Germany leads in online video viewing across several reporting metrics in Europe, according to comScore Video Metrix. There were 45 million unique viewers watching an average of 187 videos for 19.6 hours per viewer in April. Turkey, with 20.7 million viewers overall, ranked second in terms of engagement with 169 videos viewed for an average 18.7 hours per viewer. The UK emerged as the third strongest online video market in engagement with 166 videos watched for 17.0 hours on average per viewer.
In short, videos, as these numbers illustrate, are becoming a prime vehicle for marketers not only to reach viewers more inclined for this format, but also prospective customers in new markets. Indeed in some markets an online video play is almost mandatory. China's consumers, for example, are more likely to be searching for online content than watching TV with the family, according to a report in Advertising Age. As a result branded drama series and entertainment programs have become very popular in the country, funded by companies like Unilever, Burger King, General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., Kraft Foods, Beiersdorf, Nokia and Anheuser-Busch InBev.
Agnostic Screens
Another commonality between Europe and North America - and clearly China as well: online video is beginning to compete with traditional television viewing for people’s attention, as more people have access to the content via any number of screens. Surprisingly, however, this appears to be news to content producers, which are not developing agnostic formats that can roll out on any device.
Fewer video content generators may be truly adapting for "any screen" consumption, writes Darcey Topham at Mediapost, who recently attended the BrightcovePLAY Conference. It is important to remove any barriers that keep the user from getting to the desired content via a mobile device.
Some questions to consider, she continued, include whether the site only renders video in Flash (Not smart if you want to reach iPhone and iPad users) and whether the site is optimized to be mobile-friendly. Also, is it easy to navigate with touch-screen controls and does it offer adaptive bitrate streaming to deliver the best quality video, whether the user is on a 3G network or connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot.
