What's more impactful for brands: Short or long content?

Snackable content has become the buzzword for brands as they see content consumption spiking in the micro video format across social media channels.

Appealing to the audiences’ emotions in a short period of time via short content is definitely a difficult task for brands but given its popularity, short form has become the go-to strategy for content marketers. But does that mean marketers would soon abandon the long tried and tested long form way of storytelling and setting up an in-depth relationship with brands?

BuzzInContent.com talked to various brands to understand how the brevity of the content matters and compared the effectiveness of both the formats, long and short, in context of the impressions and informativity. Brands concluded that the impression long-format content leaves among the audience is incomparable to the short-format snackable content. Apart from this, long-format content can reap higher ROI being a better storyteller. 

“Short format is good for topical content. Its impact is momentary. Short format is for on-the-go consumption or in between the chores. It will give you a small nuance of the story without giving a complete picture or a complete story. Long format will leave an impression, and will be thought-provoking along with a complete picture,” said Rajiv Dubey, General Manager, Media in Marketing at FMCG Major Dabur.

“Good long-format content can definitely help position you as a brand that cares for your audience and wants to add value to their lives,” said Sandeep Verma, President, Bajaj Consumer Care.

It is said that with the decrease in the attention span of the audience, there is a high demand for snackable content among audiences. Brands, in a bid to attract more eyeballs and convey their messages fast, have started coming up with short-format content videos. Still, there are major content creators and platforms that engage their audiences with long-format content videos. For that instance, TVF channel has its 70% of the audience engaged with the long-format content videos.

Bishwajeet Samal, Head of Marketing, Volkswagen Passenger Cars, shared how especially in the automobile category, which is a high involvement product, people want to invest time to understand the products and features better, digging more information. And this can only be delivered through long-format content videos.

He 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.”

Not only long-format content videos deliver more information, being more comprehensive, this format tends to deliver more ROI as well, Samar Verma, CEO and Founder of Fork Media, said.

“We will see more of long-form content building versus the formats we are building today. Conversations happen when you only connect with the audiences. These days, brands are plugging themselves in short and snackable content, where I believe the ROI will not be optimum. Longer formats and most engaged conversations are potentially how ROI will be driven in a much better way,” he added.

Samar further said that at the end of the day, brands want great storytelling and they don’t really care about the format of the content. Brands should focus on building much better stories. It is the longer form of content and engaging conversations that will always hold the test of time.

“Content creators would definitely be creating and cashing on long-format content as well in future since that is the way to tell the story. Storytelling would always happen via long format of content,” said Dubey.

He said the audience has shifted to mobile but that is not purely for short and snackable content, since a lot of consumption of long-format content and OTT also takes place on mobile devices.

Verma concluded that the length of the content should be determined by the basic marketing objectives of the brands. It should be determined by how much the brand’s consumers know, versus how much they need to be educated and most importantly by where they are located in the decision funnel. Long-form content can be crucial for improving search engine rankings and building credibility.