Chris Ryan is a Colorist and Partner at Nice Shoes (http://www.niceshoes.com) in New York City. Here, discusses the shift from TV to mobile, and the need to understand new storytelling platforms.
On a broad industry level, I think we’re seeing a shift in how advertising money is being spent. There’s more money and production value being put towards content for mobile devices, in some cases at the same level as traditional television advertising. Just as the movement away from radio and print started years ago, we’re moving away from television. TV is still there, but the demographic that looked to it as their only source of video content is aging. The younger demographic, which has been eternally appealing to brands and advertisers, has moved away from static things like a TV and are responding to mobile ads.
My hope is that this trend continues; that this advertising content garners the respect it deserves and that money, time, effort and quality make a bigger shift from television to mobile. We’re starting to see creatives delivering some really compelling ads for this medium. There’s also a whole new set of rules for mobile, and in some ways, it feels as though some traditional constraints have been lifted. The fact that you have apps like Snapchat, offering up an entirely new framing, opens up new avenues of creativity for the people developing this content. It’s an exciting thing that everyone needs to prepare for, and to embrace.
The next step for many companies will be exploring VR, AR and 360. All three are really important. 360 and AR will likely be adopted fastest as there’s less barrier to entry — all that’s needed is a mobile phone, while true VR has hardware requirements, which presents a barrier to people getting comfortable using it. Both AR and VR are very interesting to me, as both mediums open up whole new ways to do advertising as opposed to the current micro movie format of traditional video content. If you have a tenth of the success of Pokemon Go, you’ve got something fantastic. You’re creating advertising experiences that people actively seek out rather than skip through, which has been an ongoing challenge for traditional video content.
At Nice Shoes, our team recognized the need to understand these new storytelling platforms. After a period of exploration and experimentation, we officially launched our virtual reality capabilities at the ANA Masters of Marketing Conference with the debut of our fully interactive VR experience, the Mio Garden. More often than not, our clients are looking for a single point of contact for all of their post production needs. Our focus in 2017 will be fleshing out our service offerings to fully offer our clients a one-stop experience. Adding VR is just another step for us in becoming a more versatile creative partner.
2017 will be similar to years past for the post industry in that we’ll need to be responsive and flexible to our clients’ needs. Those that embrace the exciting new creative technologies available will thrive, and those who stick to what they’ve been known for in the past will be left behind. Listening to our clients has always been at the forefront of Nice Shoes’ success. We were founded as a response to clients’ needs in 1996, have evolved with that philosophy guiding us for the past 20 years, and plan to spend 2017 executing on our strategy that will allow us to offer our clients a true end to end solution.