For this week in marketing research and reports, vertical video isn’t quite all the rage, and marketers weigh in on what technology is part of the major game plan.

Believing Or Boycotting: Brands Beware

What makes customers happy? Not a lot of brands, apparently. According to Forrester’s Global Customer Experience Trends report, only 18 percent of US brands were ranked “good” or “excellent,” and a majority of brands (nearly 60 percent) were rated as just “OK.”

One issue millennials have with brands is their failure to listen. A study by the Fashion Institute of Technology found that 47 percent expressed a desire for brands to take ownership of their mistakes and take the consumer’s feedback into account.

A brand’s position on social and political issues is another driver for 57 percent of the world’s consumers, who will either buy or boycott a brand according to Edelman’s 2017 Earned Brand Study. The survey of 14,000 people in 14 countries found that 50 percent of consumers consider themselves to be belief-driven buyers. The top issues brands are expected to speak out about, according to respondents, are immigration, gender equality and environmental regulation. Out of those surveyed, 67 percent said they bought a brand for the first time because they agreed with its position on a controversial topic. Illustrating the polarizing results of a brand taking a stand or not, 65 percent said they will not buy a brand’s products when it stays silent on an issue they consider important.

Beware of taking a social or political stand just for the sake of it, however—23 percent of consumers indicate what they dislike most about brand marketing is false, misleading or phony advertising, according to research from the CMO Council and Dow Jones. The report was based on data from a survey of more than 2,000 consumers in North America and the United Kingdom. “Stupid” TV/video commercials and false promises tied for second on the list of most bothering traits, at 11 percent each.

Vertical And Virtual

In the first quarter of 2017, MediaRadar found that only 112 (out of over 100,000) mainstream websites and mobile sites contained vertical video ads. The report also found that around 70 percent of vertical video ads are 15-second spots.

Dedicated AR and VR headsets collectively are expected to grow strong for five-year CAGR of 57.7 percent, according to International Data Corporation (IDC). The company’s Worldwide Quarterly Augmented and Virtual Reality Headset Tracker predicts that shipments of AR and VR headsets will grow from just under 10 million units in 2016 to just shy of 100 million units in 2021.

An accessible alternative to VR is 360-degree video, and Google used heat map technology to study immersion within the medium. Google found that viewers spent 75 percent of their time within the front 90 degrees of a video. For many of the most popular VR videos, Google noted, people viewed more of the full 360-degree space with almost 20 percent of views actually being behind them.

AI And AR

Thirty percent of marketers worldwide plan to prioritize AI in the next 12 months, according to a poll by NewBase (formerly Publicitas International). AR is also high on the list at 24 percent, compared to just 18 percent in 2016. The poll asked 1,019 marketers worldwide to pick the top five types of technologies they plan to prioritize over the coming year.

Social Drinkers

In March, 98 percent of beverage conversations on Facebook happened on mobile, the site reported in a press release. More than one in three people use Facebook or Instagram in restaurants and bars, and more than 50 percent of respondents report trying a drink that friends and family posted about on Facebook.

Facebook-owned Instagram Stories has reached 250 million daily active users—surpassing Snapchat’s 166 million—according to Carolyn Everson, Facebook’s global head of sales.

“If you think about it a year ago when we sat together, Instagram Stories didn’t exist,” Everson told CNBC. “Today on the platform, we not only have 250 million people using it, but actually a third (of the most viewed stories) are businesses using Instagram Stories and one million are advertisers.”

Gaming On The Move

Mobile gaming sessions have declined by 10 percent year-over-year but time spent in gaming apps has remained steady over the last year, according to a report by Flurry Analytics. The average US consumer now spends 33 minutes per day in mobile games, and the average session length rose to seven minutes and six seconds in 2017. In other words, while gamers are opening gaming apps less often, they are spending more time playing them during each session.

Mobile continued its strong growth, up year-over-year by 16 percent in May, according to SuperData, with free-to-play and pay-to-play games growing 17 and 12 percent respectively. Fueled by mobile purchases, the worldwide digital video games market grew nine percent year-over-year in May. Gamers spent over $1 billion across all platforms in May, despite a seven percent decline in console and a large 30 percent decline in the premium PC market.

Top-Selling Games For May 2017:

Mobile*:

  1. Clash Royale
  2. Clash of Clans
  3. Monster Strike
  4. Mobile Strike
  5. Game of War: Fire Age
  6. Fate/Grand Order
  7. Candy Crush Saga
  8. Lineage 2 Revolution
  9. Fantasy Westward Journey
  10. Honour of Kings

*Mobile is iOS and Android only and does not include China App Stores

PC:

  1. League of Legends
  2. Crossfire
  3. Fantasy Westward Journey Online II
  4. Dungeon Fighter Online
  5. DOTA 2
  6. World of Warcraft
  7. World of Tanks
  8. Overwatch
  9. New Westward Journey Online II
  10. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Console:

  1. FIFA 17
  2. Grand Theft Auto V
  3. Battlefield 1
  4. Injustice 2
  5. Call of Duty: Black Ops III
  6. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands
  7. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
  8. Overwatch
  9. NBA 2K17
  10. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege