Everything That Rises Must Pivot To Video
“Sometimes I just watch TV for the commercials” —actually a lot of us.
Some suggest the repackaging and reposting of ads highlights the “pivot to video” mentality many publishers now demonstrate. The push to churn out video content to feed platforms and to attract potentially lucrative video advertising is increasingly viewed as a potential solution to an increasingly challenging business model problem.
Curious timing, this Wall Street Journal piece on publishers just packaging ads as videos (I dunno if you heard but the people want video, and by “the people” I mean “the advertisers”) and this Felix Salmon tweetstorm about video content that looks curiously like well-placed advertising.
1/ A quick thread about the pivot to video in journalism, inspired by…
— Felix Salmon (@felixsalmon) July 31, 2017
2/ This video from @WIRED, which is basically a 7-minute long video advertorial for Tesla https://t.co/j3ysN96jf8
— Felix Salmon (@felixsalmon) July 31, 2017
3/ It’s got over a million views already, so on that level it’s a success! But it doesn’t have @WIRED’s normal journalistic rigor
— Felix Salmon (@felixsalmon) July 31, 2017
4/ If you follow @businessinsider on Twitter or FB you’ve seen many similar pieces, generally very fluffy and positive about #brands
— Felix Salmon (@felixsalmon) July 31, 2017
5/ All of this is a function of the simple fact that video is expensive!
— Felix Salmon (@felixsalmon) July 31, 2017
6/ So if you want to pump out video at volume, you’re at the mercy of #brands who are happy to send you glossy EPKs
— Felix Salmon (@felixsalmon) July 31, 2017
7/ People love to watch glossy video, so you get lots of views by turning those EPKs into editorial content.
— Felix Salmon (@felixsalmon) July 31, 2017
8/ The inevitable consequence is that outlets which would never just publish a press release as news, do just that if it’s in video form.
— Felix Salmon (@felixsalmon) July 31, 2017
9/ People like @hblodget will point to the popularity of such things and say that hey, people clearly want them, who are we to judge.
— Felix Salmon (@felixsalmon) July 31, 2017
10/ But EICs should be wary, all the same. Once you let the #brands make your editorial content for you, you lose something precious.
— Felix Salmon (@felixsalmon) July 31, 2017
10/ But EICs should be wary, all the same. Once you let the #brands make your editorial content for you, you lose something precious.
— Felix Salmon (@felixsalmon) July 31, 2017
11/ All of which is to say, the move to video is fraught on a deep editorial level. Standards *will* slip. Are you OK with that?
— Felix Salmon (@felixsalmon) July 31, 2017
Do I really have a choice?