• 4 Reasons Why Digital Video Will Win The Decade

    4 Reasons Why Digital Video Will Win The Decade

    Last week at CES 2016 in Las Vegas, Robert Kyncl, Chief Business Officer at YouTube, presented the keynote on why digital video will win the decade – and video and content marketers should take note.

    But before diving in, let’s refer back to 2012 when Kyncl made some bold predictions. He said that by 2020, “90% of all internet traffic was going to be video traffic,” and “75% of all video people watched in the US was going to be transmitted through the internet.” Fast forward to the CES 2016 Keynote, Kyncl justified his predictions by educating the crowd:

    • “Cisco predicts that video will actually reach around 90% of global internet traffic by 2019 – so a full year ahead of schedule.”
    • “By 2020…digital video will only reach about 60% of the total pie, not 75, as predicted.”

    However, Kyncl is standing by his latter prediction because he doesn’t think digital video will grow linearly – currently at 25% a year – but exponentially. “So, this being Vegas, I’m doubling down. I believe digital video will overtake TV to become the single largest way people spend free time before the end of the decade,” states Kyncl.

    Per Kyncl, here are four reasons why digital video will win the decade:

    1. It’s inherently mobile

    Bigger, brighter and sharper screens, longer battery life, stronger and faster data speeds, and better sound quality are all trends producing devices constantly improving on the mobile video viewing experience. “And app makers and publishers, from Snapchat to The New York Times, are all investing in making video a core part of their experiences, accelerating mobile video consumption,” adds Kyncl. “And on YouTube, the average time people spend watching video on their mobile device is forty minutes, a gain of 50% year-on-year.”

    2. It’s endlessly diverse

    With digital video, not only can audiences share and search, but choose to consume at their leisure. The mobility is “successfully changing the way we consume video into the way we consume books – you can find one on whatever interests you and consume it whenever and wherever you want,” explains Kyncl. “That openness has led to incredible content diversity. Not only do we have videos on every topic imaginable, entirely new genres of video have been born on YouTube.”

    3. It’s never been more important to music

    Aside from sleeping and working, watching video is the #1 way people spend their time. What’s #2? Listening to music – at just over four hours a day. “And YouTube is a major source of that music,” Kyncl reports, “More than half of all teenagers use [YouTube] as their main way to find and listen to new artists, in large part because we have the biggest and best music library available. If an artist has a live performance, a remix, an acoustic version or an out of print track, chances are you can find it on YouTube. But the best thing about music on YouTube is that music videos can become massive phenomena, whether they’re from established or emerging artists.”

    4. It’s immersive in a way TV can never be

    CES 2016 product and technology trends in Virtual Reality and 360 video are at the forefront of this statement, and leading content creators around the world are using this technology to tell richer, immersive, and interactive stories.

    “Already on Android and soon in iOS, you’ll be able to watch any video on YouTube in VR…making VR truly democratic and primed to grow exponentially,” concludes Kyncl.

    These four reasons and trends all point to digital video’s success during the decade.

    To watch Robert Kyncl’s Keynote in its entirety with compelling cameos from Scooter Braun, founder of SB Projects, Nick Woodman, CEO of GoPro, and Chris Milk, CEO of Vrse, carve out an hour for the video below:

    Fill out the form below to schedule a free strategy call with our team.



    Tim Bradley

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  • How Brand Videos are Like Your Favorite Song

    How Brand Videos are Like Your Favorite Song

    Producing a successful brand video is like creating a piece of contemporary music. Generally, with a simple brand video you’ve got the introduction, the verse, the chorus, maybe a bridge or solo, and the conclusion. As video creators, this is how we initiate creating any number of brand videos for our clients. You’ve got about 10-15 seconds in your introduction to hook the audience to keep watching – do this by presenting “the problem,” a unique situation or location, or by showing stylized video with high production value. During the verse, we present the meat of the video – the who, what, where, when, why and how. The chorus is when we celebrate the brand’s achievement. The bridge may circle-back to “the problem” before reemphasizing how said brand is the right solution. And finally, the conclusion is the takeaway – the one piece of information (or a feeling) the brand wants the audience to walk away with. This will often include a call-to-action.

    These holistic elements are the structure of a basic brand video, but a successful brand video works with a deeper understanding of music, taking into consideration the seven elements of traditional music:

    1. Melody: a succession of notes heard as some sort of unit.
    2. Harmony: the relationship between two or more simultaneous pitches.
    3. Rhythm: the variation of the accentuation of sounds over time.
    4. Timbre: the quality of a sound.
    5. Form: the structure of a particular piece, how its parts are put together to make the whole.
    6. Tempo: the speed of communicating an emotion in a particular piece, how fast or slow it’s played.
    7. Dynamics: the volume of all parts as a whole and every layer in the structure.

    Look at any number of the videos we’ve created for our clients and you’ll see what I mean. Maybe it’s the melody in the way the video tells a compelling story:

    Or perhaps the video showcases the harmony in which the brand works towards a better tomorrow:

    Or maybe the brand is keeping in rhythm with its company mission:

    It could simply be the timbre in which a brand continues to produce quality products or services:

    Explaining a specific line of service of a business is similar to the form of a song:

    The tempo in which a brand communicates can be very powerful – whether fast or slow – to emphasize emotions:

    Lastly, and arguably the most ambitious to achieve, is the dynamics – the parts as a whole. We achieve this by creating a series of videos for a brand; each video individually elicits a specific element, but when combined, the dynamics tell a complete, compelling, and engaging story:

    Need to strategize how to breathe energy into your next video project? Drop us a line via the form below!


    Tim Bradley

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