With the growing popularity of short-form videos, we asked a few popular platforms for their insights.
How is short video content growing on your platform in terms of users, views and time spent? Has advertising on the platform kept pace with usage growth?
What is the typical cost per impact (CPT/CTR/VTR) and how does it compare with other video content?
How’s the Josh (doing)?
Sunil Mohapatra, Chief Revenue Officer, VerSe Innovation (parent of Josh, Dailyhunt), remarked, “Josh has witnessed a steady growth in terms of users and content consumption on the platform ever since its launch in 2020. As the demand for regional language content is on the rise, we have been able to leverage our intrinsic understanding of local context and language to meet our users’ content preferences. Josh has over 163 million monthly active users and over 80 million daily active users who spend over 30 minutes on the platform daily.
“For Josh, there is tremendous excitement from brands and agencies. Branded content and challenges are doing very well on the platform. Overall, our sales approach is very calibrated. We have started doing control experiments to test the platform for all relevant metrics. The full suite of solutions will be rolled out very soon.
“Over the years, there has been a rising preference for short format video over long format video. In their latest report, Redseer predicts that by 2025, Indian short-video apps will acquire a monthly active user base of 600 million, which will rise to 850 to 900 million by 2030. The snackable quality of short-video content seamlessly blends into the busy lifestyles of users, allowing them to consume more content within a shorter period of time, hence increasing the satisfaction derived. In addition to this, advanced algorithms provide users with a feed that is deeply personalised as per their preferences and helps them cut through the clutter of overwhelming choice. A highly engaging format, short-video provides users with an immersive viewing and creating experience that is unique while also convenient.”
Chingari’s ‘Token Economy’
Sumit Ghosh, Co-founder & CEO, Chingari, commented, “Since 2020 the users and viewers have been constantly growing on the Chingari app. And with the launch of GARI, our growth has skyrocketed, attracting users across the globe.
“Short-format content became the most relevant during the pandemic as many creators were born and were growing on various platforms and the viewers scrolled their way through on the lookout for unique and entertaining content. Their time spent on short-video apps also increased. On Chingari, the most time spent at a given point had reached 5 hours+ with a 611pc increase in the engagement rate.
“Currently, the average time spent by the user/creators on the Chingari app is around 45 mins. The other features launched by Chingari have also gained good traction. For example, Chingari Audio Rooms in just four months broke the record by clocking in 15M+ minutes of user activity per month.
“It has hosted users from 180-plus countries around the world, including Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, UAE, and Saudi Arabia among other major countries. Locally, Hindi belt users are the largest in numbers and are from UP, Delhi, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Bihar. So user engagement and viewership have been on an upward growth trajectory.
“Advertisers have leveraged short video content tremendously as a tool for promotion. However, on Chingari we do not monetise through advertisements as we don’t believe in ruining our user experience.
“We will have ads and video commerce as revenue streams in the near future, but we will get rid of ads on the app because Chingari is now a Web 3.0 economy.
“Even advertisers will have to purchase GARI tokens to advertise on the platform. So it also becomes a token economy within the Chingari app. GARI has become the de facto currency of Chingari. As the users of Chingari grow, the demand for GARI tokens will increase, but the supply is limited, so the price will rise.”
We checked with a few media planners for their views. We asked: How has short form video grown as a genre? Where does it stand vis a vis long(er) format videos as an advertising medium? How does the CTR/VTR of short format videos compare with other online videos?
‘Will have more CTR and will drive more audience.’
Says Divya Nair, Senior Director, Starcom, “The popularity of short format videos according to me has risen multi-fold post emergence of Youtube Shorts. Being a widely used video platform, Youtube accelerated short video format led by influencers posting shorter content of their long format videos. These videos have also helped a lot of influencers increase their subscriber base. Even trending songs, dialogues have further boosted the trend of short format videos among the audience.
“CTR (click through rate) for short format videos (SFV) is better owing to short time span commitment from the audience. It is very easy to browse and also acts like ‘quick bite’ content for consumer. Anyday SFV is more efficient since it will have more CTR and will drive more audience owing to engaging content consumption in much lesser time.”
‘Short form 30pc more efficient; longer video still delivers better on brand health.’
Vaibhav Choudhari, Vice President, Carat, observed, “Short video as genre got a boost post TikTok popularity and its exit from the Indian market opened the gates for a lot of short form video apps like Insta, Gaana, MX player YT, Sharechat, Moj etc.
“Longer video still delivers better on brand health outcomes as against short videos. YT short videos have opened for advertising three to four months back so it’s still early to know its efficacy, whereas short form videos have been able to reach a wider audience in a short time span helping brands drive incremental reach for brands.
“Short form videos are at least 30pc more efficient than longer form videos across platforms.”
‘Shorter the video, more the completed views.’
Siddhi Mehta, Senior Media Buyer, Madison Media, responded, “In this quick world where people want everything on the go short videos are the thing. The attention span of people has also decreased, they get bored of things quickly, for long videos there are chances people will not view it completely which will defeat the purpose of the ad. CPT is also less for short videos since shorter the video larger the reach as completed views are higher.”
‘Almost half the advertisers still not using the medium.’
Siddharth Jadhav, Principle Leader, GroupM India, pointed out, “Short form videos which can also be termed as engagement videos has penetrated at an incredible pace with more than 45 mins of average video consumption by daily active users. If statistics are to be believed, close to 50 million Indians have created and posted at least one short form video.
“Short form videos have already begun to take over social media and other formats, with an exponential rise in creators, variety and volume of content. Yet, we still don’t find almost half the advertisers using the medium.”
