Over-the-top (OTT) advertising has revolutionized the digital marketing landscape, offering a highly engaging and versatile platform for reaching audiences.
To maximize the impact of your OTT campaigns, creative best practices are essential. In this article, we’ll explore eight creative best practices for OTT advertising, backed by examples, and provide valuable insights to help you refine your OTT advertising strategy. But let’s understand what exactly OTT advertising is.
What is OTT?
Over-the-top (OTT) involves streaming films, TV series, documentaries, and more content from the internet, whenever and wherever you’d like. Audiences can now consume entertainment content from pretty much anywhere on their tablets, phones, laptops, and more.
Advertisers need to start experimenting with creative variables to take full advantage of OTT’s audience reach. Below are some best practices for OTT advertising you can start implementing today and begin building brand awareness.
OTT Advertising Strategy
Developing a successful Over-The-Top advertising strategy is essential to effectively reach and engage your target audience in the rapidly growing OTT market. Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating an OTT advertising strategy:
1. Leverage the Power of Storytelling
OTT platforms are ideal for delivering long-form content, making storytelling a powerful tool. Craft compelling narratives that resonate with your target audience. For example, Netflix’s “Stranger Things” teaser ads before a new season launch create intrigue through engaging storytelling, driving viewership.
2. Maintain Visual Consistency
Consistency in visual elements, such as branding, color schemes, and logos, across all your ad creatives helps build brand recognition. Amazon Prime Video’s use of its signature blue color and logo in OTT ads keeps its brand top-of-mind.
3. Optimize for Mobile Viewers
Recognize that many OTT viewers watch content on mobile devices. Ensure your creatives are mobile-friendly, with legible text and visually appealing graphics, to cater to this significant portion of your audience.
4. Keep it Short and Sweet
In the OTT world, attention spans are limited. Opt for concise messaging for ad durations of 15 seconds or less. Hulu’s short, snappy ads effectively capture viewers’ attention in a short span.
5. Interactive Elements
Implement interactive features like clickable elements or calls to action (CTAs) that engage viewers directly. Interactive ads on platforms like Roku allow viewers to explore a product or service without leaving the streaming environment.
6. A/B Testing
Regularly conduct A/B testing to identify which creatives perform best. Netflix is known for rigorously testing different thumbnails to determine which one generates more clicks, demonstrating the value of continuous experimentation.
7. Embrace Personalization
Utilize viewer data to personalize ads. For instance, if a viewer has watched travel-related content, show them ads for vacation packages. OTT platforms, like Disney+, leverage Personalization to recommend content based on viewers’ preferences.
8. Seamless Integration
Ensure that your ads seamlessly blend into the OTT viewing experience. For example, YouTube’s non-skippable ads are concise and often play before the main content, ensuring a natural transition.
By implementing these strategies, businesses can create compelling, engaging, and targeted OTT advertising campaigns that resonate with their audience, drive engagement, and deliver positive results.
Remember, the key to a successful OTT advertising strategy is understanding your audience and aligning your approach with their preferences and behaviors.
OTT Advertising Examples
Netflix’s Countdown Timer: Netflix uses countdown timers before a show starts, building anticipation and keeping viewers engaged.
Amazon Prime Video’s “X-Ray” Feature: Amazon Prime Video’s “X-Ray” feature allows viewers to access additional information about actors and scenes, enhancing engagement with content.
Hulu’s “Huluween” Campaign: Hulu’s “Huluween” campaign includes Halloween-themed OTT ads that align with the holiday season, appealing to users with relevant content.
Roku’s Interactive Ads: Roku incorporates interactive ads where users can explore products or services without leaving the platform, providing a seamless experience.
Suggestions for Improvement of OTT Platforms
- Ad Targeting Precision: Improve ad targeting to ensure that ads reach the most relevant audiences, reducing ad fatigue and enhancing user experience.
- Enhanced Analytics: Provide advertisers with more detailed analytics to measure ad performance and optimize campaigns.
- Ad Load Optimization: Balance ad frequency to prevent viewer frustration and maintain a positive user experience.
- Ad Format Innovation: Continue to develop innovative ad formats that enhance user engagement while maintaining relevance to the content.
In conclusion, OTT advertising offers tremendous potential for businesses to connect with audiences in a highly engaging and personalized way. By following creative best practices and continually refining your strategy, you can make the most of this dynamic advertising platform and drive results.
An advertising agency can help you ensure that your message is crafted according to best practices and is placed in front of the right audience at the right time using OTT and other methods as needed.
New Path is a pioneer in programmatic advertising. We work with the leading programmatic providers to execute campaigns that influence every step on the path to purchase.
Since our founding, we have been committed to maintaining end-to-end control of our digital advertising practice. We plan, build, execute, and optimize our programmatic display and video campaigns in-house.
Our programmatic display and video solutions include:
- Display & Video 360
- OTT Services (video advertising)
- YouTube Advertising
- Amazon Advertising
- Adelphic DSP
- Campaign Manager
The outcome? Accelerate campaign launch times and optimizations, and increase your overall return on investment. Ready to learn more about OTT advertising? Download our Complete Guide to Getting Started with OTT Advertising.
If you’re ready to create your campaign, check out our OTT budget calculator below.
Blog Last Updated on 3 months by New Path Digital
