Middle East’s Love for Video Keeps Growing
June 24, 2018, when Saudi Arabia lifted the ban on women driving, #SheDrives went viral, brands like Renault, Audi, Coca-Cola, Zain, and Nissan capitalised on the historic move with video advertising. While the video ads proved to be emotional and heart-warming, the most endearing one was that from HH Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. One of […]
June 24, 2018, when Saudi Arabia lifted the ban on women driving, #SheDrives went viral, brands like Renault, Audi, Coca-Cola, Zain, and Nissan capitalised on the historic move with video advertising.
While the video ads proved to be emotional and heart-warming, the most endearing one was that from HH Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. One of the most well-known royals from the kingdom, the prince enjoyed a midnight drive with his daughter, who drove the car, and his grandchildren. He later tweeted the video stating, “Saudi Arabia has just entered the 21st century.”
Saudi Arabia’s female racer Aseel Al-Hamad was featured by Jaguar to commemorate the historic day.
For the past few years, video has gained a significant role in marketing and advertising. As per HubSpot, 70% of millennial YouTube users watched a YouTube video to learn how to do something new.
Regions like the Middle East and North Africa, where the millennial are pushing mobile technology and digital media, are the hottest marketplaces for video marketing. Recently, Unilever partnered with AdColony to run interactive mobile ads in the Middle East, and after three separate campaigns with three different creative executions, it found that 43% of people who viewed an ad actively engaged in it.
But, it is all about meaningful conversations with video marketing.
Marketing tactics change more frequently than technology does. For businesses to succeed in the fiercely competitive world where products and services are sold majorly by marketing, it is essential to stay ahead in the game. With videos entering inbound marketing, it has never ceased to expand ever since it was known as a big hit across multiple industries – back in 2016.
Also Read: Google Is Pushing New Ads on Its Apps to Attract Shoppers
YouTube statistics show that the number of channels in the MENA region has increased by 160% over the last three years. Currently, YouTube has 200 channels with over 1 million subscribers and 30,000 other channels with over 10,000 subscribers.
According to analytics agency Tubular Labs, Saudi Arabia has the highest watch time per capita globally, which makes MENA quite an important region
Video Marketing Tips for Successful Businesses in MENA
1. Intelligent Advertisements
Using traditional marketing ideas to gain traction has become extremely difficult. New-gen audiences are aware of how businesses track customers, target a specific audience, and push a particular product towards them with smart targeting.
Creating video advertisements not only directs the user towards your brand but also connects on a deeper level.
2. Vlogging
Vlogging is serious business now, and vloggers are making billions from YouTube. It helps you reach out to customers who need your product or those who are not even aware if they need it. To do this, connect with the most viral content creators who showcase and advertise your product time and again on their channels.
With over 2.6 million subscribers and 426.883218 million views, Hayla Tv is one of the most successful beauty and lifestyle vloggers. Her videos are mostly in Arabic because of which she can connect in the local dialect with the target audience. She also promotes brand products and helps them drive sales through her social media accounts.
3. Social Media Ads
Although long-form video content generates engagement, short-form video content is equally powerful.
Long form videos focus more on the brand story or generate a need for a product by including an emotional background story, a complex problem, and product as its solution. On the other hand, short-form videos send out a quick and concise message without holding the user for too long.
Also Read: 6 Steps to Building a Successful Video Marketing Strategy
Stories and in-video ads have become some of the more popular forms of video marketing on social media. UAE has about 9.52 million active social media users with Facebook and YouTube at the top most of the pyramid with 82% active users, followed by Instagram at 61% active users, Twitter with 41%, LinkedIn with 43% and Snapchat with 32% active users. This is a huge audience base for marketers in MENA to target with appealing video marketing campaigns.
SEO and Video Marketing Trends in 2019
AI and conversational marketing are increasingly focusing on marketing and sales for companies. From offering the best packages of your services to a user on your website to just softly dropping in a video about why they need your services, AI is doing it.
With the use of closed captions, audio tracks and the video context, AI can transcribe important information from a video to make them searchable on Google. With SEO friendly videos now available in the market space, companies and brands have more space to experiment and reach out to their audience.
Google recently announced the addition of video previews to the video segment that appears in the search results.
Also Read: Is MENA Ready for 5G and Mobile Advertising?
To appeal to the local target audience in MENA, marketers need to use the following strategies
- Localise message by using Arabic to target the customers in the Middle East, English only accounts for 28% of internet users in the UAE.
- Ensure that you incorporate SEO strategies in your videos by focusing on the Meta Title, Description, and Content itself. Include Arabic SEO along with English SEO as it will be able to attract more audience from the targeted demographics.
- Curate exciting, entertaining, and catchy visuals as thumbnails. Make sure that your video ads are recorded in high quality and the audio is also crisp. The better your content is, the more chances there are for it to go viral.
- Connect with influencers who can feature your brand. 94% of UAE marketers believe that influencers have played a major role in their success.
For a brighter future in video marketing, chalk out an ideal model which allows you to get more leads and increase sales.
