Some­times you need to step back – way back – to get a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive on the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties fac­ing mar­keters today. That’s how I recent­ly dis­cov­ered some strate­gic insights about desk­top and mobile video, 360-degree video and vir­tu­al real­i­ty (VR), as well as live video from a provin­cial cap­i­tal of ancient Rome.

Here’s the back­sto­ry: Last month, my wife and I spent a cou­ple of weeks in South­ern France. One of the places that we vis­it­ed was Arles, a city on the Rhone Riv­er that inspired more than 300 paint­ings and draw­ings by Vin­cent Van Gogh. But, Arles was also a provin­cial cap­i­tal of ancient Rome, and we vis­it­ed a cou­ple of sites from that era, includ­ing a the­ater, an amphithe­ater, and a cir­cus.

The Arles Roman The­ater, which fea­tured come­dies and dra­mas, had seat­ing for 8,000. The Arles Amphithe­ater, which fea­tured vio­lent con­fronta­tions between wild ani­mals as well as glad­i­a­tors, had seat­ing for more than 20,000 spec­ta­tors. And the Roman cir­cus in Arles, which fea­tured char­i­ot races, also had a seat­ing capac­i­ty for 20,000 spec­ta­tors. And this was for a rel­a­tive­ly small, provin­cial cap­i­tal of Gaul, not the big city of Rome!

Audiences appreciate variety

What’s sig­nif­i­cant is that all three of these Roman venues of ancient enter­tain­ment exist­ed at rough­ly the same time. New­er set­tings didn’t replace old­er loca­tions. In oth­er words, dif­fer­ent for­mats con­tin­ued to be suit­able for dif­fer­ent types of enter­tain­ment — or, at least, what passed for enter­tain­ment 2,000 years ago.

Today, the the­ater, which was built back around the time when Augus­tus was the Roman Empire’s first emper­or (from 27 BC until AD 14), is still used in the sum­mer for plays. The amphithe­ater, which was built in the first cen­tu­ry BC, is still used for bull­fight­ing. And the cir­cus is now the loca­tion of a muse­um, but one can eas­i­ly imag­ine it still being one of the For­mu­la One cir­cuits.

In oth­er words, peo­ple still go to dif­fer­ent places to watch dif­fer­ent types of enter­tain­ment. And no one expects to see Grand Prix motor rac­ing or a bull­fight on a theater’s stage. Nor do they expect to see a group of actors or bull­fight­ers run­ning around a For­mu­la One cir­cuit. So, peo­ple under­stand what each type of enter­tain­ment is best suit­ed for and which ones to watch in dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions.

So, what lessons can marketers learn from this provincial capital of ancient Rome?

Most of us start­ed cre­at­ing con­tent for audi­ences that watched our videos on their desk­tops or lap­tops. Now, our audi­ences are watch­ing our edit­ed videos or live streams on smart­phones, tablets, game con­soles, smart TVs, Card­board view­ers, or even vir­tu­al real­i­ty sys­tems such as Ocu­lus Rift.

And after Twit­ter announced that it was going to kill off Vine, I can’t tell you the num­ber of times I’ve been asked: Which one of these oth­er types of video will even­tu­al­ly replace all the oth­ers?

Well, let’s check out which one of the var­i­ous types of enter­tain­ment even­tu­al­ly won out in Arles. Oh, wait, all the enter­tain­ment options of that era co-exist­ed simul­ta­ne­ous­ly for close to 500 years. So, maybe this assump­tion that one new form of video con­tent will even­tu­al­ly replace all the oth­ers is what real­ly needs to be re-exam­ined.

The ancient Romans didn’t stop going to the the­ater when glad­i­a­to­r­i­al con­tests and char­i­ot races came along. And that was true out there in the provin­cial cap­i­tal of Gaul as well as in Rome, which was the largest city in the world cir­ca 100 BC to 400 AD.

Flexible formats

So, fig­ure out what sto­ry you plan to tell, the spec­ta­cle you plan to cre­ate, or event you plan to hold. Then, rec­og­nize that some types of video are more appro­pri­ate for dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions. For exam­ple, con­sid­er what NBC did for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games…

For a great sto­ry, with a begin­ning, a mid­dle, and an end, then an edit­ed video — which can be watched on a desk­top, mobile, or tablet device — is per­fect. For exam­ple, the video with the most views BEFORE the Rio Olympics began was “Sam­sung Offi­cial TVC: ‘The Anthem’ — Rio 2016 Olympic Games.” Uploaded on Thurs­day, July 21, it cur­rent­ly has 29.0 mil­lion views and 38,800 engage­ments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBxMpuiBO7Q

For live events, where out­comes are in doubt, then live video is per­fect. For exam­ple, NBC pro­vid­ed 4,500 hours of live stream­ing at the 2016 Rio Olympics. And, NBC’s dig­i­tal pre­sen­ta­tion of the 2016 Rio Olympics broke pre­vi­ous con­sump­tion records.

• Across NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app, there were a record 3.3 bil­lion total stream­ing min­utes – (Live + Full Event Replays + High­lights)
• View­ers live streamed 2.71 bil­lion min­utes of Olympic cov­er­age – a new record for event cov­er­age.
• The 2.71 Bil­lion live min­utes near­ly dou­bled the COMBINED live streamed min­utes of ALL pri­or Games (1.48 Bil­lion).
• NBC Olympics dig­i­tal cov­er­age amassed 100 mil­lion unique users – 29% more than the 2012 Lon­don Olympics.
• More than 50% of view­ers live stream­ing Olympic events on NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app were under 35 years old.

And even if you don’t have a spec­ta­cle like a cou­ple of wild ani­mals or glad­i­a­tors try­ing to kill each oth­er, you can still lever­age 360-degree video, which lets view­ers see a video from every angle just by swip­ing or mov­ing the phone or tablet around – with­out a head­set. You can also lever­age VR, which takes the 360-degree video expe­ri­ence a step fur­ther by adding the feel­ing of immer­sive­ness – when viewed with a VR head­set. NBC gave peo­ple a hint of things to come by let­ting them expe­ri­ence the Rio Olympics in vir­tu­al real­i­ty as well as by let­ting them watch 360-degree bas­ket­ball high­lights or 360-degree clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny high­lights.

Now, before you fol­low suit by invest­ing in this tech­nol­o­gy, here are some ques­tions to con­sid­er:

• Will 360-degree video or VR give view­ers an expe­ri­ence that they oth­er­wise could­n’t have?
• Could you give shop­pers a bet­ter feel for your prod­uct?
• Will your record­ing envi­ron­ment be rich with things to see?
• Will view­ers want to con­tin­ue watch­ing beyond the ini­tial “That’s cool” moment?

The net-net: In the world of online video, dif­fer­ent plat­forms can co-exist quite com­fort­ably for a long, long time. Who knows, some could even co-exist for hun­dreds of years.