Ever since the internet became publicly available, it has changed the world and the way we live, work and communicate. With the birth of the world wide web came social media influencing business and personal alike. Arguably, no industry has been more affected than the commercial industry. Not just the kinds of advertisements being made but the way they are made. Social media platforms are ever evolving with new channels being introduced to the market all the time, giving users new insights in to brands and it’s a case of sink of swim. To keep up with the market and changing trends, social media is a platform brands cannot afford to ignore. The key is, setting yourself apart from the crowd in what is now a saturated market, due to the affordability and accessibility of social media advertising.
So where does it start?
We’re now seeing hashtags associated with everything from cat food to cars, but some brands have gone a step further by incorporating their campaign hashtags in to the production stages rather than waiting until the campaign release. Boohoo.com’s Christmas 2017 campaign saw the hashtag #allgirls go live from the minute the cast and crew stepped on set to begin filming the commercial. Everyone was from the crew to the supporting artists were encouraged to tweet, Instagram story and snapchat from the set. Giff Gaff did the same for their 2017 Halloween campaign with #giffgaffhalloween. An unusual exercise, as production sets are usually closed. Hashtags are a great, easy way for brands to monitor engagement, so starting as early as the production stages gives the campaign a kick start.
If brands are following the trend of ‘behind the scenes’ insights via social media such as Instagram and Snapchat, then having the supporting artists, cast and crew on set doing this, is a great example of having content created on your behalf by simply enabling that engagement on social media platforms. Effective social media marketing will have audiences/consumers creating content on a brand’s behalf, even if not converting in to sales, it raises invaluable brand awareness.
Brands aren’t just applying these digital techniques into their digital campaigns, they are often well incorporated in to their traditional, offline advertising. See Netflix billboards incorporating snapchat face swap concepts and barcodes on posters to engage audiences.
These days, consumers are exposed to commercial advertising everywhere (on average, 5000 commercials a day), nowhere more so than their social media accounts so optimising ads to people’s screens and the behaviour of social media is key to successful advertising. Making adverts interactive influences every element of making an advert, where banners and exclusive money off offers comes as standard, brands are now making interactive adverts specifically for social media, incorporating techniques according to how people use social media i.e. ‘click here’, ‘follow us on…’, making clips short and eye catching, etc.
In short, as the market place and technology changes, so do the routes to market and the way commercials are made.