IS SHORT VIDEO MARKETING THE TREND OF THE FUTURE ?

Short video marketing is an effective way to capture consumer attention in the Internet age, akin to the phenomenon of a child crying to attract attention. To succeed, it requires the creation of interesting, concise, and creatively unique video content, as well as encouraging interaction and sharing on social media. Data analysis and advertising placement are also key factors. Companies can use short video marketing techniques to make their audience pay attention and remember them.

Marketing Environment in the Short Video Era:
Intensified Product Homogeneity Competition
In a buyer’s market, market dominance is shifting towards consumers, and an increasing number of manufacturers are competing for and dividing a limited market, making the market even more competitive. Product and service supply in the market is becoming increasingly abundant, even surpassing market demand. This is primarily manifested in two ways: First, the market is flooded with an increasing number of supply products, intensifying competition. Besides existing products of the same type, new alternatives keep emerging, such as projectors replacing televisions and semi-finished fast food replacing takeout. Second, product homogeneity is becoming increasingly serious. After pioneering research and development, imitators keep coming up, leading to products in terms of function, appearance, etc., tending towards homogeneity and becoming difficult to differentiate.

Highlighted Personalized Consumer Demand
Consumer demands are becoming more personalized, and the market is increasingly segmented. Firstly, with the continuous emergence of new consumer demands, there are higher requirements for product quality, style, function, usage, material, craftsmanship, and more, such as the demand for organic, natural, low-sugar, and sugar-free food and beverages. Secondly, various new products introduced by brand manufacturers awaken consumers’ latent demands and guide consumption trends. Numerous brand manufacturers focus on research and development and introduce products in different niche areas to gain a competitive advantage in vertically segmented markets. For example, the beverage market now has many niche categories like juice beverages, functional beverages, and plant-based milk beverages.

Fragmented Information Dissemination Environment
With the development of mobile Internet, new media formats are emerging, and the time that the audience spends on media is becoming more fragmented. Traditional media is expanding its influence through new media, and new media is providing more media touchpoints for the audience. First, media resources are increasingly abundant and divide the audience’s limited media time. In a certain period, they come into contact with various media information, with information overload being prominent. Second, the audience’s media behavior is expanding. In the era of traditional media, the audience mostly passively received information. In the new media environment, they not only receive information but can also output information through the internet, such as publishing, forwarding, commenting, and interacting. New media empowers and amplifies them. Amid the cacophony of voices, how marketing communication attracts their attention becomes an important issue that businesses must face. In today’s marketing environment, companies need differentiated marketing to find opportunities to attract more target consumer groups’ attention in order to achieve marketing goals.

The Adaptability of Short Videos as a Marketing Tool:
Short videos have seen explosive growth in recent years, becoming a cultural phenomenon that is produced, participated in, and shared by the masses. Data from the China Internet Network Information Center shows that as of December 2022, China’s short video user base exceeded 1 billion people, with a usage rate of up to 94%. Short videos are adapted to the mass demand of the new media marketing era, quickly rising in popularity and becoming an essential means of corporate marketing. In a fiercely competitive market and an environment of information overload, audience attention is fragmented. Short videos, with their “short, flat, and fast” characteristics, adapt to the audience’s need to acquire information, making them a hot marketing tool.

The mechanism of short video marketing lies in its media form meeting the audience’s information acquisition needs, gradually accumulating a massive popular base, and strengthening audience stickiness through the community interaction in its dissemination. At the same time, it leverages the monetization capabilities of short videos, giving it strong marketing adaptability.

Adaptability of Short Video Media:
In terms of media characteristics, short videos are characterized by their short length and high information content, catering to the audience’s demand for quick information consumption in the present era of information overload. In an era of information overload, the audience’s time and attention are fragmented by numerous media and marketing messages. Therefore, both the media form and the information it conveys should be adapted to this feature. Short videos have the following characteristics: First, they are short in length, typically not exceeding 5 minutes. Second, they contain a significant amount of information, often condensing “key points” in a few minutes or even shorter time, requiring concise and highly condensed content. As a result, short videos have a large capacity for information content. Third, short videos combine various elements of communication, such as text, visuals, sound effects, dialogue, and more, creating a powerful audiovisual impact. Fourth, short videos do not require a high level of knowledge from the audience, as they can access and quickly understand the information conveyed by the short videos without an extensive knowledge base. Based on these characteristics, short video audiences have grown substantially, accumulating a large number of fans. This is a key factor that makes short videos an effective marketing tool.

Community Adaptability of Short Videos:
As a marketing tool, short videos create marketing scenarios effectively through community interaction, using their media characteristics to enhance and strengthen consumer shopping and social experiences. Short video marketing establishes a strong connection between the audience and the video’s theme through various forms of two-way interaction, enhancing relevance, improving user experience, and promoting engagement. This level of interaction includes interactions between the brand and the audience, as well as interactions and discussions among the audience. This kind of communication, in contrast to the one-way communication of traditional marketing methods, is qualitatively different. Short videos offer various convenient interactive methods, such as comments, likes, and shares, which are well-liked by people. In recent years, short video platforms have introduced bullet screen features, such as Douyin’s launch of this feature in 2022, which significantly enriches the forms of audience interaction, enhancing entertainment and immersive experiences. Additionally, short videos have strong social attributes, encouraging strong interaction between different parties involved, including businesses, the audience, and consumers. They can engage in timely interaction, and relevant topics can resonate quickly among consumers. Especially when different consumers’ usage and attitudes toward the brand collide, it generates judgments about the brand among the audience and ultimately influences brand reputation and purchasing decisions.

Marketing Adaptability of Short Videos:
Short videos offer various monetization methods, and these methods are effective because they follow the commercial logic of “dissemination – traffic acquisition – monetization.” The adaptability of short video marketing is reflected in the alignment of marketing content with the demands of the target audience. The topics covered in short videos are highly relevant to the needs of the target audience, generating trust through media contact. At this point, previously latent demands are awakened. Short videos can attract widespread attention from the target audience, and their large fan base, coupled with various forms of interaction, reveals the power of community marketing. Through various monetization paths, such as live streaming for sales, shop promotion, event promotion, embedded advertising, offline traffic acquisition, and other methods, the target audience transitions from being short video viewers to consumers of goods.

Conclusion
Short video marketing plays a crucial role in today’s market environment. However, success still necessitates the comprehensive consideration of engaging and unique content, social media interactions, as well as data analysis and advertising placement. It can assist brands in capturing the attention of a larger target audience and driving business growth.

Author: Honglei Chen – Master of Technology Management, Faculty of Business President University