A method for a successful and scalable localized video content strategy
Keeping videos geared toward the community’s needs with the “hamburger method” for scriptwriting.
Local content is useful, relevant, and feels intimate and personal while creating a sense of connection with others.
In times of crisis, we rely on local content to stay informed and safe. That became evident during the COVID-19 pandemic when local content saw a significant boost in consumption.
Users also are more likely to engage with local content. They take more actions — like sharing stories, signing up for newsletters or posting comments — when interacting with localized content versus generic or national subject matter.
For example, localized versions of an ad (like a creative that included the city’s name) perform significantly better than a non-localized creative on a national news site, according to a recent study by Vox Media. In 2019, HubSpot reported that when used in marketing, 18 percent of local smartphone searches led to a purchase within a day, whereas only 7 percent of non-local searches led to a sale.
With Univision’s GOTV nonpartisan “Vota Conmigo” campaign, “Cuenta Conmigo” census campaign, and other national digital and social media campaigns led by its CSR team on topics such as education, DEI and battling misinformation, we’ve seen similar results.
When using video, almost every metric we measured was significantly higher among users who consumed localized experiences: video views, average video watch time, audience retention, interactions, click-through rates and the number of people who registered to vote in our widgets, among others.
No wonder localization is booming. According to the Location-Based Marketing Association, in 2020, nearly 97 percent of global companies used some location-based services, and 59 percent of overall marketing budgets in America are spent on localized marketing. Social causes and healthcare applications such as COVID tracing and hospital tech were two of the leading uses of location strategies, a new industry trend.
But faced with the challenge of creating and managing content for hundreds or even thousands of locations, how do you adapt national content for each location?
Some formats are easier to scale than others. Video, one of the most engaging and effective formats for digital and social media platforms, is one of the most challenging to localize. It’s time-consuming and expensive.
There are many ways to localize video according to a campaign’s needs: dubbing, translations, subtitling, geo-targeting ads, SEO strategies. From a creative standpoint, the old “hamburger method” of scriptwriting is still one of the most effective.
A tool to create scalable local video content
The “hamburger method” starts with a solid outline, a solid structure.
Each script has an introduction (top bun), the internal or supporting information (the filling), and the conclusion (bottom bun).
For every video, the buns stay the same. These parts of the script contain information relevant to all members of the audience on a national level.
The filling has specific details relevant to a particular place or community and successfully takes that target group’s interests and informational needs into account.
There are many advantages of using this method:
- One video can be adapted for other locations with only relatively minor modifications.
- You’ll save time and resources compared to producing a completely new video for each location.
- By repurposing content, you’ll free resources that can be more impactful in other original local reporting.
- This method will also help you ensure brand consistency and visual uniformity and aid in content accuracy and consistency across locations.
- It can be used on national campaigns, with local impact, and in the internationalization of campaigns.
- It also helps with SEO because a successfully localized video is easy to find: Relevancy is a key ranking factor in search engines. When you focus on local keywords, you narrow your competition.
Real examples of scalability and consistency
We created more than 225 animations localized for the voting campaign alone for all of Univision’s markets (over 120 combined television and radio stations, plus 89 affiliates, with their own social media accounts).
We mainly rely on the “hamburger method” to share information on local deadlines for registering to vote, explanations of how to request absentee ballots, voting by mail, and any part of the civic participation process that could be broken down in clear steps.
In this particular example, we explained early voting on a national level, but then each video had a “filling” with local deadlines and other specificities for each state; the rest of the video stayed the same.
Here is another example:
In other applications, the use of the hamburger method isn’t as straightforward. Sometimes we use the same structure, narrative, graphics, tone, voice and visual guidelines in all the local adaptations, but we reuse just one of the buns (usually the bottom one with the call to action).
In these videos for the census campaign, we wanted to showcase how the census allows us to clearly see the changes in our community during a 10-year lapse. We followed the same structure and pattern for the illustrations to create content for the different states.
All the videos started with the population growth in the state in the past 10 years.
Then, we showed what had changed in terms of businesses, numbers of schools, parks, etc., with stats that researcher Ana María Carrano dug from dozens of census spreadsheets.
We added a local interview in the middle describing the changes of a high-growing community on a personal level.
We closed with an explanation of why filling out the census is so important. (This part stayed the same for all the local videos.)
Things to consider when scaling video content
To keep local information relevant, it’s important to utilize the power of data. We used tools such as Google’s Keyword Planner and answerthepublic.com, consulted our analytics to audit traffic data and website performance, and took note of relevant questions from our audience on social media related to location-specific challenges, state deadlines and requirements before attempting to write a local adaptation.
Recently, when doing some research on what people are asking online about COVID-19, we found an increase in questions on summer camps. Based on that information, a useful and relevant video explainer might be one about summer camps during the pandemic, with a filling that answers the question: “Will there be summer camps for my kids in [my state] this year?”.
However, not every video can (or should) be localized. This is not a good strategy to respond to events that unfold in unpredictable ways. No script can be so flexible as to cope with every possible contingency, even with unlimited resources. It is also important to always take into account cultural appropriateness when thinking about adaptations.
Also, it takes a lot of discipline for this strategy to work. For the GOTV campaign, researcher Militza Zupan built several spreadsheets to track the different nuances of the country’s voting processes. We fact-checked which states required picture IDs at polling places, which ones required an excuse to request an absentee ballot. We kept track of voting rights litigations.
The goal was to give the viewers all the information pertinent to their state in the version of the video they were going to consume. For some states, like Florida, voting deadlines varied according to the county, so we also accommodated each county by using the “hamburger method.”
For this to work well, local adaptations of videos should be part of an overall marketing strategy that includes the use of local social media accounts, geotargeting strategies on national accounts, local landing pages, work with local influencers, streaming of local virtual events, and a real effort to connect with local communities and meet them where they are.
There are 349 cities in America with a population of over 100,000, and an additional 4,115 cities with a population between 10,000 and 100,000. Plenty of chances to be useful.
