So why are these video platforms increasing in consumer relations and consumer interests? Simple. The consumer’s growing interest is directly proportional to the growing catalog within the media market of the application, which means that the more content you could cater to the consumer, the more the consumer experience’s interest rises out profitable venture. It’s a simple and known fact across every media house, and the game keeps continuing. Netflix, Prime, and many other such video platforms have a huge catalog of movies and shows that favor the market’s interests. It’s not a new concept at all.
The massive outreach of the masses over video platforms like TikTok, Moj, and many more such vine apps have been a stigma of the present generation. Now and then, consumers log on to their short video apps and flourish their base talent on the app for millions of their followers to have a glimpse at the raw talent. Even YouTube had a rocket of growth during the pandemic; the number just tripled and quadrupled over the months. Content creators also grew in size! Video streaming services like Twitch, Trovo, Mixer, and much more also grew in size and later hosted the best shows of gaming streams on its platform for the world to see. That’s how influential the pandemic has been to raise media scale applications.
The growth of video platforms has seen great growth, which something not ordinary. Though the pandemic didn’t cater well for the rest of the world, who cautiously wait at home for the pandemic to end slowly and normalcy to return is just another iceberg that no one knew when would it melt (1). Thus, video platforms do tend to make up for the boredom and loneliness of people, and even though these platforms have enabled ways to connect with friends online to enjoy and have a watch party, it’s not too late to wonder how this year has influential for media platforms to take shape and muster their skills over consumer goals and interests.
Statistics: the rise of video platforms
On average, people in India watched online videos from April to May for 5 hours, 16 minutes per daily. The world average was four hours and three minutes a day, a global Limelight Networks survey. Also, India’s increases in online viewing time were the highest at 85 percent (2). At 78 percent in Singapore, the other countries where videos increased significantly include Japan 77 percent, France 76 percent, UK 75 percent, and the US 73 percent. The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, while people had to stay at home, resulted in a significant increase in video streaming platforms’ time. The survey found that 68 percent of Indians felt that watching videos was helpful during the lockdown period in daily activities.
This increased reliance on online video platforms is here to stay with as many survey participants said they would also use them in the future. Around 86 percent of Indians said that even after the pandemic was controlled, they will take online video classes. During the lockdown period, video chat has become extremely popular for all professionals. About 89 percent of Indians are communicating with Video. Many video streaming platforms made access to their services free for schools during April-May, thereby further boosting adoption. Zoom reported a 50 percent increase in daily users in April, compared to 10 million in December 2019, with 300 million daily attendees in April. The number of active daily users in Microsoft teams grew 70 percent to more than 75 million a month (3).
This will not change after the pandemic but will change how we see video streaming. Smartphones were not surprisingly one of the biggest screens for OTT growth for retail and marketing videos. In the first quarter, the views of smartphones increased 253 percent, with time observed by 83 percent. In April and May, smartphone views increased significantly, respectively 148 percent and 165 percent. Connected TVs, however, became the most frequent way of displaying video content during quarantine, which is attributable to their larger screens (4). Videos showed that retailers had to optimize their mobile equipment strategies and bigger screens, which rose 337 percent in April and 271 percent in May.
Video marketing trends during the pandemic
How have video marketing trends changed since the arrival of COVID-19, as COVID-19 continues to shape personal and professional lives? Worldwide organizations face new, unprecedented challenges. Many of these include discovering new ways of engaging media, developing and reaching a variety of audiences. Subjects and video content have become essential for marketing campaigns and education, information sharing, collaboration, entertainment, and socialization (5). It is projected that overall media usage will increase, whether consumers are looking for digital information for entertainment or information. COVID-19 encouraged people to spend less time in face-to-face activities and consume more time on digital content.
A broad range of audiences, including partners, investors, customers, or employees, are involved. Sixty-seven percent of these businesses use software for Internet video conferencing and meeting, while 33 percent specifically develop content for COVID-19. The content creation field of Video has and will continue to take over. Given this upward trend, video marketing investments have an incredible value for future marketing success. A majority of companies invest in video software and technology to help reach their audience successfully. The impact of video content on marketing is obvious as companies across industries and worldwide use future video software (6). Viewers are now more than ever interested in new innovative content with over an hour of video consumption per day. This increasing trend in video consumption allows companies and individuals to reach the public.
Videos are more likely to appear on Google results on the first page than plain text like blogs or articles. The inclusion of videos in your marketing campaigns helps to distinguish your content from the surplus media. The content of Video keeps consumers on your website. Those who see Video are still on the site twice as long as those who don’t watch Video and visit twice as many pages. Video content increases traffic and sales considerably, regardless of how-to videos or product reviews. The current market climate does not focus on consumerism, but the promotion of your products, ideas, or brands is essential to business success. To educate or distract viewers, use your platform. This will create a better positive image of the brand in the eyes of consumers.
The Global Impact on Video platforms
According to a new survey, the number of Indians subscribing to various content streaming services has risen, and more than 75 percent of Indians have purchased new subscriptions for OTT platforms during the lockdown period. A small 3000-sample survey found that 73 percent of people reported watching Hotstar and YouTube, while Amazon Prime and Netflix experienced an increase in subscriptions respectively by 67 percent and 65 percent(7). Fifty-two percent of people found it an opportunity to improve their qualifications and participate in online courses with more free time due to their lockdown.
The Covid-19 pandemic had stopped the growth in the S&E sector and amplified shifts and digital disruptions for the future years. In the course of 2019-2024, the massive investment in both original and purchased content in OTT services like Netflix, Amazon, Disney+ Hotstar, and many others helps subscription video-on-demand services to account for 93 percent of total OTT revenues when compared to 87 percent worldwide, up from 708 million dollars in 2019 to 3 billion at CAGR of 30 percent. The new home environment has created new apps, entertainment platforms, user-generated content formats, direct-to-consumer applications (8).
Despite the broad economic disruption caused, the global video gaming industry is flourishing. Gaming offers a distraction to people searching for social interaction by reducing the consumer and business activity to a minimum, and initial data show enormous growth in playtime and sales since locking started. As a consequence, the industry focuses on increasing user involvement. In addition to making video games as attractive as possible, the strategy was to take on monetization opportunities. The DLC (9) can also contain expansion packages, new features, tools and characters, and “loot boxes” with lots of virtual items (10).
And again, since we are all locked up in our homes and looking for ways to stay connected with the external world, all the social applications have reported increased usage and involvement. But the details and increases in app expenditure due to the different quarantining measures across the world are interesting to note. The growing focus on video connectivity tools has already led to several Facebook and Instagram upgraded video features, and it is worth seeing if these instruments can build on increased attention and become even more important in the app and social space over and above COVID-19 constraints. The Zoom and Houseparty video chat apps have also gained considerable traction by the locks of COVID-19.
Although certain key sectors face adverse consequences of the ongoing crisis, stream media has increased considerably. In the past few months, people globally have been staying at home, and thus, there has been a noticeable increase in online media usage. There has been an increased appetite for content consumption among consumers and viewership trends on OTT platforms. The current scenario is so much in demand for entertainment companies like Netflix and Amazon Prime. YouTube and Netflix have had to drop their standard video quality to assist internet suppliers with rising bandwidth demands (11).
The Future of Video platforms
Streaming platforms are anticipated to maintain their current progressive growth momentum. Free and ad-supported content will enjoy new heights, platform exploration, and varied content discovery among the vast array of available streaming services. The privileged release on OTT platforms like Amazon Prime and Disney+ is expected to gain strength as a trend by 2020, as a stand-in for broad theatrical releases. This aimed to reduce OTT-players’ costs of producing content by massive numbers of displaced film releases (12). Brands can tackle the current circumstances by developing relevant content, developing an omnibus strategy that can address consumer anxiety, positive messaging, the realignment of the brand name and media strategy in line with consumption trends, and creating content that will help consumers to address their needs in areas such as health, fitness, food, mind, and entertainment.
Online is a new standard as companies use remote work and quickly digitize transactions to ensure business continuity. However, many are still struggling to make work from home initiatives functional because of the difficult compliance and technical requirements. The online media satisfies the thirst for media hunger during the pandemic, and many companies strive to build up content. The present announcements from HBO Max are surely a shocker for the Theatre industry, but it boosts HBO Max to a greater scale, with movies now releasing directly as OTT (13), enabling the consumer to experience the first-day first show of movies. The present Disney Investors Day that occurred on December 11, 2020 (14), discussed the launch of originals and media content on the Disney+ platform, thus stimulating consumers to purchase their subscriptions. Thus, Video platforms do indeed are the future of the media sector and what it could potentially do to engage the consumer interest on track and allow them to participate in it.
