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Last week, the first ever European Video Forum brought together key industry decision makers, policymakers, influencers and the top mobile operators from around the world to discuss the future of mobile video and develop best practices from brands. The conference, hosted by Huawei, aimed specifically to prepare the world’s leading brands for the emergence of the new golden age of mobile: video services.
New Golden Age of the Telecommunications Industry
“Intelligent devices with cameras are now more common, more social platform videos are being created and spread in an easier way, and virtual reality and augmented reality technologies are developing on a large scale. A new golden age for the telecommunications industry led by video services has come,” said Ken Wang, President of Global Marketing and Solutions Sales at Huawei during his opening speech.
Obviously, the first major economic driver for the telecoms in the early days was voice services with revenues in the hundreds of billions. However, last year the revenue of global data traffic finally exceeded that of voice services marking an important milestone in the evolution of the mobile industry.
In 2017, history will be made again when video services displaces global traffic for the leading revenue driver for major carriers. In fact, some carriers, such as LG Uplus, are reporting that video services are already contributing over 20% of total revenues.
How Brands Can Take Advantage
Stark Crew CEO Philip Stark was invited by the one-and-only Robert Fox, Chief Branding Officer of Huawei Technologies, to present on the potential of global video and how brands can take advantage of the video revolution.
“We have the leaders from global giants like Viacom, Vodafone, Intel, LG, Huawei and many others showing us the undeniable trend that video is poised to take over as the preferred medium of communication across the board in the next 12 months. Brands need to pay attention and put video at the heart of their marketing strategy if they’re going to stay relevant,” said Stark during his featured keynote.
The event naturally focused on the technical capabilities of the major European carriers to handle this emerging trend, however we wanted to shed light on the enormous opportunity provided by the shift to mobile video.
“All of this technology is good, but it still comes down to reaching people through great storytelling,” continued Stark.
Global brands and multinationals have a clear and unrivaled secret weapon when it comes to great storytelling: their people. One of the biggest advantages the Fortune 500 holds over the market is their worldwide staff and network of multidisciplinary professionals. Many brands overlook their greatest asset as they spend millions courting celebrity spokespeople for unconvincing endorsements.
If brands are to keep up with their customers’ demand for engaging video content they have to be creative and begin thinking about their assets in different ways. Companies can exponentially scale their video content by making their customers, employees and partners the heroes of their video projects. Behind the scenes videos such as internal interviews, insightful how-to’s, and micro-documentaries featuring their key stakeholders are fast and simple ways to draw value from existing assets. Leading brands like Facebook have already started down this road and we expect the leading global brands to follow suit.
In closing, it was an honor and a pleasure to share the stage with thought leaders from the world’s leading technology companies. As video prepares itself for the crown of mobile revenue king, we’re excited to help brands stay focused on the most critical element: the story.
