We’re a few months into a brand new decade, and with that comes new trends for marketing strategies. In this article, we’re highlighting what we feel are the top trends in the realm of Video Marketing for 2020. All of the below trends centre around the buzzword “personalized.” Personalized content allows businesses to establish a personal relationship with their audience, tailoring their experience with the brand. Not only do personalized videos make businesses stand out, they provide targeted solutions to their customers needs. 90% of consumers are more likely to shop brands that they recognize and those that provide relevant content to them.

“72% of consumers say that they only engage with personalized messaging.”

We’ve highlighted 6 trends that we believe will be the biggest, most impactful for this year — let’s dive right in.

1. Outsourced Post-Production

Outsourcing the editing of your company’s content not only gives you more free time to create, but it opens up a world of possibilities. Think of remote editing as the service that allows you to scale your businesses digital content, repurpose existing videos, be able to share more vlogs and videos to YouTube, or provide you with the educational material needed for teaching virtual classes. It allows you peace of mind, giving you full directive rights & collaboration, all while keeping your content pool full. And now, we at 2C Media are proud to offer our own online video editing service, with the introduction of RENDERR.

2. Long-form Video

We’ve all heard about this idea that the human attention span is “shrinking” or that it’s now “shorter than a gold fishes” — feel however you want about that, but a BBC study actually disproved this theory back in 2017. Regardless, we think that the actual subject of the content, long or short form, is what determines a person’s ability to pay attention for long enough. Shorter videos may be easier to consume, but they often fail to form an emotional connection between the brand & the consumer — which is what makes them memorable.

As to not bore you with too many written stats, just take a look at the below graph from TwentyThree — if this doesn’t make you believe in the comeback of long-form videos, I don’t know what will.

To sum up this trend, I’ll leave you with this quote from Daniel Sarath, Senior Digital PR Executive at Click Consult:

“Memorable, emotive, long-form video content [like this] gives brands the opportunity to connect with their consumers on a more emotional level via stories that have a human interest.”

3. Vertical Video & Snippets

With its popularity in apps such as Instagram, Snapchat and now TikTok, there’s little question as to why the vertical video trend will continue into 2020 and beyond. Creating appropriately formatted content for these platforms is crucial if you are looking to target millennials and younger audiences. Instagram is now the second most used social media platform, with 71% of its users being below the age of 35.

“73% of US teens say Instagram is the best way for brands to reach them about new products or promotions.”

In addition to your full length video, typically 1–2 minutes in length, we suggest also having at least one snippet version. Cutting a snippet (15–30 seconds) from a long-form video is arguably much more shareable, therefore getting you more engagement. If edited vertically, you can effectively share that cut directly onto your IG stories and use it as a teaser for the full project. However, it’s extremely important that the message, awareness or CTA is captured within that cut.

4. Stories

Stories will continue to grow in popularity this year, as they’re the simplest way to connect with your audience. Although there may be an over-saturation on your feed of people rambling for minutes on end, as far as advertising is concerned, Instagram & Facebook stories are an effective tool in making a product or service recommendation more relatable. The viewer likely already feels a connection to the personality on their screen. Formatting your video in the proper aspect ratio for a story (4:5) makes a world of difference.

5. Text Over Videos

When Facebook introduced its video autoplay feature, they didn’t understand the level at which they would change the game. As this 99designs article suggests, no one could have predicted that people would watch a video in its entirety without turning on the sound. Now, this autoplay feature is standard across almost every social platform, which is why text over videos is one of our named trends of 2020.

Text over video is also referred to as open-captions, meaning the text remains on screen as an overlay. Not to be confused with closed-captions, which can be turned on or off. Both methods allow people to watch a video on mute and fully understand the content, which is increasingly important as people scroll through social media while at work or in public.

Curiocity Group is no stranger to the text over video trend, with their highlight style videos supplying text throughout.

6. 360-degree Video

The last trend I want to touch on is the relatively new 360-degree format, which is an immersive & almost futuristic style that will continue to grow in popularity with the rise in VR use. This format definitely sets your brand apart from the others, and allows the viewer to be taken on a journey that they otherwise might not be able to experience — a truly customer-centric approach to marketing.

One of the most effective uses of a 360 video in advertising was KitKat’s #travelbreak campaign, which gave a 360-degree look at Munnar, India. This campaign was highly successful, and resulted in a 35% increase in consideration and a 100% rise in ad recall.

Which video trend do you think will be the biggest for 2020? Was there any trend that surprised you or you disagree with? Let us know your thoughts!

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