The ABC Solution

I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time finding what to watch.   My nightly routine is usually starting with the cable guide to see what’s on, and then I’ll switch to Apple TV and nose around Netflix, Hulu or Prime or get distracted by something on YouTube.   If I can’t find anything, then I’ll do a Google – you know, what’s on TV tonight?  Or what can I binge watch?   And usually, I can narrow it down to a couple of choices, and if it’s a series, I’ll start binge-watching so I don’t need to do this whole process again at least for a few days.

If you are like me, you have a lot of haystacks to search to find the needle.

And that’s just TV.

Think about the 300 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute or the 5 billion videos watched on YouTube every day.

And then there are another 100 million hours of video watched daily on Facebook.

Not to forget, Twitter, Twitch, TikTok and the Gram.  Or how about LinkedIn.

So as a content creator or brand marketer, how is a consumer supposed to find your content in all these haystacks?

For this complex problem, I offer a relatively simple A-B-C solution.

With due respect to Alec Baldwin’s character in Glengarry Glen Ross, I’m not saying “Always Be Closing.”

I’m talking about “Attention, Brand Value, and Call to Action.”

A successful digital video is one that captures the audience’s attention, delivers brand value to that audience, and calls upon the viewer to act.    Action not in the form of a like, comment of share, but to say to themselves, “I learned something new and I need to try this product.”

To prove my theory, I offer three examples, but you can find many following the same basic formula.

Is the content memorable or shareworthy like Blendtek’s “Will It Blend” series?

Is the content something that the consumer associates with your brand’s value like RedBull’s live extreme sports coverage or action You Tube series like “Who Is JOB?