Page 47 - AdNews April 2020
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            is the right time to invest or to at least bring the investment back to where it used to be in past’, when there is more premium content on the table. That’s driven either more of a reach approach, but having an element of personalisation, which you can’t deliver on television.”
Menezes highlights the potential for sponsorships as a significant opportunity for Facebook. Brands could use Seven’s My Kitchen Rules to connect with audiences with a higher affinity to certain contestants.
“Digital has always been lacklustre in terms of activating a sponsor- ship, I think this brings forward a good opportunity,” he says.
Meanwhile, Snapchat recently partnered with Screen Australia to produce its first Australian-created vertical series. The series will build on Snap’s library, including Snap Originals and Snap Shows.
For a company that targets the younger audience, 13-34 year-olds, it sees an opportunity to capture viewers with premium content who are watching less TV than previous generations.
Local general manager Kathryn Carter says in addition to user-gen- erated content, which has propped up the platform, users also want quality shows.
“It’s not that user-generated content isn’t enough, but you have to have a look at how people are consuming content and increasingly people are consuming content on their mobile, especially for a Snapchat generation or Gen Z or millennials,” Carter says.
“They want to be entertained, they want to learn, they want to expe- rience and be exposed to a whole variety of different styles of content because that [mobile] is their preferred device for consuming content from that perspective. So it’s really important that we are providing that content and continuing our commitment to storytelling across many different genres.”
Time spent viewing Snap’s premium content has increased 35% year- on-year globally, marking a new area of growth for the platform.
“Across the years we have been focused and continually committed to investing, iterating and making sure that we’re producing world-lead- ing, made for mobile TV-style content, as we’ve seen with the introduction of Snap Shows and with Snap Originals,” Carter says.
“So we’re either partnering with some of the world’s best storytellers or now we’re looking to tell the stories ourselves, across a range of dif- ferent areas. From an audience perspective, we can see that this com- mitment to producing high quality content is absolutely working and resonating with our community.”
As with Facebook, advertisers have also been investing in Snapchat’s premium content, particularly through the use of its six-second ad unit. Ikon’s investment platforms director Shalyce Mclean says social plat- forms having a channel containing only premium content would help
drive an increased share of media budgets.
“Contrary to some recent commentary urging agencies and advertisers to
reduce spend with these platforms due to their perceived less premium nature, Facebook deserves a place on media plans,” Mclean says.
“Its value is not just its ability to reach nearly every Australian, or just its ability to drive frequency at scale in relatively short windows, or just its rich targeting capabilities. Facebook and Snapchat’s value is that they can deliver on all of these capabilities.
“These platforms have only been missing the high quality/profes- sionally produced content, which we know is brand safe and still plays a major role in driving human connection that brands want to align with. When this content scales on the platform, it
becomes a much stronger proposition.”
While social has undoubtedly eaten up much of tradi-
tional’s advertising revenue, Ikon’s Mclean says spending more on social’s premium content in the future won’t
necessarily come at the expense of TV or BVOD. “As long as there is a need for a 15-30 second message to create emotion, shift perception or communicate brand meaning, Facebook and
Snapchat platforms won’t be the strongest environments,” she says. “The definition of profession- ally produced content is changing, but a platform such as YouTube is a closer rival to broadcasters given the viewing experience, than either Facebook Watch or Snap
Originals currently are.” However, TV companies have
hit back at big tech to claw back ad revenue. Facebook’s Hunter says that in a sense all video platforms -- BVOD, TV and social -- are com- peting for ad revenue, but he sees content deals as “partnerships”.
Menezes at Starcom argues that Facebook’s investment in pre- mium video is a grab for more of TV’s advertising dollars.
“For them [Facebook] right now their big focus is absolutely to get a seat on the table as part of that TV conversation,” he says. “Their opportunity is to capture incremental screen investment and a cost premium for high qual- ity ad content integrations. Blue chip brands and advertisers have been sceptical and at times cau- tious since the type of content wasn’t always premium enough. Over time, if this model is proven successful, there is an opportunity to look at an overarching premium screen strategy that they [Facebook] would be an integral part of the discussion.”
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