NEW YORK: Marketers are paying more attention to GIFs, those short looped videos that have become prevalent on social media, and are trying to work out how best to use them for brand communications.
In a bid to gain insight into the impact of GIFs on consumer behaviour, Adweek asked Tenor, the creator of GIF Keyboard, to examine GIF data concerning four major brands – Domino's, Netflix, Coca-Cola and Starbucks.
According to the research, fans of streaming service Netflix type the keyword "sad" six million times a month to locate looping videos that feature Netflix's shows and characters.
Meanwhile, coffee drinkers type the keyword "good morning" 2.1 million times every month before accessing a Starbucks-branded GIF.
And eight million searches for "goodnight" and some 900,000 for "hangover" link to Domino's, while 12.9 million searches for "dance" connect consumers to a GIF associated with Coca-Cola.
"GIFs are becoming a more popular way for people to express their emotions and talk to their friends – they also allow us to share stories with our fans in their voice," said Peter Callaro, Group Director of Integrated Marketing Content at Coca-Cola.
According to Jason Krebs, Chief Business Officer at Tenor, GIFs offer marketers plenty of insights and can help them shape their future campaigns and creative.
"It's live, it's signalling intent," he said. "The creative sides of the agencies are going to see a whole brand new world – this is data and information that they've really only seen in small focus groups."
However, while opportunities open up on the creative side, GIF marketers recognise that more needs to be done to improve measurement.
To that end, Tenor has been working with third-party measurement companies, such as Moat, about building viewability and other metrics into its platform.
"We are definitely focused on delivering business results for the folks that we deal with," said Krebs. "The stakes have been raised in terms of verification – we are building this system."
Last year, Warc attended the TechCrunch Disrupt NY conference and heard from Alex Chung, the Co-Founder and CEO of Giphy, a major search engine for GIFs.
He explained how Giphy helps users find exactly the right GIF to post on social media and outlined the opportunities for marketers to turn GIFs into a revenue stream.
In a bid to gain insight into the impact of GIFs on consumer behaviour, Adweek asked Tenor, the creator of GIF Keyboard, to examine GIF data concerning four major brands – Domino's, Netflix, Coca-Cola and Starbucks.
According to the research, fans of streaming service Netflix type the keyword "sad" six million times a month to locate looping videos that feature Netflix's shows and characters.
Meanwhile, coffee drinkers type the keyword "good morning" 2.1 million times every month before accessing a Starbucks-branded GIF.
And eight million searches for "goodnight" and some 900,000 for "hangover" link to Domino's, while 12.9 million searches for "dance" connect consumers to a GIF associated with Coca-Cola.
"GIFs are becoming a more popular way for people to express their emotions and talk to their friends – they also allow us to share stories with our fans in their voice," said Peter Callaro, Group Director of Integrated Marketing Content at Coca-Cola.
According to Jason Krebs, Chief Business Officer at Tenor, GIFs offer marketers plenty of insights and can help them shape their future campaigns and creative.
"It's live, it's signalling intent," he said. "The creative sides of the agencies are going to see a whole brand new world – this is data and information that they've really only seen in small focus groups."
However, while opportunities open up on the creative side, GIF marketers recognise that more needs to be done to improve measurement.
To that end, Tenor has been working with third-party measurement companies, such as Moat, about building viewability and other metrics into its platform.
"We are definitely focused on delivering business results for the folks that we deal with," said Krebs. "The stakes have been raised in terms of verification – we are building this system."
Last year, Warc attended the TechCrunch Disrupt NY conference and heard from Alex Chung, the Co-Founder and CEO of Giphy, a major search engine for GIFs.
He explained how Giphy helps users find exactly the right GIF to post on social media and outlined the opportunities for marketers to turn GIFs into a revenue stream.
Data sourced from Adweek; additional content by Warc staff
