The importance of adapting marketing strategies to influence the new media landscape
The media landscape continues to evolve at a blistering pace. Today’s audience is now accustomed to multiplatform media consumption and expects high-quality, immersive content across all screens. As eyes continue to shift away purely from television sets to a range of different devices, brand marketers need to adapt and reach customers in new ways.
For consumer and entertainment brands and even Hollywood film studios, it’s no longer efficient for marketers to focus on pushing promotional content through linear TV platforms alone. The average adult spends approximately four hours on their mobile each day with another report from MediaKix suggesting that on-average we spend three and a half hours on social media a day! It’s no surprise then that digital advertising spending is growing faster than any other channel and is forecast to peak at 12%, reaching US $254 billion globally.
New opportunities – new challenges
With so many platforms available to share promotional content and connect with a target market, brands are increasingly looking for partners to provide a full end-to-end service rather than multiple disparate agencies with siloed expertise. Today it’s about agility, speed and digital proficiency as TV assets and multi-formatted promotional materials including online video content, social media campaigns and digital billboards are produced. These digital assets span a global audience that requires efficiency in producing, distributing, tracking and optimising those deliverables for maximum reach and effectiveness – in an entirely new ecosystem.
Power in numbers
As a creative digital agency, DMS has extensive experience producing, localising, delivering and analysing high quality promotional content across all platforms for global film studios, and lifestyle and sports brands. The agency is seeing a huge shift in the number and type of assets it is working with and where they are being delivered. It recently localised and delivered a record 943 creative assets for 20th Century Fox’s futuristic cyberpunk film, Alita: Battle Angel, delivering 581 creative pieces for online and social platforms with just 75 assets created for broadcast.
DMS has worked on a range of film titles for 20th Century Fox including Deadpool 2, The Greatest Showman and Kingsman: The Golden Circle and within these campaigns, it has seen a dramatic increase in social and online assets. Around 62% of Alita: Battle Angel’s assets were created for online/social, with only 33% for Kingsman: The Golden Circle. This is quite a shift in just 18 months.
Changing deliverables
What hasn’t changed is the need for high-quality promotional content. That content must be repurposed and reversioned for a range of devices, platforms and geographical territories each with its own set of requirements and best practices. Looking back over this short period, DMS has seen a changing trend in the shape and format of the content, as more 1:1 and 9:16 aspect ratios are being used for social media, particularly Instagram which is becoming a hugely influential platform for marketers. It’s now the second most engaged network after Facebook.
As each creative asset is produced for the varying platforms, audio and visuals are frequently augmented with subtitles and animation to enhance engagement and entice the viewer. At the same time, country and regional differences must also be addressed. Brand messaging must be consistent and not simply in the appropriate language but also with culturally nuanced tone and visual appeal.
Take Alita: Battle Angel for example. Offices in 36 countries around the world requested localised promotional assets through dedicated customer services coordinators. DMS was responsible for ensuring everything adhered to local regulations covering voiceovers, age ratings, URLs and social media tags. With the content dubbed and often subtitled, graphic designers created pixel-perfect graphics cards to match the quality of post-production master graphics originally supplied.
Speed, agility, automation
Global film marketing offers prime examples of the process at work and highlights some of the challenges and fixes. When it comes to producing creative materials, master files are often not shared until close to a film’s release due to security and editorial concerns. Therefore, assets must be turned around very quickly, requiring efficiency, accuracy and a high degree of automation.
It also must be painless for clients in different offices and regions to request, review and approve assets. Through a secure asset platform like DMS’ PANTHER ONLINE ®, it’s easy to select which assets are going to work for a given market’s campaign. It can also serve as a distribution network direct to advertising platforms. The system can be deployed in multiple languages and with an easy-to-use interface, it’s an ideal way to store and share sensitive content.
Shifting budgets and priorities
As the tide continues to change and we consume more content on multiple platforms, brand budgets are following suit. Marketing spends have diversified from just traditional media options to incorporate a multi-platform approach encompassing digital, online and social, which is dramatically increasing the amount of creative content required. Brands are recognising the possibilities afforded by digital assets and platforms and the need to reach customers wherever they are with the highest-quality and engaging content in a more competitive environment.
New technologies combined with specialised expertise can go a long way to successfully and cost effectively rolling out global multiplatform digital marketing campaigns. An asset management and sharing platform with advanced media measuring and monitoring tools can manage and optimise assets. Creative professionals, from editors and mixers to graphic designers, as well as support personnel including multilingual customer service teams, technical experts, quality control representatives and customer service coordinators are all integral to successful campaigns.
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