If you advertise on Facebook and Instagram, it’s time to update yourself with some of the latest creative tools.

Video creation

In Facebook’s Video Creation Kit, you will now have even more visually-engaging templates to choose from.

What’s more, seasonal stickers and templates are now available in the Effects tab to help “freshen up” your ads. Your ads will never be “the same old thing all year round” anymore!

Meanwhile, 20 new font options have been introduced, making it easier to add text overlays that tie in with your brand guidelines better.

Ever felt “trapped” working on a video because the moment you start, you can’t step away as you don’t want to lose all your work?  The Video Creation Kit has made it possible to save drafts of videos, so you can work on your video whenever you have a moment and pick up exactly where you left off later on.

Video editing

Ads Manager allows selection of an aspect ratio  (4:5, 2:3, 9:16, 1:1 or 16:9) to crop your video according to requirements of different placements (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger or Audience Network).

Similarly, you can trim the duration of a video for different platforms as well.

Dynamic ads

Whether you’re selling products, hotels, flights or vehicles, a dynamic ad might just work for you. Available in single-image, carousel and collection format, dynamic ads can be used across Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network and Messenger.

Branded content ads

Advertisers can now promote branded content posts as feed ads, reaching a wider audience. “Paid partnership with” along with the brand name will appear to ensure ads transparency.

ThruPlay

Available for Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network, ThruPlay allows advertisers to pay only when ads are played to completion or for at least 15 seconds. Optimize your video ad campaign for ThruPlay, and Facebook will deliver it to users that are likely to watch 15 seconds or the whole video.

Let your creativity run amok and have fun experimenting with these creative tools!

We are thrilled to announce NDN Group’s latest partnership with GELOS to introduce Douyin (抖音) TikTok marketing to Hong Kong. It is a short video app that has 500 million monthly active users and 250 million daily active users. Brands big or small are scaling fast and producing fun engaging content on their platform.

You are probably wondering what is the difference between Douyin and TikTok? In 2017, the apps’ parent company ByteDance brought TikTok’s competitor Musical.ly, merged the two together and became the app we know today. TikTok is the overseas name Douyin uses. ByteDance also owns Jinri Toutiao (今日頭條).

With the sophistication of the Internet environment in Mainland China, where businesses are fully immersed into the online to offline model, it makes perfect sense that Douyin is more e-commerce-focused and brands use it as a sales funnel. On the contrary, TikTok is more entertainment-focused, at least for now. It has plans to be more.

This short video app is gaining momentum globally because it fulfills people’s need for instant gratification in today’s fast-paced world. KOL or influencers who became popular on their platform are producing captivating content and bringing high conversion rate to brands.

Look at popular beauty KOL Austin Li (李佳琦). He is known for his record of selling out thousands of lipsticks in an instance his personal best was 14,000 pieces in a minute. The novel idea of a man reviewing lipstick color live and his comedic ways of reviewing products is why fans love him and why mega beauty brands like Chanel, MAC, Shiseido and Tom Ford love to work with him. When Li says “Oh my god, buy it!” that particular color will sell out.

Well-known hot pot chain Haidilao was able to increase 1,000% ordering on a single dish because they created a live stream video on how to cook that specific meat for hot pot.

Austin Li and Haidilao are selling two very different category of products, yet they both enjoy a high conversion rate because of a strategic usage of Douyin TikTok. There are many more showcases where brands achieved exponential growth within a short period of time regardless of their product. The market is so optimistic, they believe that any product will perform well on the platform.

With ByteDance behind Douyin TikTok using powerful algorithms with machine learning, to aggregate and distribute content, your brand message will be optimized with precise targeting. So rest assured your marketing budget won’t go to waste.

Are you a local brand in Hong Kong with no payment gateway or setup in Mainland China, but keen to enter the market? We can assist and offer advice. Get in touch with us to discover more and learn about our trial package.

Retail businesses around the world love Christmas. Many brands choose to pull off an online campaign dedicated to the festive season, seeing this as a huge marketing opportunity to make noise and drive sales. This article will explore how an all-round professional production can help your business take advantage of seasonality.

This Christmas, New Digital Noise has launched a campaign for SOFINA, a beauty brand hailing from Japan, covering creative social media content, graphic design and real-time video shooting, accompanied by added-value ad-placement.

To create warm Christmas vibes, we took real-time shots and videos with incredible attention-to-detail in framing, lighting, product placement, etc. At the preparation stage, we reached a precise, thorough understanding of our client’s preferences, supported by a variety of visual references from our own portfolio and similar brands.

Seasonal periods are hotly competitive, so ad placement is essential in getting your campaign in front of the right audience at the right time, complemented by the appropriate ad-targeting strategies. In this campaign, we took season-specific elements, as well as past trends and performances into consideration when determining the target audience, types of ads and the best time to launch the campaign.

An organised work schedule is absolutely critical for a campaign with a bounded time frame. All the execution phases are planned in detail beforehand to ensure timely delivery of work and feedback from clients. The process went on until the launch, with both parties committed to a close work relationship to achieve efficiency and effective communication.

Gear up for the next opportunity early enough to beat your competitors. Any feedback or questions in mind? Drop us a line at info@ndn.com.hk and our team will reply as soon as possible.

Extra Mile Hong Kong is a community investment project aiming to provide youngsters with a local working holiday, taking advantages of the gap year to learn about different career opportunities at the Airport. Having great interest in aviation, Molly is one of the lucky Working Holiday@Lantau participants to intern at the Hong Kong Business Aviation Centre while furthering her studies in the field. New Digital Noise has documented her amazing journey in the form of a video interview.

Storytelling has always been the key to successful content marketing. And telling the story from a first-person narrative is even more effective in getting the message across. In this video interview, Molly speaks to the audience and eases them into her own experience. A video format optimises her heartfelt sharing, capturing her honest emotions while she heaps praise on how the programme has broadened her horizon and offered her aviation-related career opportunities.

Extra Mile’s endeavour in nurturing talent and creating employment is communicated through a compelling personal story that resonates with the audience. The mission of the project thus becomes more memorable in the audience’s minds. Following Molly’s cut comes another interview with Jason, HKBAC’s Head of Administration and Projects, which enriches the narrative of the video by offering employer’s insight.

Video interview is a great way to carry out brand storytelling. Talk to us at info@ndn.com.hk to see if it fits your brand too.

The directorial debut of screenwriter Sunny Chan Wing-sun, Men On The Dragon won over hearts at the theatre this summer with a life-affirming Hong Kong tale. The film follows four telecommunications employees as they embrace challenges at work and in life, and move forward as their better selves.

The movie’s portrayal of spirited members of the broadband industry rang a bell for our team — this is perfect material for our client, Hong Kong Broadband Network (HKBN), to produce fun social media content that prompts engagement. It only seemed natural for us to make a parody out of it.

Altering the original screenplay to fit our story, we invited the company’s frontline Certified Professional Engineers (CPE) as protagonists, who pull hard on cables instead of rowing the dragon boat. As the story goes, the team fought off hardship through hardcore training, setting wifi lanes miles on to become the men HKBN meant them to be.

One could easily catch our tribute to the original movie trailer with equal cinematic tension and extra humour. Most importantly, the parody lives and breathes the Hong Kong spirit, which aligns with HKBN’s core brand value of “Make our Hong Kong a Better Place to Live”.

The parody video was very well-received with over 600 likes, 143 shares and 39K views to-date, fast becoming one of the most popular posts on the company’s Facebook page. What’s more, it caught the eye of the Men On The Dragon Official Facebook, which dedicated two posts to mention our video! The interaction generated a wave of positive and complimentary comments, making it a digital marketing triumph for HKBN.

New Digital Noise has been working with HKBN to develop tongue-in-cheek lifestyle Facebook posts that can establish the company’s credibility and expertise in the telecom sector and ultimately expand its fanbase. The movie parody not only imparts its creative prowess, but also professionalism of its CPE team. Our team is thrilled to be on track to bring HKBN one step closer to its target audience.

IG Stories has just turned two in August 2018. Attracting 400 million users daily, it is now a great way for businesses to make noise while having fun with its array of built-in functions — learn to make full use of them and make your followers stay!

The basics: create texts and draw on photos. Add a location sticker or tag one of the most-followed celebrities you are collaborating with. Static photos too boring? Use Boomerang to film a dynamic GIF of models showcasing your products or Superzoom onto them with a dramatic sound effect. Use Music Stickers to add a soundtrack to your Stories. Do an Instagram Live, where followers can comment and react real-time so they feel much involved with your brand.

To make you IG Stories exceptional, use cool and creative stickers that generate traffic and boost engagement! Make your hashtag appear in searches by using new Hashtag Stickers. Add a Two-Option Poll Sticker or an Emoji Slider to let your followers cast a vote. Intrigue followers with fun questions using the newly-launched Question Sticker. They can reply as many times as they want.

Repost business partners’ or KOLs’ Stories to your own by trying out the new Stories Sharing feature. Shoppable Stickers will also be available in Hong Kong soon. Create your own visual storefront by placing the stickers on product images and videos!

If you use IG Stories effectively, it may turn out to be a more effective medium for brand building and sales. Celebrate IG Stories’ second birthday by utilising these new features and keep your Stories in style!

Instagram has released IGTV, its sibling application on 20th June, 2018. The app recognises all users as creators, encouraging us to visualise our ideas and thoughts through long-form videos by phone.

IGTV allows creators to make vertically-oriented videos as short as 15 seconds, and as long as an hour (exclusive to larger accounts). Creators are able to enjoy greater flexibility in video editing, and include more elaborated content, images and ideas in their production. Followers can express immediate feedback through likes, comments and direct messaging.

IGTV has not included any advertising elements as of yet. However, businesses can make good use of this simple and intuitive platform to draw the audience closer to your brand. Virtual store tours, product demonstrations and how-to videos are all good ways to generate traffic, boost brand awareness and ultimately sales. Talk to us about incorporating IGTV in your marketing strategy!

With more than 300 million users active every day on Instagram Stories, it’s safe to say that this feature is laden with marketing opportunities. As the relatively new function opens a new world to online marketers, it’s important to know tips on telling compelling stories that can elevate your business.

Instagram Stories is a great engagement device. They are “real-time, unfiltered and playful”. Users are exposed to videos, graphics, text and sound at once. Along with carefully-placed call-to-action buttons, consumers can easily be in touch with the brand’s messages and offerings. Top-performing Instagram Stories ads are easy to understand. Shorter Stories, shorter scenes, and those showing the advertised product in use perform better than average.

As opposed to the view that Instagram Stories are spontaneous, they generate real business results while combined with Facebook’s ad targeting, audience reach, and measurement solutions. For example, Beatbox secured 15% higher click-through rate and a 29% increase in purchase lift.

Instagram Stories is a cost-effective tool that will make your upcoming marketing dollars well-spent. The feature deserves its publicity and wide usage. If you need help with creating interesting stories, we will be around to fill you in.