Video is a naturally engaging medium and, in an age of information overload, it’s now fundamental for businesses to offer content that is relevant and easy to digest. As a result, online video distribution has become an increasingly important marketing communication tool for both internal and external communication and with the new generation of high-speed broadband networks like Australia’s NBN, the field will only grow as more people trend towards content online in order to satisfy their information and entertainment needs.

Imagine delivering a presentation to a live audience of 100 people every day for a year. That’s what would be needed in order to reach an audience of over 35000 people. Now consider that a good TED talk published on YouTube can reach that same audience in just 6 hours.

Compelling story telling has always been at the heart of effective communication; the evolution of communication has seen the spoken word, which was traditionally persuasive yet had limited distribution (small audiences that required audience and speaker to be in the same place at the same time), overtaken by print, which brought inexpensive and broad distribution, but to some degree lost the element of persuasiveness.

Enter the rise of the internet age and we now have flexible and cheap distribution combined with the ability to broadcast traditional audio visual material in digital form. The internet is a communication medium that is not only costless to the recipient in monetary terms, but also convenient and flexible. This convenience and flexibility means we have seen huge growth in online video and it’s only logical that we’re seeing video content playing an important part in the recent content marketing revolution. Video provides the ability to produce a variety of content types while tailoring the message to specific stakeholders which can result in engaging and relevant material which speaks to viewers much more than the written form.

According to a recent report from Cisco, video is predicted to account for an unprecedented 84% of all Internet traffic by 2018. In Australia, we can see this supported by consumers who are willing to pay for faster internet connections and higher data limits. Accenture has recently reported that 57% of Australians are willing to pay more for a faster internet connection at home to reduce interruptions to streaming and online video – a figure which is higher than in the US and the UK.

Corporates are responding to this growth in media consumption with their own creative digital endeavours, spanning advertising, corporate editorial and thought leadership. PwC’s Australian Media & Entertainment Outlook 2014-2018 recently reported that marketing departments are moving their spending away from traditional advertising toward “owned” channels. We can see the corporate newsroom taking off with names such as ANZ, Westpac, GE Money and Forbes all creating their own branded news services. In the case of ANZ Banking Group’s BlueNotes, they are drawing on journalistic resources such as Andrew Cornell, former columnist for Australian Financial Review publisher Fairfax Media, and ANZ chief economist Warren Hogan, in addition to subeditors, a publishing hub as well as an in house video studio.

BlueNotes was established as part of ANZ’s wider social media strategy, and using a combination of written content, visual representations and video, it’s clear that the key strengths of the platform are the ability to control their message, communicate directly with their audience and target their stakeholders with relevant and customised content.

Paul Edwards, group general manager of corporate communications at ANZ, recently commented that it is about quality, with subscribers including people at ASIC, the treasury, shareholders and fund managers being “exactly the type of people we are supposed to communicate with”.

While not everybody has the resources or in fact the need to launch a BlueNotes-esque operation, the opportunities are there to create content that is compelling, engaging and has the ability to communicate directly with your stakeholders. Webinars, educational content, interviews with management, internal communication and corporate updates are just some of the options that can both complement a company’s existing communication and help further showcase a company’s expertise and operational highlights.

Citadel-MAGNUS can assist with the development of written and online video content. To discuss further, please contact Matthew Gerber (02) 8234 0113 or mgerber@citadelmagnus.com