Long format can still do magic for brands in this age of snackable content, says Bishwajeet Samal of Volkswagen

It is said that brands involved in motorsports have to be a bit strenuous and fastidious while creating content for social media channels to directly engage with millennials.

With a belief that its TG is a core part of the ‘Instagram’ age, Volkswagen is moving into more pictorial and visual streams in content marketing to give its campaigns an upmarket and classy feel. In the past year, the car brand has done a few popular content pieces for its motorsport championship series Ameo Cup. The entire end-to-end content creation, distribution, and brand engagement activities were managed by GoQuest Digital Studios.

In an interaction with BuzzInContent.com, Bishwajeet Samal, Head of Marketing, Volkswagen Passenger Cars, shared how the brand is finding the content marketing space in the automobile category full of opportunities. Discussing the rise of micro-influencers over macro influencers, he called the situation a catch-22, and said an equal mix of both would be required in the future from brands’ end.

He further shared how the brand’s 6-7 percentage of digital spends is being utilised for the same space. Talking about a few of the trends growing in the market, Samal explained how Instagram, YouTube and other social media channels are equally important to a brand like any OTT platform.

“Automobile as a category is more like an opportunity because it's a high-involvement product. People want to invest time to understand the product better, understand the features better and compare it with competitors. There is a demand for the content from a product and a brand point of view,” said Samal.

He said as it is a premium brand, a lot of people are looking forward to intelligent content from Volkswagen.

The brand had earlier participated in a Google survey, which said more than 64% of its customers were conducting their research online before making their purchases.

To be available online via multiple modes and engage the customers, it has become rather important for the brand to make its presence felt.

“Content marketing is extremely important for us. Around 6-7% of our digital spends are being invested in content marketing. In India, because of 4G penetration, a lot of content is getting produced and publishers are quite focused on it,” said Samal.

The brand did a Passat film that was distributed both in a short-format content as a 90-second version and in a longer format content as a 120-second version.

Samal said, “The kind of view through rates we generated via long format, the kind of engagement we generated and the comments we received, I would say there is still merit in exploring long-format content that can do magic. Brands also need to have shorter snackable content.”

He said a shorter form of impactful content, plus the longer form of engaging content, have an equal role to play in engaging with the audience as a brand.

The brand believes that being in the automobile industry, service as a business is important for it. And there is a need to develop a lot of content so that people are made aware of not only the product but also the service offerings from the manufacturer.

“We are completely focused on everything from marketing short-format content, be it a normal post on Instagram or on any social channel, to creating something which is a long format to educate and make people aware of the new products or the new features or even the service,” he added.

Samal said the rise of micro influencers in comparison with macro ones is like a catch-22 situation.

Asked if macro influencers would lose ground in the future with the rise of micro influencers, he said, “I think you need both micro and macro to help your brand. And while there are certain advantages when it comes to macro influencers coming to reach and acceptability with the audience, micro influencers have also carved a niche, and because of which, when they talk about the brand, it becomes authentic for the followers. It is an equal mix of both in the future.”

The brand is also focusing on OTT platforms and believes they are of equal importance as compared to social media channels such as YouTube, FB or Instagram.

Content via music integration is proving to be a healthy deal for brands these days. Asked if Volkswagen is also planning any such collaboration, Samal said, “As a brand, we feel music as a platform resonates well with our audience. We are exploring and have made some initial attempts.”

The brand is also working closely with content discovery platforms like Taboola to maximise ROI and engage better with the audience.