In short, this means using a variety of formats across a campaign. Content which:&nbsp;<ul><li>gets people’s attention&nbsp;</li><li>allows people to interact with your content&nbsp;</li><li>immerse themselves in it more deeply.</li></ul>Facebook data shows that campaigns with ‘mixed assets’ like this do really well. But they also overreach. Facebook project a world where the only things that exist are their ad formats.And on that basis, it’s a world in which a ‘long video’ could be one that only lasts 15 seconds.

‘Pitch, Play, Plunge’

We know that if you create something that behaves a bit more like ‘content’ and a bit less like ‘advertising’ people are more likely to engage and share.

Content That Behaves Like Content

Facebook’s latest briefing to brands presents ‘long video’ as being as short as 15 seconds. This runs counter to our experience, and other evidence which suggests that video content over a minute or longer is often what performs best.So why are they pushing this view to brands?(TL;DR —ultra-short content is easier to sell and what media agencies, the ultimate purse-holders, want to buy)<figure><img alt="" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/500/1*gW3Z_TUWGCj8H4OqJ8Smw" width="785" height="114"><figcaption dir="auto">Facebook’s latest model for content creation</figcaption></figure>Periodically Facebook puts out advice to agencies on how to best use their platforms and formats. The latest version of this, from Facebook’s Creative Shop, suggests a model of ‘Pitch, Play, Plunge’.In short, this means using a variety of formats across a campaign. Content which:<UL><LI>gets people’s attention</LI><LI>allows people to interact with your content</LI><LI>immerse themselves in it more deeply (if they’re interested)</LI></UL>Their data* shows that campaigns with ‘mixed assets’ like this do really well. They generate 1.2x the recall and top-of-mind awareness and twice the affinity over ‘single-style assets’.Which is fine. It makes sense that giving people more ways into your story will generate more traction.But they also overreach. Facebook project a world where the only things that exist are their ad formats.And on that basis, it’s a world in which a ‘long video’ could be one that only lasts 15 seconds.<figure><img alt="" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/500/1*Jht6wKvdP-1iQotfJOiq5g.png" width="524" height="354"></figure>Who are these people, and why are they suggesting this?We know from <a rel="noopener follow" href="https://medium.com/@matthewkershaw/we-analysed-73-facebook-video-ads-and-discovered-these-six-things-3af083b6b165" dir="ltr">previous experience</a> that engagement with video content peaks at above the 1 minute mark on Facebook.<figure><img alt="" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/500/1*bZDKiXTn-L57QTz14ZW0G" width="680" height="336"><figcaption dir="auto">Previous Iris study showed that video over a minute got most engagement</figcaption></figure>There have been plenty of famous longer films which have performed brilliantly. For example, <a href="https://youtu.be/ZUG9qYTJMsI" rel="noopener" dir="ltr">Dollar Shave Club’s</a> 1.33-long ‘Our Blades Are F***ing Great’ ad. A piece of content so effective, it had a direct impact on the price of business’s eventual $1bn sale.More recently, so far in 2019, the top two most engaged and most shared native videos on Facebook were a minute long! (If you haven’t seen them they are <a href="https://www.facebook.com/scmp/videos/829695274039883/" rel="noopener" dir="ltr">here</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RichOnTech/videos/1496891940413521/" rel="noopener" dir="ltr">here</a>)<figure><img alt="" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/500/1*-efvY4hM8q2VVtjDKl1HTw.png" width="680" height="370"><figcaption dir="auto">The most shared videos on Facebook are typically more than a minute long</figcaption></figure>From an Iris point of view, we first learned this lesson back in 2016 when we created a video for energy drink Purdey’s. Featuring Idris Elba, it was 2:37 long and grabbed over 45m views. Most importantly, 50% of those views were organic — an effect the media agency unkindly referred to as ‘an anomaly’.The more recent is an ad for Pizza Hut Delivery back in Jan 2019. We needed to help them elevate their brand, their pizzas, great customer experience — and let everyone know that Pizza Hut delivers.<figcaption>Pizza Hut ‘Now That’s Delivering’</figcaption>Our cheeky and challenging hero film clocked in at a chunky 1:54 and was supported by a variety of 20 second and 6 second films, on Facebook and YouTube.In the first two months the film was viewed 4m times, with 85% Positive sentiment.<BLOCKQUOTE>But most importantly, the average view-through rate was an astonishing 80%!</BLOCKQUOTE>And of all the views, over a third of them were ‘organic’, ie passed on by the viewers themselves rather than paid-for.Turns out that if you make a great piece of content, people actually want to watch it, even if it is over 15 seconds long…Of course there is an unholy alliance here. Unsurprisingly, media agencies support this view of the world. They want to buy discreet short ads of the type that Facebook want to sell. Neither want to disrupt the lucrative 80/20 ratio of media-to-production. That’s business.We know that if you create something that behaves a bit more like ‘content’ and a bit less like ‘advertising’ people are more likely to engage and share.This is getting your market to do your marketing for you.But in this model, you spend more on production, and less on media. Maybe not reversing the 80:20 rule, but certainly nudging it closer to 50:50.It doesn’t take a genius to see that the vested interests at play here are not in favour of this model.Why support a world view that encourages spend on production and creative when you make money from buying and selling media?This recent data from Wavemaker shows their take on the issue, focusing on video completion over engagement or other measures of real value to brands (eg ‘mental availability’).<figure><img alt="" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/500/1*Rne7r9YynyshguJuo6pl5" width="680" height="447"><figcaption dir="auto">Wavemaker’s view of the world from their ‘Open’ Video Research</figcaption></figure>It’s self-evident, even to a thirteen-year-old, that videos which last less than five seconds will have a higher completion rate. You only have to look away from your phone for a couple of seconds while you’re scrolling and boom, video completed!In fact this chart says something super interesting, which is quite the reverse of what they are implying. If you publish a 3-minute video, one-in-a hundred people will watch it all the way through. I’d say that has a lot more value than one-in-ten people just seeing my logo for 3 seconds.So, when Facebook, or other platforms tell you that “mobile video should be short” or “there’s no such thing as organic anymore” think twice.There is another model out there, and it lasts longer than 15 seconds.<h1 data-selectable-paragraph="">Post-script.</h1>As ever, Facebook are trying to have their cake and eat it.It’s no secret that Facebook are making a play for the video market dominated by YouTube, particularly so they can deliver mid-roll advertising.To do this, they must hold two conflicting views in their heads at the same time: that long content is good (long enough to be able to insert midroll ads) and that short content is the best (keep media agencies happy).The result is this, really weird message that comes up when you upload video to Facebook – something we first noticed a few days ago:<figure><img alt="" src="https://miro.medium.com/max/500/1*ll5qEvQudUstoVrPLVAQH" width="680" height="376"><figcaption dir="auto">When you go to publish a video on Facebook and it tells you that videos longer than 3 mins are ‘shown to more people’</figcaption></figure>Now, videos 3 mins long or more are ‘shown to more people’.You couldn’t make it up, unless you were Facebook, in which case you’re making it up as you go along…*Source: Facebook Internal Meta Study of 3,000 Brand Lift Studies from Aug 2017 to September 2018

Facebook’s latest briefing to brands presents ‘long video’ as being as short as 15 seconds. This runs counter to our experience, and other evidence which suggests that video content over a minute or…

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Marketing & Sales

Facebook’s latest briefing to brands presents ‘long video’ as being as short as 15 seconds. This runs counter to our experience, and other evidence which suggests that video content over a minute or longer is often what performs best.

So why are they pushing this view to brands?

(TL;DR —ultra-short content is easier to sell and what media agencies, the ultimate purse-holders, want to buy)

P eriodically Facebook puts out advice to agencies on how to best use their platforms and formats. The latest version of this, from Facebook’s Creative Shop, suggests a model of ‘Pitch, Play, Plunge’ .

In short, this means using a variety of formats across a campaign. Content which:

<ul><li>gets people’s attention </li><li>allows people to interact with your content </li><li>immerse themselves in it more deeply (if they’re interested) </li> </ul>

Their data* shows that campaigns with ‘mixed assets’ like this do really well. They generate 1.2x the recall and top-of-mind awareness and twice the affinity over ‘single-style assets’.

Which is fine. It makes sense that giving people more ways into your story will generate more traction.

But they also overreach. Facebook project a world where the only things that exist are their ad formats.

And on that basis, it’s a world in which a ‘long video’ could be one that only lasts 15 seconds .

Who are these people, and why are they suggesting this?

We know from <a href="https://medium.com/@matthewkershaw/we-analysed-73-facebook-video-ads-and-discovered-these-six-things-3af083b6b165">previous experience </a>that engagement with video content peaks at above the 1 minute mark on Facebook.

There have been plenty of famous longer films which have performed brilliantly. For example, <a href="https://youtu.be/ZUG9qYTJMsI">Dollar Shave Club’s </a>1.33-long ‘Our Blades Are F***ing Great’ ad. A piece of content so effective, it had a direct impact on the price of business’s eventual $1bn sale.

More recently, so far in 2019, the top two most engaged and most shared native videos on Facebook were a minute long! (If you haven’t seen them they are <a href="https://www.facebook.com/scmp/videos/829695274039883/">here </a>and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RichOnTech/videos/1496891940413521/">here </a>)

From an Iris point of view, we first learned this lesson back in 2016 when we created a video for energy drink Purdey’s. Featuring Idris Elba, it was 2:37 long and grabbed over 45m views. Most importantly, 50% of those views were organic — an effect the media agency unkindly referred to as ‘an anomaly’.

The more recent is an ad for Pizza Hut Delivery back in Jan 2019. We needed to help them elevate their brand, their pizzas, great customer experience — and let everyone know that Pizza Hut delivers.

Our cheeky and challenging hero film clocked in at a chunky 1:54 and was supported by a variety of 20 second and 6 second films, on Facebook and YouTube.

In the first two months the film was viewed 4m times, with 85% Positive sentiment.

But most importantly, the average view-through rate was an astonishing 80%!

And of all the views, over a third of them were ‘organic’, ie passed on by the viewers themselves rather than paid-for.

Turns out that if you make a great piece of content, people actually want to watch it, even if it is over 15 seconds long…

Of course there is an unholy alliance here. Unsurprisingly, media agencies support this view of the world. They want to buy discreet short ads of the type that Facebook want to sell. Neither want to disrupt the lucrative 80/20 ratio of media-to-production. That’s business.

This is getting your market to do your marketing for you.

But in this model, you spend more on production, and less on media. Maybe not reversing the 80:20 rule, but certainly nudging it closer to 50:50.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the vested interests at play here are not in favour of this model.

Why support a world view that encourages spend on production and creative when you make money from buying and selling media?

This recent data from Wavemaker shows their take on the issue, focusing on video completion over engagement or other measures of real value to brands (eg ‘mental availability’).

It’s self-evident, even to a thirteen-year-old, that videos which last less than five seconds will have a higher completion rate. You only have to look away from your phone for a couple of seconds while you’re scrolling and boom, video completed!

In fact this chart says something super interesting, which is quite the reverse of what they are implying. If you publish a 3-minute video, one-in-a hundred people will watch it all the way through. I’d say that has a lot more value than one-in-ten people just seeing my logo for 3 seconds.

So, when Facebook, or other platforms tell you that “mobile video should be short” or “there’s no such thing as organic anymore” think twice.

There is another model out there, and it lasts longer than 15 seconds.

As ever, Facebook are trying to have their cake and eat it.

It’s no secret that Facebook are making a play for the video market dominated by YouTube, particularly so they can deliver mid-roll advertising.

To do this, they must hold two conflicting views in their heads at the same time: that long content is good (long enough to be able to insert midroll ads) and that short content is the best (keep media agencies happy).

The result is this, really weird message that comes up when you upload video to Facebook – something we first noticed a few days ago:

Now, videos 3 mins long or more are ‘shown to more people’.

You couldn’t make it up, unless you were Facebook, in which case you’re making it up as you go along…

*Source: Facebook Internal Meta Study of 3,000 Brand Lift Studies from Aug 2017 to September 2018

Why Facebook hate long content, but people love it

‘Pitch, Play, Plunge’

Content That Behaves Like Content

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