Amaresh Godbole: LIVE it. Or you're dead

Ever since Twitter’s acquisition of live-streaming app Periscope in 2015, digital media has seen the race for live events only heat up. Youtube and Facebook Live, along with  Snapchat are slugging it out for a share of audience eyeballs, and of course, the share of wallet from marketers.

So what is driving this scramble? It is a combination of cultural and economic factors accelerating demand. The thing to remember is that most of this is devised for digital natives.

Audience mindset

FOMO — the fear of missing out — is very real. Societal and self-imposed pressures to do more has resulted in an inherent anxiety among millennials. Friends fall out when they see ‘snaps’ of their ‘squad’ having a good time without them. Lifestyle brands have a field time putting out ‘snaps’ of invite-only affairs via opinion leader profiles which create incredible desire in the wider audience to participate.

Instant gratification

The need for this is well-documented, and used as a big driver by the likes of Amazon and its e-commerce peers, start-ups as well as traditional businesses. Couple this with the fact that video consumption has grown exponentially and appointment-viewing has given way to on-demand viewing habits. What you have is a coming together of online and offline.

Oversharing is actually now just sharing and what we are seeing is demand for authentic content versus scripted experiences. So, if you like a movie or sports star and if his or her views do not resonate with yours, then hell hath no fury. Social media is calling the bluff of many stars, which explains why brands are moving to purpose-based content marketing rather than sticking to plain advertising. Unilever's Dove is stellar at this. Streaming one of their social experiments ‘live’ would be a natural extension, wouldn’t it? 

Content consumption

Super-niche is the new cool. Emergence of influencers, micro celebrities, and ‘trending’ – these folks (on social media) create daily content, a lot of which doesn’t need scripting. So why not 'live'? The audience too is following suit. Why share the picture of that beach in Bali when you can make your ‘friends’ jealous with a live feed? After all, Anushka Sharma is telling you ‘trend everyday’. 

Second screen engagement (that is, viewing your smartphone even as you watch TV) is now a habit, which is an opportunity for augmenting live broadcasts. An example of this is behind-the-scenes action at F1, while the race is live on TV. This transports you there and makes the experience immersive.

Brand intervention

Brands are more action-oriented today, thus increasing spends on experiential marketing. It makes sense therefore to amplify these experiences online. So, if you’ve got something cool going on, like the unveiling of a popular brand ambassador, a much-awaited new phone, or a technology-enabled experience, why stop at tweets when you can live stream? Contracts for celebrity emcees today include a ‘Facebook Live’ piece. This eases the pressure on brands to generate real-time content.

Snapchat 

Easily Facebook’s biggest threat – Snapchat takes on WhatsApp, Instagram and FB Messenger all at once. Some of the new Instagram features are a dead giveaway of who they are actually worried about. 

Facebook is a change leader in digital marketing. So you can expect Facebook Live to stay on for a while.

Macro factors

Infrastructure, cloud, data speeds are all key drivers of the live-streaming trend. Earlier, entire companies were set up to enable live streaming. Today, anyone with a smartphone can do it. Also, some players are focusing on distributing streams on a large scale across platforms. 

What’s next?

Pretty much what happens with every new trend. First, a slew of ‘India Firsts’ – fashion shows, movie premieres, auto launches will all be live-streamed. It will work for some and may not for others, before we all take a collective step back to basics. What’s my marketing objective? Who am I talking to? Why would my audience care to view this? How do we measure effectiveness? That’s when articles like these die out, and it becomes a ubiquitous part of the marketing plan.