What Happened
Multinational energy giant Shell worked with six artists led by Jennifer Hudson and created a branded music video to promote its clean energy initiatives in October. Now, the company has retooled the video into a vertical format that is native to Snapchat, where it will run as Snap Ads throughout December. Shell also added some interactive elements to the music video, allowing viewers to swipe between the six artists as the video plays to create a personalized experience. They can also tap on the video to see additional animations explaining Shell’s #makethefuture energy ideas.
What Brands Should Do
This Shell’s campaign shows how brands can retool their existing branded content to better fit user behaviors on mobile platforms and therefore maximize engagement. As consumer attention shifts toward mobile and many driven to ad-blockers by the subpar digital ad experience, brands are finding it increasingly difficult to reach their desired audience via traditional media channels.Therefore, brands need to take a cue from this example and start to explore new forms of advertising, such as sponsored or branded content as well as native video ads, to circumvent consumers’ growing ad aversion and pique their interest.
For more information on how brands can leverage interesting branded content to earn consumer attention, check out the Ad Avoidance section of our Outlook 2016.
Source: AdWeek