Online Video on the Rise in SA
Date:
8 Oct 2010 Uncapped broadband has arrived in South Africa, bringing with it a dramatic change in the way that many users experience the web. No longer do users have to carefully ration their bandwidth for the month and avoid video services for fear of burning through their caps too quickly.
Instead, within reason, they can consume as much streaming video and as many YouTube and Zoopy clips as they want to. And with 10MB ADSL arriving in South Africa, we're also seeing a slow increase in the speed of the Internet connections users have.
For advertisers, that's an important change because it means we now have new opportunities to address users with richer and more engaging content than we could when the web was mostly about text and images.
South Africa is a little late to the party, but consumption of online video is on the rise all around the world. Hulu, the TV and movie video content streaming service, has experienced a 265% increase in streams over the past year.
And YouTube now generates more than two billion video clip viewings a day from viewers around the globe. South Africans currently account for about 30 million YouTube page views per day – something to ponder if you think online video isn’t taking off in the country.
As important as the rising number of online video views is, the simultaneous increase in the quality and intensity of user engagement with online video is the factor that makes online video so attractive for advertisers. Let's briefly consider some of the opportunities that video offers South African advertisers.
You can't discuss online video without talking about YouTube, so let's start there. A number of South African brands already post their television ads as YouTube clips, but for most, that's as far as their engagement with the platform goes. But there are many other opportunities on the world's biggest video site, which reaches a vast swathe of South Africa's online population. Branded content, display advertising and overlays on YouTube videos are all excellent opportunities for advertisers on YouTube.
YouTube's promoted video ads are becoming increasingly popular among advertisers in the US and Europe. Here, advertisers with relevant video content can pay to have their keyword-targeted ads appear against relevant queries. This form of video advertising is proving to be extremely powerful when thoughtfully done.
Many local and international portals are offering a growing selection of video content on their sites, creating a host of exciting advertising opportunities. These opportunities include preroll ads, sponsorships, overlays, and more. And of course, one can start using video in your own display ads as a means of creating interest and engagement.
So where will this all go over the next few years? In the international and local markets, we can expect to see more and more video ads created exclusively for the online channel that have production values rivalling television ads. We can also expect to see interactivity of online ads grow at a rapid rate.
Clickable video - now a reality rather than a sci-fi fantasy - could be one of the next big things. A number of brands in the US have experimented with inserting branded items featured within online videos - the user simply clicks on the item to access more info. For example, you could click on a pair of sunglasses donned by an actor in a video clip and be sent to a site where they're on sale.
Patterns in the US show that users are spending more and more time watching online video, and often at the cost of watching television. And many of them surf the web and watch TV at the same time. These trends are sure to come to middle-class South Africa as our telecom infrastructure keeps improving.
Digital video is interactive and engaging. It's a perfect item to add to your online marketing mix in a world where a growing number of your customers have broadband connections and boundless bandwidth.
