Death of a single frame

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But what does that mean for video content? 

The pandemic has shown that the demand for binge-worthy movies, video’s and TV shows has never been higher. The top streaming platforms such as Netflix (NFLX: NASDAQ), Amazon Prime (AMZN: NASDAQ) and Disney+ (DIS: NYSE) had major growth spurts in user base between April and June 2020 and the recent success of video-based social media platform TikTok has demonstrated that people love watching and/or creating videos as a way to pass the time. The average consumer now has the ability of not only watching but creating powerful 15-60 second clips, and the way young creatives have taken advantage of this new ability has revolutionized the way the world communicates in very interesting ways. 

One of the ways Jay Beech, a 26-year-old British man who lost his job during Covid-19, took advantage of this was by creating a short-form video/music video appealing to hiring managers in his field, and it worked. Video resumes have been popping up more and more on platforms like LinkedIn and TikTok as people look for different and creative ways to pitch their future potential boss. Some of which are well-planned, visually appealing music videos or performances and others are just a standard resume voiced aloud, one-on-one to their mobile phone’s camera. 

Digital trends are always evolving and stats like “viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text”, from wordstream.com, make you question if a resume, a cookbook, a letter, or a sales pitch in text format will become something of the past. With people watching an average of 16 hours of online video per week (and growing rapidly), the future of communication seems to be quickly moving towards a video based ecosystem. Even major social media platforms like Instagram (FB: NASDAQ), who was once known for its photo-sharing functionalities, has had to make the switch by introducing things like IGTV and Reels as a way to stay on top of consumer trends and compete with the ever-growing social media platform, TikTok. 

For corporations, this is a new landscape they must learn to navigate if they want to remain relevant in this new digital age. With 68% of consumers preferring watching videos to learn about new products or services, as compared to articles, infographics, e-books, and presentations, the need for high-quality videographers and editors is on the rise. Being that this is new territory, companies and businesses must learn to adapt, test and experiment to see what works for them and how they can use video as a way to strengthen their brand, sell more products and/or protect their reputation.

Over the next coming years, it will be interesting to see how this push towards video content plays out and over the long term, what will be the thing that kills video the same way video is killing text and photography in 2021.