Informality Wins On Smaller Screens

Principle
Prior to the widespread adoption of television in American homes, political candidates and brands presented themselves to the public through print advertising and radio.  This created somewhat of an artificial barrier between the product and consumers.  Once mass TV adoption brought the spokespeople to the living room, a different dynamic was created that—for better or for worse—stripped away some of the superiority and grandeur of once monolithic candidates and brands.  Mobile video and online video further the move toward informality.

Best Practice
Eliminate pretense or intimidation in your video communication.  As the channel changes, the manner of presentation must also. Products (and candidates) must be accessible to resonate in the dominant emerging media.

Context
Americans were isolated from many aspects of the political process before the widespread adoption of TV, but once the medium gained mass acceptance, political events and messaging became tightly entwined with television. [i]  

“By the 1970s the live coverage of major political events had become almost commonplace, but television's ability to lend drama and intimacy to political events continues,” Lynda Lee Kaid, a political TV communication specialist, wrote about the shift.

Renowned image consultant and communications coach Michael Sheehan, Principal of Sheehan Associates, said the diminution of the medium in which people view political advertisements has altered the audience’s relationship to and perception of candidates and their messages.

“When my parents went to see Harry Truman or Franklin D. Roosevelt, they saw them on 40-foot movie screens, they were huge, and that had to affect how their messages ran.”  Sheehan said that seeing candidates on television in a family kitchen or living room altered the necessary tone of successful messages through the increased informality conveyed through the medium.  Sheehan said the increased use of mobile devices and PCs to view video communications is removing any remnants of the grandeur of movie theater political messaging. [ii]

Case Studies
U.S. mobile video market penetration increased 70 percent in 2008.[iii]  Though the total percentage of U.S. mobile users who view video on their cellular device (7%) remains small, the medium is poised to grow very quickly as the price of video-capable smartphones falls.[iv]  By 2015, it’s estimated there will be 74 million mobile video users in the U.S.[v]  The marked success of mobile video in Asia, where 200 million people use mobile video, shows the potential mobile video has in the North American market, which lags the rest of the world in uptake of the technology.[vi]

Many advertisers are not waiting for mobile video to hit critical mass.  Young, affluent users are accessing mobile video most frequently and are receptive to engaging messaging they receive there.[vii]  Volvo used a mobile video campaign to great effect in Europe by not confining the experience to the mobile phone.  The car company launched its S40 vehicle with a teaser campaign that had interested consumers text message “MYSTERY” to an account that sent them a link to view a mobile video about a European village where residents were buying dozens of the S40.  The company said 33 percent of the people who responded watched the video on their phone, and an additional 18 percent of participants that did not have mobile video capability sent it to their email address and watched it on a computer later.[viii]

While the total number of voters and buyers influenced by mobile video technology is still small, growth trends in the industry indicate that the medium likely will be a significant influence in the future.  Successful communications will fit messages to the size of the screen during the ad production process, and marketers should remember that appropriate context and framing become even more important as the size of the presentation shrinks.


[i] Lynda Lee Kaid, “Political Processes and Television,” The Museum of Broadcast Communication, http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/P/htmlP/politicalpro/politicalpro.htm, accessed October 2009.
[ii] Michael Sheehan, interview with Three Ships Media, October 7, 2009.
[iii] Nic Covey, “The State of Mobile Video: Promise vs. Progress,” The Nielsen Company. September 23, 2009, http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/the-state-of-mobile-video-promise-vs-progress/, accessed October 2009.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Coda Research Consultancy, “US Mobile Broadband: Behavior, Content and Forecasts: 2009-2015,” October 2009, via eMarketer, http://totalaccess.emarketer.com.ezpprod1.hul.harvard.edu/Chart.aspx?R=88565&Ntt=mobile+video&No=9&xsrc=chart_head_sitesearchx&N=0&Ntk=basic, accessed October 2009.
[vi] eMarketer, “Select Mobile Content Activities of Mobile Device Owners Worldwide, by Region, 2008,” April 15, 2009, http://totalaccess.emarketer.com.ezpprod1.hul.harvard.edu/Chart.aspx?R=85384&Ntt=asia+mobile+video&No=2&xsrc=chart_head_sitesearchx&N=0&Ntk=basic, accessed October 2009.
[vii] Noah Elkin, “Mobile Users and Usage: It’s Personal,” eMarketer, August 2009, p.20, www.emarketer.com, accessed October 2009.
[viii] Sybase, “Sybase 365 + Mindshare Rev Up Volvo's S40 Campaign,” http://www.sybase.com/detail?id=1050120, accessed October 2009.