the last two
years, it has only caught up in India.
The reason behind this is at one point of time,
brands and consumers were being bombarded with too many ads which generated a
level of fatigue. But now, these brands have started realising that they need
to be friends with the consumers today. As a result of which, we will always
have to find newer ways of story-telling because we can’t continue to talk to
the consumers in the typical way.
Bobby
Pawar, Managing Director and Chief Creative Officer, Publicis India:
This trend of brands using long
story-telling format, will only continue to grow in the coming years. See it is
basically a ‘copy-cat industry’, when some brands see success in a particular format,
more brands will continue to follow the same.
Ashish
Khazanchi, Managing Partner, Enormous:
The long-format trend will be
there for some more time, but by the end of the coming year or so, even brands
will start questioning the effectiveness of this format. The problem today is,
everybody is talking digital; they are only referring to the number of likes
and shares, but whether it has brought any discernible buying behaviour changes
only time will tell. The initial euphoria and celebration will wane after
sometime.
Chaaya
Bhardwaj, founder, BC Webwise:
Audiences live and breathe
content. They have short attention span because there’s an abundance of
compelling and engaging content available. So today audiences are time
conscious and that’s why brands are trying to change the way they tell their
stories. Long format video content is one of the many ways brands are
leveraging to break through the clutter and leverage the huge demand for fresh
content. Theformat gives brands the chance to get into story telling mode
and deliver truly memorable experiences to audiences, do better product
integration, and make audiences part of the brand’s evolution.
The downside is that while it is a great
opportunity to spread love for the brand, it also is a major risk - you're
almost balancing between commercial and content. Also, product placements often
go overboard in most of these stories and the story loses its charm. Risks
aside, longformat story telling has proven to be a great way to keep
audiences glued and elevate the level of engagement. HUL’s unique content partnership
with MTV was a great example, where they got 6 popular Bollywood movie
directors like Anurag Kashyap, Shoojit Sircar and made 6 movies for 6 of HUL's
beauty and personal care brands. The content worked equally well for HUL on
social media. We will see more of this in 2016. Brands will continue to look
atlongformat story telling with an integrated approach.
SuveerBajaj,
Co-founder & Director, Media Operations, FoxyMoron:
2015 has been an exciting year
for digital evolution. While everyone is looking for efficiencies in
advertising, their main objective is to find new ways to engage their
consumers. And what’s more engaging than a video? The key to successful videos
is always content. Telling a compelling, engaging story that too with a
business objective in 30-seconds is a tough task. Thus, a new journey has begun
in the space of long-format ad films. From insurance companies to FMCGs and
e-commerce, many brands are now adapting their campaigns around long-format
videos, increasing engagement by sharing stories, instead of the usual
advertisements. Long format films have become so popular that people download,
share and repeatedly watch them. This is why brands are now taking it to
the next level by showcasing a point of relevance in the consumer’s life and
using webisodes to convey the message.”
Webisodes can be used in multiple ways, while some
are stand- alone pieces ending with the final branding; others have used them
to showcase branded snippets continually. Two unique yet contrasting examples
are Lakme’s ‘Bang, Baaja, Baaraat’ and Dabur Vatika’s ‘Brave and Beautiful’.
Lakme sponsored a five-part web series by Yash Raj films. After each webisode,
short videos were made by Lakme, where various looks were decoded. On the other
hand, Dabur Vatika took an emotional route by paying a tribute to a woman
reclaiming her regular life post cancer.
Ramanujam
Sridhar, Founder and CEO, Brand-comm:
This is one of the big trends of
2015 and it is likely to continue this year as well. The reason why more number
of brands are resorting to long-format films is because today the audience is
online and therefore, the chance of sharing the video and making it viral
becomes higher. Brands today have realised the potential of the digital forum,
and that is the reason look at the quality of any videos which gets released.
They have nice music,good story line and are not shoddy.
he
trend of brands taking the long-format route is not new, but 2015
witnessed a surge in the number of brands that adopted the long-format
narration. From brands across categories, this was one of the most
prominent trends last year. Insurance companies like Birla Sun Life,
Tata AIA and HDFC
Life highlighted the beauty of relationships and abstained from cliche
representation. New age-start-ups and e-commerce brands like Urban
Ladder, Oyo Rooms and OLX released emotional long-format films around
special days like Independence Day/Diwali. There were also brands like
Anouk, Omron, and Ziggy that brought taboo subjects like same-sex
relationships, corporate bias towards pregnancy etc., to the fore.
Most of these ad campaigns focussed on demonstrating the purpose of the
brand, rather than the product. By choosing topics, with which the
youth can relate to and with an attempt to stay connected with them,
brands didn’t hesitate to experiment. These films (3-7 min duration)
went viral and garnered lot of hits and shares, but the question is- has
there been any effective brand building?
We spoke to advertising and digital experts to understand their take on long-format films and the viability of this trend:
he
trend of brands taking the long-format route is not new, but 2015
witnessed a surge in the number of brands that adopted the long-format
narration. From brands across categories, this was one of the most
prominent trends last year. Insurance companies like Birla Sun Life,
Tata AIA and HDFC
Life highlighted the beauty of relationships and abstained from cliche
representation. New age-start-ups and e-commerce brands like Urban
Ladder, Oyo Rooms and OLX released emotional long-format films around
special days like Independence Day/Diwali. There were also brands like
Anouk, Omron, and Ziggy that brought taboo subjects like same-sex
relationships, corporate bias towards pregnancy etc., to the fore.
Most of these ad campaigns focussed on demonstrating the purpose of the
brand, rather than the product. By choosing topics, with which the
youth can relate to and with an attempt to stay connected with them,
brands didn’t hesitate to experiment. These films (3-7 min duration)
went viral and garnered lot of hits and shares, but the question is- has
there been any effective brand building?
We spoke to advertising and digital experts to understand their take on long-format films and the viability of this trend:
he
trend of brands taking the long-format route is not new, but 2015
witnessed a surge in the number of brands that adopted the long-format
narration. From brands across categories, this was one of the most
prominent trends last year. Insurance companies like Birla Sun Life,
Tata AIA and HDFC
Life highlighted the beauty of relationships and abstained from cliche
representation. New age-start-ups and e-commerce brands like Urban
Ladder, Oyo Rooms and OLX released emotional long-format films around
special days like Independence Day/Diwali. There were also brands like
Anouk, Omron, and Ziggy that brought taboo subjects like same-sex
relationships, corporate bias towards pregnancy etc., to the fore.
Most of these ad campaigns focussed on demonstrating the purpose of the
brand, rather than the product. By choosing topics, with which the
youth can relate to and with an attempt to stay connected with them,
brands didn’t hesitate to experiment. These films (3-7 min duration)
went viral and garnered lot of hits and shares, but the question is- has
there been any effective brand building?
We spoke to advertising and digital experts to understand their take on long-format films and the viability of this trend:
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