Short-Form video took centre stage at tech and social media companies’ annual presentations to advertisers, as platforms such as Snap and Meta look to capitalise on TikTok’s political uncertainty in the US to take ad US dollars from their rival.
The presentations in New York, known as the NewFronts, come
just a week after US President Joe Biden signed a bill that gives Chinese tech
company ByteDance up to one year to divest TikTok, or else the app will be
banned over national security concerns. TikTok has vowed to fight the
legislation.
The short video platform announced new sports and
entertainment partnerships at its NewFront on Thursday (May 2) evening,
including an agreement that broadcaster NBCUniversal will post clips of this
summer’s Paris Olympics on TikTok.
TikTok is expected to generate US$8.66 billion in US ad
revenue this year according to an estimate from research firm Emarketer. While
it is a fraction of the size of Google and Meta, TikTok kicked off the
short-form video craze and prompted rivals to build similar features.
“TikTok must show advertisers that it’s business-as-normal,
even though it’s anything but,” Emarketer principal analyst Jasmine Enberg
said.
On Wednesday, Snap, which owns photo messaging app Snapchat,
said it would also partner with NBCUniversal to send popular influencers to the
games to film content. It will also host clips of top concerts from events
promoter Live Nation.
“We are having very productive conversations about how
Snapchat can help, because there is a lot of noise at the moment,” said Patrick
Harris, Snap’s president of Americas and partnerships. “But we have our heads
down and we are making sure we’re a dependable and viable platform.”
The focus on professionally produced videos is designed to
attract brands wary of the downside of social media or artificial intelligence
generated content.
“Brands have to spend a little extra time really thinking
about the quality of environments, which is why these content partnerships that
are being spun up are so important,” said Robert Silver, head of media at
digital marketing firm Razorfish.
Facebook and Instagram owner Meta focused its NewFront on
Reels, its TikTok competitor that now accounts for half of the time users spend
on Instagram.
“Instagram Reels already stands to benefit from a TikTok
ban, and Meta wants to ensure that it can attract all the potential displaced
users and revenues it can,” Emarketer’s Enberg said.
Google said on Monday that its own short-form video feature
called YouTube Shorts are increasingly being viewed on TV screens in addition
to phones.
Despite the uncertainty over TikTok’s future, advertisers
say they intend to focus on the near term and some plan to continue advertising
until it is no longer possible to do so.
“I think we need to put some blinders on and focus and try
to understand on what innovative capabilities are available for advertisers,”
said Alex Stone, senior vice-president of agency partnerships at media buying
firm Horizon Media, referring to TikTok’s NewFront. REUTERS
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