My 2015 GoPro Highlights

Ski trips, water-slides, running from bulls, bachelor parties, weddings, kayaking, a proposal, and many tailgates. Doing it all with family, friends, and a GoPro. Happy New Year!

7 Tips for Building Interactive Mobile Video Ads

Build for Fat Fingers

Leave enough spacing between buttons and features.  If you’re going to have the social share buttons side by side, make sure there’s enough room so that a user can easily select or share one thing at a time.  Also, make the buttons big enough.

Apple suggests mobile buttons to have a “hit target” of 44px by 44px.

Use Contrasting, Solid Colors

Solid colors will allow for an ad or animation to load more quickly, and contrasting colors make viewing easier on mobile.  The user could be watching in bad lighting or with a glare on the screen, so contrasting colors make it easier to navigate or see action in a video.

Keep CTAs Short and Concise

The average attention span of a viewer on a mobile device is .5 seconds*.  Build to attract a user’s attention in this time.  Keep the Call to Action or overall goal of the ad focused.  For example, if the primary KPI is to drive traffic to a website, make sure that is clear.  Make sure the button is prominently positioned, and there aren’t too many other CTAs or features that can distract a user from completing this action. 

"Slide" "Tap" "Share" "Buy" –There’s a lot a user can do, so be clear about the action you want the user to take.

*no source (just made it up)

Make it Social

Integrate social media so users can share the ad or further engage with the brand.  Video and social media are the perfect mobile partners, so it makes sense to gain some earned media and allow users an opportunity to further connect with your brand.

However, keep it simple.  If you're integrating with Instagram, don't worry about including a share button for Twitter.  If for some reason a user really wants to share a video on a particular social media network, he or she will do so even without the buttons.

Mobile ad integrated with Instagram from H&M.  See live demo.

Build for Your Target Audience

Entice your target audience to engage with the ad by showing them what they want to see.  In most cases, this means puppies (see ad from LL Bean).  Designing the creative with a specific target in mind, can serve as a type of targeting, and can build a stronger connection between the brand and consumer.

Personalize the Experience

The smartphone is a personal device, so allowing a customer to personalize a product on their phone is apropos.  As customization becomes more automated, consumers are going to expect it.  Allowing users the ability to digitally customize the color of a car or a room is a step in the right direction, and can make the user feel more connected to a brand or product.

This ad from Sherwin Williams allows users to virtually “paint” a room.

This ad, which won the People’s Choice Award in the Super Creative Ad Challenge inn 2014, allows users to toggle through different colors of the Dodge Challenger.

Test Different Versions

Use A/B Creative targeting to find out which creative design or feature is performing best.  This provides valuable insights about your target audience and what resonates with them.  It also allows for the campaign to be optimized to the best performing creative.  Instead of guessing what will work best, let the data tell you. 

If the "Clouds" creative performs better than the "Cannonball" creative, then skew more delivery to "Clouds"\.  Then analyze why that version is resonating best with users.

Wedding Videos - Block Island (GoPro) and Chateau Elan

Here's a wedding highlight video I made for a wedding at Block Island, Rhode Island. This was shot with a GoPro, as requested by the groom. ...and here's a recap of a wedding ceremony at Chateau Elan in Georgia. This was shot with a Canon 5D.

Hemingway With A GoPro; Experimenting with Facebook Video

This past July, my brother and I traveled to Pamplona, Spain to run with the bulls as part of a Hemingway-inspired adventure.

During the trip, I posted updates on the website HemingwayWithAGoPro.com and uploaded GoPro videos to the Hemingway With A GoPro Facebook page and Instagram account.

I wanted to test out Facebook video, see how it compared with YouTube, and become more familiar with a different platform and workflow. Twitter is too new to the game with video, so the test was really to compare YouTube with Facebook video.


Facebook Video versus YouTube

• View Counts. A view is counted at 3 seconds on Facebook (and Instagram) versus around 30 seconds for a YouTube view.  Because of this, there tend to be higher view counts on Facebook (duh), but a YouTube view is arguably more valuable since a viewer needs to stay with the video longer to achieve a "view".
• Autoplay.  Facebook videos autoplay in a user's newsfeed (without audio), and Youtube's videos are user-initiated by default.  This can have some creative implications (ie: add subtitles to the start of a Facebook video).  It can also result in more Facebook views when compared with YouTube.
• Analytics. Youtube's are more robust.  Facebook's video analytics are still pretty good, but don't seem to go as in-depth as they might have the potential to go (taking into account the amount of first-party data on users Facebook has access to).  Also, sometimes clicking the "Insights" button on Facebook just didn't work.
• Embedding/Integration. Since Facebook video is newer, it doesn't work seamlessly with all platforms.  For example, I wasn't able to use the Facebook embed code on this blogger site, so that's why the video embedded below is from YouTube instead of Facebook.
• Promotion. I didn't spend any $ to promote my videos (it was just a fun way to document a trip), but Facebook seemed to make it easy to promote or "boost" my videos if I chose to do so.  They also posted a few "sponsored" advertisements on my personal Facebook feed trying to get me to promote the HemingwayWithAGoPro Facebook page by paying with the click of a button.

Watch all videos on site.

Skiing Shirtless in Utah - March 2015

Skiing at Mt Snow, Vermont

This past month a few friends and I went skiing at Mount Snow in Vermont. This is the country-themed wrap up video.