Ephemeral Content and Content Marketing

Overview

Images and media that are available for a short period of time are known as “ephemeral content.” Often made available through social media applications, ephemeral content is designed to quickly gab attention and elicit an emotional response. When these images are part of a marketing campaign, they capture a viewer’s attention quickly because they must be viewed immediately. Utilizing the consumer’s fear of missing out, ephemeral content draws in viewers and consumers who might not otherwise be interested in a topic of product.

Social media platforms, such as Snapchat and Instagram Stories, are well suited for displaying ephemeral media, and are often used in ephemeral content marketing. However, ephemeral content has existed long before social media. For example, most print media was designed to be thrown away—train tickets, sales leaflets, and even newspapers were all once classified as ephemeral media. Once a newspaper had sold for the day, it was hard to find a copy, and the old copies were usually destroyed or recycled. Similarly, early television and radio programs were considered ephemeral because they were viewed or listened to and then disappeared. Until the advent of home video recording devices and later streaming services, watching a film or television broadcast required audiences to schedule their day to accommodate specific viewing hours (Exelmans & Bulck, 2017). While it is now possible to record or stream television or find back issues of a newspaper online, making these media types less ephemeral, the consumer behaviors of ephemeral media have remained the same. Consumers are willing to schedule their daily activities in anticipation of the arrival of ephemeral content. They are at times willing to pay more or otherwise contribute to engage with media through a fear of missing out. The emergence of the internet produced new possibilities for quick media production and publication, as new texts or material could be assembled quickly, published immediately, and then taken down or deleted.

Marketers have found that ephemeral content has the largest engagement rate of any advertising model. For these advertisers, the short and quick nature of the media allow for quick interactions with consumers. The consumer only engages with the media for a short period of time, yet it may require a lot of work to ensure that the advertisement maintains the level of spontaneity that viewers expect. In terms of ephemeral marketing, authenticity is everything. Advertisements cannot appear to be overtly sponsored, too pushy, or be overly edited (Cornelis & Peter, 2017). Instead they need to feel like a quick and honest check-in with a friend. This light-handed approach is new to marketers, yet the field is quickly adapting to this new, personalized engagement with brands and products. This spontaneity is produced in many ways, often intentionally and planned over a long period of time by the producer. Neal and Ross (2018) suggest that one way is by using videos that are not overly stylized and do not appear to be professionally produced. This can include using vertical videos (videos which are recorded on a smartphone held vertically). These videos have been mocked or downplayed in the media as having a less professional nature than horizontal videos. This preference for horizontal videos for professional media means that a vertical video may be perceived as more authentic and spontaneous by the consumer.

Some advertisers have also chosen to supplement their traditional advertisements with “behind the scenes” glimpses at how their products are made, how the advertisement came to be, or interviews with people who worked on a product. This glimpse into the production process is the type of authenticity that creates the direct connection so many consumers desire. Behind the scenes videos are particularly compelling when they have elements of surprise, self-disclosure, or are otherwise accompanied by an in-depth interview. In a study of Dutch reality television and coming out narratives, Boross and Reijnders (2016) examined the ways that young people have come to expect this type of authenticity and are willing to apply for and participate in the production of these direct and revealing videos. Yet, as direct as these videos appear, they are often staged. This staging includes having cameras on hand to film the video, as well as the preparation of well-scrubbed workshop spaces, organized and directed staff, and editors on hand to create the illusion of spontaneity and post the ephemeral content for immediate effect.

The personalization of ephemeral content makes these advertisements more successful than traditional advertisements. This is in part because Millenial and Generation Z consumers often report low levels of trust for traditional advertising. They are very aware of the advertisers goals and attempts to push them to buy a specific product, and will often be skeptical of or refuse to engage with companies that try too hard to get their attention. Additionally, consumers from these generations are accustomed to being marketed to directly. This means that they frequently see tailored advertisements geared towards their own personal interests, past experiences, and talents. They are unlikely to accept an advertisement designed for someone far from their demographic because this is not the way that they have traditionally engaged with consumerism. Instead, they are likely to demand and expect that marketers attempting to sell them goods and services will have already done a good deal of research about their needs and expectations, and will have crafted a product presentation to match.

The resulting advertisements are often first made available through social media platforms. Images of ephemeral content may make their way into nightly news broadcasts (which in their own way are also ephemeral content), or might later be referenced in a film or cultural activity. For the advertiser, these types of ephemeral content are born digital and intended to stay that way.

Further Insights

Ephemeral content marketing campaigns are successful because they require engagement on the behalf of the consumer. The consumer has to seek out the media, or at least has to click on a link or scan a QR code to access an advertisement. In doing so, the viewer has invited the media to play, and offered their time and attention to that media. This is more active engagement than walking past a billboard or watching a traditional television commercial. In those examples the consumer is present in the same space as the advertisement, but they have not invited the advertisement and may feel justified in denying the advertisement their attention, or perhaps even obligated to reject it outright. Since ephemeral content requires initiation on behalf of the consumer, people are more likely to pay attention to the message of that advertisement. To keep this form of engagement, ephemeral content needs to be posted frequently.

Market research, made available through the collection of big data from social media sites such as Facebook, has enabled marketers to specifically target segments of their consumer demographic. The type of detailed information made available in these reports is particularly important for marketers who choose to adopt a storytelling approach. To be sure that the final advertisement is quick enough to be consumed instantly, the stories told in an advertisement cannot be too detailed. They must instead draw on the viewer’s knowledge and preexisting experiences to provide background information and details.

Ephemeral content and content marketing is also successful because it encourages consumers to share their own experiences with a product or service. This sharing helps to sell the product because consumers are more likely to trust the opinion of their acquaintances. It also builds social networks and bonding through social capital (Phua, et al. 2017). Consumers are likely to want to show off their participation in consumer culture, often through the use of the same ephemeral social media in which they received the initial advertisement. For this reason, some content marketing firms rely on social influencers, who are paid either directly in cash or in the form of free products with the expectation that those products will be promoted through social media. These influencers provide multiple benefits to an advertiser. First, influencers are able to make media which specifically targets and speaks to a demographic because they belong to that demographic. Second, their services cost far less than hiring a traditional marketing firm, because social influencers will often advertise a product if it has been received for free. Some social influencers make it clear to their audiences that a product has been given to them, or that they have been sponsored by a specific brand, but this acknowledgement is not always required. This relationship benefits social influencers by providing not only free products and services, but also social capital, as influencers are often the first to receive these products. Cunningham and Craig’s (2017) examination of beauty blogging and vlogging found that social influencers played a key role in sharing information about brands and encouraging purchases. This occurred through self-made videos, often using products the vlogger had purchased. Influencer video posts make for highly effective advertisements that are essentially free for the corporation, attracting consumers with inside, secret, or otherwise valuable information from a trusted presenter.

Issues

Snapchat, Instagram Stories, and QR codes have in part been designed to encourage the production and sharing of ephemeral media. For example, Snapchat encourages users to produce short-lived content and to share it with their friends. Many consumers are now well practiced in that process of producing and consuming ephemera, making this an ideal space in which to produce an advertisement and share it with other potential consumers.

Not all ephemeral content is overtly an advertisement. For example Snapchat allows companies to design geofilters, location-based overlays for phone cameras, as a form of “brand engagement.” Consumers are able to access geofilters only when they are in a specific location. For example, theme park consumers are able to use specific geofilters while in Disneyworld and Disneyland. These geofilters provide video enhancements tied in with Disney's content, such as Micky Mouse ears that can be placed over a consumer’s head, or other characters who appear to pose with the consumer. On a surface level, this feature seems more like a fun gift than an advertisement. Without directly trying to sell something, however, these geofilters enhance the consumer’s engagement with Disney, giving special importance and meaning to that engagement happening only at a specific time and in a specific location. For Disney, this type of engagement can provide large returns on minimal investment. For example, the Snapchat user will most likely post their pictures to another social media site, telling friends and family about their trip to Disney. This encourages these other potential consumers to think about Disney, most likely in a positive way, due to the image's association with a a known acquaintance. Even in the digital age, few types of messaging have the same power as word of mouth.

In a study of the ways that sports fans use ephemeral content, Wakefield and Bennett (2018) found that fans who are enjoying an event are likely to post more and for longer periods of time than fans who are not enjoying an event. In these posts, happy fans are likely to display their engagement with their favorite team or players, and will work hard to reach either a small audience that is well known to them, or a large audience that they have previously identified and engaged with. All of these factors work to the advertiser’s benefit because the consumer is using word of mouth and their personal experience to advertise many things to their respective communities. These advertisements include the joy of attending a sporting event, sports attire, the sports team, and potentially other goods such as foods and beverages consumed while at the event. The advertiser does not have to do much to support this form of marketing, but can encourage more posting if they provide spaces throughout a venue from which consumers can take pictures, engage with displays, and connect with other users and events. With many teams already adopting such approaches, scholars have begun looking at how sporting events encourage social media, and how social media has changed the production and enjoyment of sports (Tang & Cooper, 2018).

The use of ephemera-based social media platforms such as Snapchat is different from using other platforms designed to create a lasting record of engagement. Bayer et al. (2015) found that students considered Snapchat to be best suited for short, quick, or extemporaneous engagements with people who they already knew well. For these students, Snapchat was not a platform on which they could meet new people or engage in detailed debate. Instead, their enjoyment of the platform could be related to its short-lived nature; students felt less pressure to produce the best pictures for Snapchat because they knew that the image would soon disappear.

One way for advertisers to maintain consumer engagement is to “gamify” ephemeral content by incorporating elements of successful mobile video games. Building on the success of viral games such as Pokémon-Go, advertisers have been looking for ways to encourage users to engage directly with their products and services and integrate that engagement in to their day-to-day activates. Feldman (2018) argues that Pokémon-Go changed the ways that many consumers think about social spaces and the use of public spaces to engage with ephemeral media. Engagement with, and use of, social media was previously relegated to private spaces, such as a home or office. When it did occur in public, it was often in the quick capture of a photo or video. However, Pokémon-Go was innovative in that it asked users to engage with the platform as they moved through a public space, and consequently changed that space as users positioned themselves and designed quests to capture new and rare Pokémon. As Feldman (2018) reports, this engagement at times pressed consumers to engage in spaces that were typically out of bounds, such as government facilities, or posed other hazards, which changed consumers' ideas about what constituted acceptable behavior in various public spaces. Ephemeral media is opening up new ways to advertise, while putting pressure on companies to regulate the ways that consumers engage with their products.

Bibliography

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