POV: Twitter and Pinterest's New Ad Offerings 2019

Background: 

In a bid to attract more brands and advertisers to its platform Twitter has launched ArtHouse - a new content studio helping marketers to create ‘Twitter-first’ content. At the same time, Pinterest is also wooing the advertising community by introducing new suite of video advertising services that give brands new abilities to feature and track videos.

Details and Implications:   

First you had YouTube for video, then Facebook and Instagram’s IGTV came into the game. Now, Twitter and Pinterest are making a play for the brand video dollars.

Twitter’s ArtHouse aims to help connect brands to relevant Influencers, Artists and Editors who will be able to create content relevant to the platform’s user base. Twitter ArtHouse will also assist brands to optimise their videos using performance-driven best practices best suited for the Twitter feed. According to a study by Twitter and GroupM, in comparison to TV adverts, optimised videos drive an increase of 33% in emotional recall, +19% in unaided recall and +6% in message association. Twitter ArtHouse is now available globally.

Pinterest has released some research findings to back up its new launches. Its research showed a 31% increase in searches for “inspirational videos” since 2018 and that Pinners would be “54% more likely to say they’re inspired to action by videos on Pinterest compared to videos on other media platforms”. The new suite of video services includes: a new video tab to allow brands to feature their videos in one place; a new uploader and scheduler and a new analytics tool that will let brands track traffic and get insights into video performance over time with a new “lifetime view” metric. Pinterest’s new features have launched in all English-speaking countries as well as France and Germany and will be rolled out globally.

Of course, in-house content studios aren’t a new phenomenon for social media platforms. Facebook’s ‘Anthology’ was a branded video program that launched in April 2015, however it was revamped with the launch of Brands Collabs Manager, which essentially connects brands and advertisers with creators for branded content partnerships.

Summary:

Brands are looking for more video advertising options to reach consumers as we see the continued trend of ad dollars moving to digital video. According to the IAB and eMarketer, digital video ad spend will continue to soar, with advertisers reporting that they expect spend to reach $18m in 2019, up from $14.2m in 2018 and that over half of digital video ad spend will be driven by video ads featuring original content.

A robust offering from platforms other than Google and Facebook is good for the ecosystem so the upgrading of the ad offering from Twitter and Pinterest and the creation of in-house content studios to support brands is a positive piece of news. Also, the prioritising of video formats and branded content on the platforms is another good development in terms of providing choice for advertisers.  

However, the debate whether influencer marketing strategies are successful or not, which is raging across the industry at present, may play a role in whether these new content studios will flourish or not.

Further Reading: 

Twitter | Campaign | TechCrunch | Search Engine Loud | Marketing Land