Earlier this week, I found myself sitting on the couch channel-surfing, not something I do often. I was hoping to come across something of value, when suddenly, a title of a TV show that I once watched religiously jumped out at me (no judging on the TV show ok?). It wasn’t the name of the show that caught my eye, but rather, the little word in parentheses that followed it. There it was: America’s Funniest Home Videos (new).
For a naïve moment, I thought, “How on earth can this show still be running?” But then I realized that this is the precisely the type of show that will never run out of content – especially today.
Why? Two reasons.
The first is smartphones. As of December 2010, Nielsen reported that 31 percent of U.S. mobile phone owners have a smartphone. What’s more, eMarketer predicts that smartphone ownership will reach 43 percent of the U.S. mobile population by 2015. That’s a lot of smartphones … all of which have the capability of taking videos, whenever or wherever you are. No longer are we restricted to owning separate handheld video cameras to document a momentous occasion or a random something of interest.
The second is the steady rise in interest in videos. Videos have become the next generation of “picture taking.” Whether we film them ourselves or find them online, we love and crave videos. YouTube (a mere child at age five) exceeds 2 billion views a day. That’s nearly double the prime-time audience of all three major U.S. broadcast networks combined. We upload 24 hours of video content every minute, and on average, spend 15 minutes per day perusing YouTube. With that type of popularity, it is no wonder that more companies are adopting video as one of their new marketing channels (Check out the new Allen Tate Company YouTube channel).
From a company and business standpoint, videos are perhaps the best way to tell a story. Remember, companies are made up of more than just logos, products and brand promises. They are made up of people, all of whom have stories to tell. Videos engage us, entertain us, capture our attention and help us connect, be it with a company, brand or another individual. Videos are easily one of the most powerful – if not the most powerful – communication tools today.
What do you think? Are you ready to be in pictures?
By Genevieve Jooste
Great post, Genevieve. Videos ARE very powerful...and I find those that appear most "amateurish" (e.g. those that we see on America's Funniest Home Videos) are the most engaging. I used to worry about running out of phone numbers, i.e. the depletion of all possible numeric combinations to create a new one. Now I worry about the supply of bandwidth to support all of our web/video-enabled devices. Should I stop worrying and instead focus on my Memorial Day barbecue?
May 29th, 2011 at 9:38 am
Thanks Tom! It's amazing how second nature it has become for us to take videos instead of pictures when we're out and about. I also worry about the bandwith support seeing as I have started to take more videos and experiment with the different applications. But as we've seen with the iPhone7 or is it the iPhone10 we're on already...mobile device manufacturers continue to update to ensure we have everything we need right at our fingertips. Who knows where we'll be 5 years from now!
May 31st, 2011 at 8:41 am