25-01-2024 4 minutes reading time
The power of continuity
The world we live in today is getting faster and faster. Trends appear overnight and disappear as quickly as they came. Just look at life on TikTok. Videos go viral overnight and the whole world dances to that one song. A week later, no one is talking about it anymore and a new video has long since become the talk of the day. So what do companies need to do to be successful in the long run? What is the right marketing behavior? Develop a long-term strategy and follow it consistently or develop a blustering mentality to jump on new trends quickly and successfully ride every wave? This is exactly the question we wanted to explore to find out what is ultimately the right thing to do.
If you thought the answer would be clear and simple, we have to disappoint you, because one-off, fast-paced videos certainly have their place in the world of marketing. Companies need to be prepared and able to react quickly to current trends and events and generate attention and interaction in the short term. There are successful examples, from Nike to Starbucks to Barclays, where companies have gone viral overnight with a quick response to events in the sports world, politics or the lives of celebrities. However, companies that do this must ensure that this approach fits with their brand presence and values. Joining in because everyone else is doing it can have unpleasant consequences. So for specific campaigns or short, time-sensitive content, this approach is ideal. They are the flash of marketing - short, intense and often effective, but also fleeting.
A long-term strategy is completely different. Companies know what their vision, mission and values are, what they want to communicate. Based on this, a long-term brand strategy is developed and consistently implemented. This includes communication in the form of video marketing. High-quality content is developed to create a strong brand identity, gain customer trust and position the company for the long term.
1. Branding needs consistency: Messages must be repeated to reinforce the corporate image and make the brand identity recognizable. Video marketing with a long-term strategy is the best tool to achieve this goal. Unlike still images, video marketing uses both the spoken and visual in moving images to emotionally reinforce the promise.
2. Customer loyalty and trust: Companies that focus on long-term strategies and execute them consistently in the form of video content are able to create trust, which ultimately impacts the brand.
3. Continuous presence: Only with a long-term strategy are companies able to create content that can be aired regularly across different channels of the company, thus establishing their brand in the memory of their customers.
4. Impact and measurability: Companies that follow a video marketing strategy can create targeted video content and track the performance of this content more accurately. They can look back and analyze which ideas proved effective and build on them, and what adjustments may be needed in the future to deliver on the brand and its promise.
One-off or spontaneous videos have their value if they are carefully realized and contribute to the company's brand presence and values. It makes absolutely no sense to jump on a new viral bandwagon just because everyone else is doing it. But recognizing a trend quickly and implementing it creatively can give the brand an extra push to create attention and elicit interactions. In contrast, building a firebrand mentality of running after every new trend and jumping on everything can cause confusion among customers and even ruin the brand identity in the long run.
At the beginning, we asked what companies should do in a fast-paced world of marketing and rapidly changing trends? Is a long-term strategy the right choice or a blustering mentality? Strategy is king. And that won't change. But today's marketing needs more flexibility. Companies need a long-term marketing strategy that goes hand-in-hand with the company's values. At the same time, companies today must have a precise plan and be prepared to respond to current events if the events are conducive to brand communication and brand identity and give the company an extra push to initiate new interactions and create attention. Therefore, a long-term video marketing strategy combined with a lot of flexibility is the best condition for long-term business success.
