Filling the gaps with useful micro-content
It’s a beautiful summer day, you’ve just taken the last sausage off the BBQ when you think to yourself, ‘What’s the best way to clean my dirty grill grate?’ It’s okay, you’re having a micro-moment.
In April this year Google released their research on this new type of customer behaviour. Mobile has “fractured the consumer journey into hundreds of real-time, intent-driven micro-moments. Each one is a critical opportunity for brands to shape our decisions and preferences.” US home improvement chain Lowe’s has already predicted your post-BBQ micro-moment and created a fun six second animation illustrating the best way to soak your grill grate.
Part of their #LowesFixInSix campaign, the how-to Vine videos are the key driver of their entire communications strategy.
Micro-moments are the in-between moments - our search for entertainment whilst waiting for a friend, or the pause for an unforeseen challenge. “62% of smartphone users are more likely to take action right away towards solving an unexpected problem or new task because they have a smartphone,” says Google’s Consumers in the Micro-Moment report. Micro-content is made specifically to fill these gaps.
Smart brands will learn to anticipate the context of these micro-moments. Campari recently collaborated with Kiip, an app based company that connects brands with people in rewarding ways. Kiip helped Campari to identify key mobile moments around drinking alcohol and partnered with Lyft, a mobile taxi service, to reward people with a free ride home courtesy of the brand.
Tailoring messages for the moment not only allows brands to be useful, but can also help them to appear more personal. As marketers learn to master this new consumer behaviour, expect to see more brands seeking to fill pauses with ways to make our lives just that little bit easier.
Read on for examples…
Google Search is now more personalised than ever, especially through the Search app, which uses contextual signals like time and location to relay bespoke results without users even asking for it. Their challenge was to transition traditional web browser users to the app.
The strategy aimed to redefine how people view and interact with mobile advertising.
Using a bespoke technology solution Google was able to pull real-time, targeted information directly into rich media mobile ads and present the user with a level of customisation never seen before.
Every impression pulls in 23 pieces of real-time contexual content to serve genuinely useful information.
Searching for a local attraction or place to eat now feels much more personal.
These ads were able to generate unprecedented levels of consumer engagement and achieved the highest interaction rate Google has ever seen.
Agency: Essence, London
The new Vine series, Tap-Thru-How-To, builds on #LowesFixInSix videos, part of their strategy to embrace a younger audience and make the brand relevant in the 21st century. The campaign uses Vine’s new tap-to-stop technology to break DIY projects into steps so viewers can pause at key stages, turning a quick video into a tutorial. It also allows Lowe’s to tackle more complex projects and expand its content range.
Agency: BBDO NYC
No matter how jazzy your call-to-action may be, the truth is not everyone has 5 minutes to spend on your website. Sometimes people just want to flick through their newsfeeds. Whether it’s a 30 second Facebook video of talking cheese, a 15 second Twitter video of cupcake sheep or a gif of fancy dress pizzas; Sainsburys’ use of micro-content has allowed them to better engage with their audience by acknowledging the desire for snackable content that doesn’t always drive off-platform.
Agency: Gravity Road, London
Eristoff wanted to be the go-to spirit for students who stay at home and party. Cocktails are more exciting than a plain mixer, but most students don’t have the ingredients needed to create the fancy concoctions found in bars. Eristoff saw their opportunity to make delicious cocktails using only contents found in your cupboard. Edited down to 10 seconds, the films appeal to a short attention span and provide the perfect content for YouTube pre-roll and other social media channels.
Agency: Fabula
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