Ways Marketers Can Take Advantage of Drone Technology
Drones’ popularity has had a drastic rise in the last 5 years. And with each and every successive year their availability, cost, and quality are steadily climbing upward. People from different areas of expertise now have a chance to implement drone technology as they see fit. Whether for scientific, military, or entertainment purposes, it seems that drones have found their place at every possible niche.
Now, the main selling point of drones is the ability to make enchanting aerial views without their owner’s need to actually be in the air. Controlling your cybernetic bird from afar with only just a phone or remote while looking at the live feed, or recording of the riveting landscapes is tantalizing, to say the least. This has spawned a new and hardly explored age of high quality and novel videos. People started to flood platforms like YouTube in search of outpouring for their creative beginnings with video clips of their favorite places at a rarely seen angle and altitude.
Drones And Their Multiple Applications
However, the spheres in which drones are currently being exploited are not restricted to only entertainment purposes as was briefly mentioned at the beginning. Numerous companies utilize drones to shoot videos for their marketing campaigns. Below we will expand on this novelty more.
Drones have been extensively tested and paraded as a tremendous tool in reconnaissance and/or military services. Drone use in the recent scandal that caused quite a commotion between the USA and Iraq is the hard evidence for that. And akin to everything that gives even a sliver of the technological advantage it can and will be militarized or, as it is in most cases, initially created for this sole purpose and then commercialized.
In the scientific field, we also see recurring drone use. Especially in fields of geographical and geothermal research. They represent an invaluable help in those areas as being both easy to navigate, small enough to squeeze through various crevices and fissures, and monitor environmental alterations for an enduring time. Drones or in more scientific terms UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) are also actuated in flood prediction. Coupled with appropriate flood-detecting sensors, the effect is reliable and immediate data on any potential anomalies.
Drones In Marketing? How Big Companies Utilize Drone Technology
Unsurprisingly, advertisers and marketers hopped on the bandwagon of drone use without a moment’s hesitation. Indeed, there is a potential to reap a lot of benefits out of this trend. And currently, hegemony-wielding giants like CocaCola and RedBull are not shying away from using it in their advertisements. What is the reason for that? Let’s crack it up piece by piece.
- It’s beautiful, hence it’s attractive, hence it creates better brand awareness. Following this simple logical chain, we can clearly see one of the reasons. Scenic views of outstretching megapolis with towering skyscrapers. A Company logo or product in drone’s “claws”, valiantly being dispatched to a customer’s craving hands. With drones, it is obscenely easy to create a poetic-looking ad without any unnecessary spendthrifts.
- It’s relatable. Relatability is one of the most important aspects of a great user experience. That’s why big corporations may sometimes embarrass and misalign themselves with being too overbearing in trying to be trend-conscious. With drones, the room to make an embarrassing move is minimized to the point of almost being eliminated. It’s quite a challenge to blunder a drone shot and make it awkward and cringeworthy.
- It’s cheaper. Drones are a much cheaper option than, let’s say, renting a helicopter to make a couple of shots. That’s great news for companies that want a scenically astonishing video without ponying up half a kidney for the deal. Especially with even a professional grade drones price not exceeding the 2000$ mark.
With the help of drones, marketers are not only able to mesmerize and allure their audience more effectively, but there is also a significant cost drop that allows even smaller companies to unravel the tangles off of their creative endeavor. Often they even make a storyboard of the video that the drone shoots in Ultra-Full HD quality and using these images get an excellent photo collage. Similar photo processing is provided by this service and many others.
The Ways Drones Are Used In Marketing
The impact of drone usage on marketing is substantial. “Drones are used as an unequivocal projection of a company’s technological advancement and zeitgenossenschaft (being up to date with the latest trends)” – mentioned Ben Grant, Head of Data Research at Adsy. They also serve as a great depiction of brand image in a variety of ad campaigns. Many companies are also vested in partaking in the great variety of drone events to hit the latest news for PR opportunities.
There are quite a few ways that today’s marketers employ in their campaigns via drones. We are going to take a look at the most recent advancements and how versatile and cleverly implemented some of those techniques are.
- Drones as ad-carriers or service providers. Now, the era of using blimps as flying advertising objects is almost over. The new contender has come to become the successor. Advertising drones are not used only as a wow-effect to create the first impression, they are also quite efficient. Plimp is one of the many examples of such a feat.
- Many Big Name companies have also been daringly experimenting with drones as a substitute for actors. Amazon, CocaCola, Audi, and many others have successfully implemented drones either as a sole acting figure or as an extra. Presumably, this move allows the audience to focus more on the product and brand advertised rather than being unnecessarily distracted by a human presence.
- Drones have also been gradually taking their stand in commercials. Many third-party organizations are offering their service as a commercial drone shooting. One of the most prominent names in this business is Aerial MOB’s. Their clientele includes behemoths like BBC, HBO, MTV, Peugeot, Hyundai, BMW, and many more. Due to their low cost, companies can allow themselves to curtail the prices without skimming on the quality.
Conclusion
Drone technologies took the world by storm. Their presence in almost every field imaginable shows how ubiquitous it has already become. And as technology continues to be augmented, refined, and improved, we can expect an even greater degree of image fidelity, battery power, and flying distance which will help marketers to surprise us with an exceedingly wider spectrum of novelties. Who knows what future marketing ideas can be conceived with a tool as powerful as unmanned flying objects!
About the Author
Marie Barnes is Marketing Communication Manager at Adsy and a writer for Gearyoda. She is an enthusiastic blogger interested in writing about technology, social media, work, travel, lifestyle, and current affairs.