The reasons that demonstrate the efficacy of video marketing are multiple, and scientific.

The key in content marketing, notably video marketing, and audience creation is the memorability of what you create and publish. As the main objective is not to sell immediately, it is essential that the message that you want to bring to the consumer be built so that it is memorized, with the objective that he or she takes action on it in the future.

Multiple research papers are currently being published around the subject of content memorability. How can we optimize the creation and publication of content so that it has the biggest impact possible on our audience?

Carmen Simon, author of “Impossible to Ignore: Creating Memorable Content to Influence Decisions” (an essential read on the subject!), has developed a framework that allows you to evaluate how many elements that favour content memorability are present in your content, and if it is possible to add even more.

And video in all this?

The different channels at your disposal for the publication, deployment and amplification of your content each have their advantages and disadvantages. In this article, we will focus on the scientific advantages of video.

In a recent article published over at DemoDuck, 6 scientific reasons that explain the efficacy of video were presented and vulgarized:

  1. Memory storage: visual elements are stored in the “long term” part of your memory, which means they have better chances of being memorized for a longer period of time.
  2. Processing speed: according to certain studies, the brain can process visual content 60,000 times faster than text. This means it is possible to integrate a more complex message in less time thanks to video.
  3. Processing location: visual content is encoded in the medial temporal lobe. Interesting fact, this is the region that also processes emotions. This is why it is frequent that an emotion be attached to the memory of an image or a video, making it even more memorable.
  4. Connectivity: 40% of the nerve fibres of the brain are connected to the retina. This creates a great transmission channel for the treatment of images and video.
  5. Visual learning: this same connectivity is an important factor in the fact that 90% of the information that is sent to the brain is visual, making it a big reason why 65% of the population consider preferring images to text.
  6. Focus: video has this capacity, if it is well produced and clear, to grab the attention of the person watching it. You might have noticed that it is harder to disturb someone watching a video than someone reading a text.

These are 6 very simple reasons (too simple?), but they give an excellent idea of the breadth of power video marketing has.

We have touched on scientific factors, in the wide sense of it, of the impact that video can have, but without considering how your offer, your product or your brand could be integrated in it. We have actually, here at Toast, recently had great discussions with Guillaume Fortin of Neurometric on the factors of attentional gain, interest and disturbance in the integration of advertisers in video content. This will most surely be the object of a future article.