Love at First View — How brands in India top the timeline

In our media-saturated culture, how do you get in front of a huge target audience — at precisely the right moment? Whether you’re launching a new product, kicking off a new campaign, promoting a new movie or TV show, or telling a new brand story, you want to own that moment and drive awareness.

That’s the idea behind First View. Introduced one year ago, First View gives brands exclusive ownership of Twitter’s most valuable real estate — the top ad slot — for 24 hours, using the most popular form of content today, video. First View’s exclusive placement enables brands to achieve “Love at First View,” getting attention at the top of the timeline when people are at their most receptive.

Most of all, First View enables brands to be a part of what’s happening right now in a high-impact way. Brands such as @RelianceJio have combined First View videos with Promoted Trends to deepen engagement and drive conversations.

A “Love at First View” moment drives positive sentiment, purchase intent, and brand and campaign awareness, our research shows. For example, a First View video in the Twitter timeline generates a 22% uplift on average across all brand metrics, versus videos experienced deeper in the timeline.

To celebrate First View’s first anniversary, we’re sharing insights and best practices for leveraging Twitter’s top ad slot in your next campaign.

Video commands attention in a competitive, crowded marketplace.

First View has helped brands across a variety of verticals quickly achieve scale with compelling video creative. On average, First View can increase Tweet recall by more than 141%; campaign awareness by +58%; message association, +29%; brand awareness, +18%; and purchase intent, +13% (based on Twitter research)⁴.

With so much content competing for consumers’ attention, First View helps brands break through with immersive creative video at the top of the Twitter timeline. Memory response is highest in the first 30 seconds of a Twitter session, and users are more likely to connect emotionally to content early on, according to Twitter research.

We’ve also found that the first videos people see on Twitter generate the strongest responses, compared to videos and other content experienced later in the timeline.

Video is by far the most popular form of content today. It’s expected to be the fastest-growing content type on mobile and desktop through at least 2020, when it will account for more than 80% of all consumer internet traffic. And, video Tweets are six times more likely to be shared than image Tweets, according to our research.3

How brands are leveraging First View to own their moment

From autos to film and tech markets, First View has been a part of a variety of campaigns this past year.

Entertainment

Amazon (@AmazonVideoIN) leveraged First View when they launched their Amazon Prime Video service in India with their #PrimeVideoIsHere campaign. The launch on Twitter coupled with a branded Twitter emoji achieved a video view rate of over 40%.

Technology

Microsoft India (@MicrosoftIndia) sought a unique way to showcase co-created content for their #BeneathTheSurface series around the Surface launch in India. The brand leveraged First View to draw interest to watch a preview video of their Beneath the Surface Series by film critic Anupama Chopra(@anupamachopra). People were invited to Tweet #BeneathTheSurface to unlock the preview video. The brand achieved more than 35% in video view rate, driving awareness for the campaign.

Telco

Jio (@RelianceJio) highlighted their partnership with the Filmfare Awards this year through a couple of First Views: one on the Red Carpet night, and the second on the Broadcast night. Result: with 22K likes, the associated tweet had the highest levels of engagement in the Twitter Brand Index. View Rate: 51%. The associated tweet topped the weekly Twitter Brand Index for engagement.

Automotive

Hyundai India (@HyundaiIndia) launched the Tucson, its premium SUV using #BornDynamic as its brand promise. They engaged with users in a very innovative manner using the First View and promoted tweets. Users were asked to define what made them dynamic. The best responses were incorporated within the First View’s descriptor, driving a strong response in terms of engagements & views, making it a first of its kind crowd-sourced campaign. The campaign delivered 386,000 views at a 43% view rate along with 68,000 engagements over 24 hours.

Finance

The State Bank of India (@TheOfficialSBI) took an innovative approach to Budget Day discussions. The bank chose a creative use of First View along with our Trend Descriptor feature to provide near real-time updates around the key Budget announcements. The bank achieved over 500,000 video views at a 50.86% video view rate for its First View campaign, a part of a larger collaboration with Twitter.

Retail

Around Children’s Day, @GoodKnightin leveraged First View to drive discussion on the timely topic of mosquitoes and positions them as “Are these the only friends you want your kids to grow up with?” Through First View, their #ChildrensPlayday campaign featuring kids responding to the question of their best friend in a compelling and engaging video helped the brand to achieve a stunning view rate of 46% and over 440,000 views.

News

ABP News (@abpnewstv) has always stood by their belief of “Aapko rakhe aage” - keeping the viewers ahead. The world today is changing and to take on this new world, they’ve transformed with a major rebranding campaign, while retaining their core belief of “Aapko rakhe aage”. ABP Newsselected First View to unveil their new branding logo and TVC. The broadcaster leveraged Promoted Trend and an instant unlock card to maximize exposure for the #HarKhabarParPakad campaign, achieving 594,000 views at a video view rate of 63%.

For more tips and advice on using First View for your next campaign, check out: 3 ways to own the moment.