Video marketing is gaining traction and appears to be poised for exponential growth among digital marketers. Video has long been a marketing tool and vetted platforms such as YouTube, founded in 2005, have been around for a decade. The 2013 launch of Vine, a six-second video sharing app, pushed video front and center onto social media strategists’ radar. When Twitter acquired Vine, many people assumed that Facebook and Google+ would answer with video-specific apps of their own.
Last month, Facebook announced it had gone live with a new video advertising program, Anthology. The unprecedented initiative is touted as, “equal parts art and science, pairing publisher creativity with Facebook advertising insights to create custom campaigns that meet brands’ business goals.”
Anthology brokers partnerships between companies and a group of elite media companies such as Vox, Vice, The Onion, Tastemade, Disney, Funny or Die or Electus. Each of these publishers is known for creativity, storytelling expertise and video production skills, which will be made available to their Facebook video advertising partners.
The Anthology program is Facebook’s chance to capitalize on the increasingly popular video marketing industry. Just a year ago, Facebook served about one billion daily video views compared to roughly four billion this year. Facebook isn’t alone in developing its video content, Instagram recently incorporated video into its application and more and more brands are utilizing video marketing as a part of their marketing mix.
While video is expected to be the next digital marketing “it child,” Mashable notes three challenges to Anthology’s success:
- Facebook will need to convince people that it can create quality advertising
- Anthology needs to achieve enough scale to make the program worthwhile
- Facebook will have to making sure not to alienate other reputable publishers who aren’t participating in the program
Regardless of whether or not brands choose to utilize Anthology, there is no denying that consumers are using and responding to video content on digital marketing platforms.