Online Video: Immense Growth In 2013 (And More To Come In 2014)

If 2012 was the year crowdfunding platforms exploded, then 2013 was the year digital video travelled light years toward becoming the primary channel for consuming content online. A whopping 188.2 million Americans (!) watched online videos during that twelve month stretch. The exponential growth of YouTube was also astonishing: in 2013, the site crossed the one billion viewers per month threshold, and by year’s end, those viewers surpassed another milestone, consuming more than six billion hours of video per month (up 50% from the previous year). It should be noted that mobile makes up 40% of YouTube’s total watch time.

But it isn’t just YouTube. Based on unique viewers, AOL has grown into one of the top five video content properties online. And according to statistics, Twitch users took in a total of 12 billion minutes of gaming and live video streaming per month in 2013. In total, online video content views are at more than 50 billion per month – the highest ever – and views on video ads have tripled in the last year.

At the outset of 2013, video was being touted as an essential tool for content marketing. That was no longer a safe prediction at the end of the year, but rather, had become an established fact. Brands from an array of industries turned to video to tell their stories and connect with their audiences.

Why do people tend to connect so deeply with video? According to the Brain Lady Blog, voice contains “richer information” than the written word. We’re also hardwired from birth to pay attention to faces (our parents in the beginning, others as we grow older and socialize). Additionally, emotions are contagious and movement grabs attention.

These things were apparent in a huge way this past weekend, as millions sat down to watch the NFL’s Super Bowl. Each year, more and more advertisers place their incredibly expensive Super Bowl ads online before the game, in an effort to get views, buzz, and attention.

A spokesperson for the video advertising and ad analytics company Visible Measures told Techcrunch that Super Bowl advertisers are releasing their ads online early, treating them as online video content in order to get the most views ahead of broadcast and beyond. In that article, it quotes Tim Calkins, a professor of marketing at Northwestern University, who said, “It is not about winning the Super Bowl but winning an entire month.” And that’s been a gradual progression. In 2010, just 13 Superbowl ads made their debut online before the game. In 2011, that number more than doubled, as 27 brands made the early debut. By 2012, the number was 34, then, in 2013, 42. (You can see all of this year’s ads online here.)

Later this week (and for 18 days afterwards), the sport/video connection will continue, this time on a global scale. As the Olympics in Sochi begin, NBC (through Adobe’s Primetime platform) will host live and on-demand online content, streaming more than 1,000 hours of activity. NBC is aiming to vastly improve the video quality of the stream in the hope of attracting digital video advertising. “In Beijing it was much harder to sell digital ads,” Rick Cordella, Senior VP and Digital Manager of Digital Media at NBC Sports Group told Variety. “People didn’t fully grasp what it was they were buying,” he said. “When you went ahead to London, we probably had more advertisers than we had impressions to sell… I think this will only get bigger as time goes along. We’re pretty optimistic about Rio.”

One year from now we’ll probably still be talking about the information and insights gained from taking a hard look at the viewing habits of those who watch the olympics digitally. The historic importance of the games, vis-à-vis digital viewing, is that NBC, the old media dinosaur, has finally embraced multi-platform viewing on a massive, international scale.

Where do you see video going in 2014? Let us know in the comments!

Any thoughts on video content’s growth? Do you think you’ve watched more video in the past year than ever before? Let us know in the comments and connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn.

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