This Post Has Been Removed by the User July 31, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Online Video , 17commentsThis post has been removed by the user
Alka Seltzer Viral Campaign Taps YouTube Weblebrities, Cewebrities July 30, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Diet Coke, Future of Online Video, Killer Video, Making Money, Making Videos, YouTube, advertising , 17commentsRhett and Link’s Alka Seltzer road show (see previous post) hit Philadelphia recently, and it didn’t take them asking more than once to convince me and a bunch of YouTube Cewebrities to hit Pat and Gino’s to appear in this video. I picked up CharlesTrippy, ShayCarl, TheMightyThor1212 and those gals to stop by before the YoTube events. We did it for fun not profit, but Rhett and Link were classy enough to feed us, and even send us off with beer money for that night (thanks, guys).
Favorite moment? The nervous look on the face of the agency account manager as she reluctantly handed me a Speedy statue. Don’t worry, agency lady. I’ll behave with him.
Admitting my bias, I’m still putting this promotion down as one of the top three smartest viral video campaigns of 2008. It joins the ranks of BMW’s Rampenfest and Diet Dr. Pepper’s Cherry Coke promotion of TayZonday.
It’s funny, entertaining, balanced well (promotion is subtle), it’s leveraging the charasmatic appeal of two video stars who have been provided creative control of the series. Rhett and Link give us a perfect example of advertising content that is first entertaining. And the branding finds a happy medium between, on one extreme, dominating the video, and on the other relegating itself to ignored pop-ups or lost entirely. The topics are related to food, the tone revitalizes an otherwise stale brand, and Alka Seltzer’s differentiator (the plop, fizz) is not lost. Bringing back Speedy was brilliant too.
The only thing I’d say about all three of these campaigns is that they probably could have been done more cost effectively. Diet Dr. Pepper got TayZonday for a song, but had some production overhead (it was also hampered by the reality that the drink tastes like the smell of a chocolate scratch and sniff, and that’s coming from a hardcore Diet Dr. Pepper guy).
The Alka Seltzer road show was fairly shoestring for television and advertising rackets, but still could be leaner (do you need 5 or more people beyond Rhett and Link at the shoot?). I don’t know about Rampenfest, but it looks very, very expensive (guessing $500-$1,000 MM).
Ambien is the Nectar of the Gods July 29, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Online Video , 12commentsLoyal WVFF commenter, Sukatra, referred to Ambien as the “Nectar of the Gods.” We agree. We’re reminded of this video, which I wanted to embed via Revver (as opposed to the YouTube version) just because I feel like it. And Google found it first. But alas Wordpress thinks it’s better than Revver.
I did this in 2006, and I think I scored the song for the video. And then later used the song for Viral Video Genius (because I was in too much of a hurry to score the latter).
Televisions Obsolete. Online Video Takes Over. July 29, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Online Video , 7comments
No I’m just kidding. Television isn’t dead yet (but I’ll let you know when it is).
You didn’t waste money on that high definition set, and you advertising executives still have a little shelf life.
But here’s a new tidbit of research that verifies that online-video consumption is eating into our television viewing time. Courtesy of NewTeeVee (who I’m quoting way too often since they became my top RSS on iGoogle) and the folks from the Integrated Media Measurement Inc. (IMMI) (click here for full report via pdf):
Based on its tracking of primetime content across the major networks, IMMI has generally found that up to 20% of episodic content viewing occurs online, depending on the genre of the content
and the amount of time the show has been on the air. This amount is higher now, than last Fall
and in a few cases, is higher even than DVR viewing of the broadcast content.
This shift won’t soon reverse, or continue slowly. So that means it’s officially time to find a viable advertising model for free online video (and explore a fair paid model too). :
Try forcing a long preroll, and the advertisers have bigger problems than DVRs allowing people to zip through 30 and 60s (as if they weren’t running off to pee before time-shifting). But the good news is that the music industry helped us transition from copyright pirates into, to some extent, people too lazy to hunt and download free music. In time, it will be easier to pay a small fee or accept some ads as long as I can watch good quality video on my own time.
Now that the industry is maturing, watch for: bigger audiences, a better ad model, and more professional content. The amateurs are already losing share to professionals (check the YouTube most subscribed charts for proof), but the pie is continuing to grow. And as long as the economy doesn’t starve marketing innovative budgets (and force marketers to resort to proven but dying media) then I’m still bullish on the opportunities for advertisers, creators and audiences.
Keep in mind the pretty charts by IMMI are a little deceptive. Like this ‘ere chart. It does not tell us that 50% of an average American’s time is moving to online video. Rather it says that half of us — upon being assaulted by a survey — acknowledge that, at some point, we looked to the Internet in lieu of television. I’m surprised that number isn’t higher. Most of us early adopters are probably close to 50/50 online-video vs. television right now.
But keep in mind that even though we’re all still watching television, our brains are clinically dead during this time (well, maybe just more dead than when we’re watching online video or pretending to care about the person rambling in that meeting).
Font Conference: CollegeHumor July 29, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Killer Video , 14commentsIt pains me to see so few views on YouTube for something this well written, acted and edited. It’s called “Font Conference” and it’s a great personification of the fonts we know so well. Baskerville Old Face and Bookman OId Style duke it out. Arial Black feels discriminated. Wide Italian played by an overeating fat guy. Futura played by a time traveler. And Century Gothic is played by a goth emo who resents the conformists (”I can’t wait for you to grow out of this,” says Times New Roman. In the climax, Ransom takes Courier and his daughter Curlz MT hostage, but don’t worry- Wing Dings celebrates in the end.
Extremely well done (right down to the incredible production values with rack focuses and perfect lighting), and especially entertaining for those of us who spend way too much time thinking about fonts.
I just feel sad for Trebuchet, who was sadly left out. Maybe a sequel? Can I humbly submit to play Trebuchet? Or maybe even a serif if College Humor provides acting coaches.
More Video Views Than People Living in Top 20 US Cities? July 28, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Nalts, Online Video, advertising , 24commentsWhen I think about uploading a video to YouTube, I envision five audiences:
- The people I know in online video- fellow creators and members of the online-video community.
- Permanent record: is the video going to be a tattoo I might regret? Will it cause my kids or family any embarrassment that I haven’t already inflicted?
- The folks I know from “meat space” (not virtual). Friends, family, neighbors. Most don’t watch.
- My professional colleagues (most who don’t watch).
- The rest of the people on planet Earth who might stumble into a video by accident.
So this morning (while in the midst of crunching numbers for our annual Marketing Plan) I’m thinking about how 500,000 views for a recent “scary maze” and why a Pesto recipe video (5,000 or so views) got 100 times fewer views. I’m thinking 5,000 is kinda lame, and maybe I should stay away from recipes. But then I realize that 5,000 is actually a lot of people.
What would it feel like if 5,000 people showed up in my front yard one day to see me?
So’s then I become curious about physical metaphors for the total number of times my videos have been viewed across the globe… somewhere between 30 and 40 million (hard to count beyond YouTube and a lot of my stuff is ripped). These numbers don’t include television audiences when my clip appears- these are straight, measured online views.
Even 35 million is about 1/3 of the total people that watched the last episode for M*A*S*H or the latest Superbowl (which, of course, is far from comaring apples to apples).
Then I run a list of the population for the top 20 US cities. According to Wickipedia, there are about 32 million people in the top cities. Some of my videos are presumably viewed by multiple people at a once, and more are maybe viewed by the same people more than once. I would imagine there’s a high “abandonment” rate in the first 30 seconds, so although 3O million views at an average 2.3 minutes sounds like I wasted maybe 150 days of cumulative human lives, it’s probably far less.
And here’s the irony. I walk around with my Nalts hat all the time, and outside my own community, I’ve been recognized exactly one time… 2 weeks ago at the LA airport by three young girls. I was speaking with Charles Trippy on my cell, and told him I had to hang up because fans were waiting.
I’m glad I can’t see everyone’s eyes. I used to get stage fright standing in front of an autitorium of 400 people. The thought of the New Orleans Superbowl filled 400 times over is a little daunting.
So even if you have a few hundred views, think of it in physical terms. It’s kinda surreal.
Nostalgia Time: 1970s Kid Shows Intros July 26, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Online Video , 13commentsA “trip” down memory lane thanks to hours of YouTube searching and RetruJunk.com
Electric Company Intro
Zoom
Then there’s HR Puffnstuff (see Drugachussets parody).
Reading Rainbow (Rhett and Link do a great version of this)
Land of the Lost intro
Little House on the Prairie (Jo loved it, I hated it)
The Muppet Show
100 Boring Videos (call for montage) July 26, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Online Video , 15commentsAre you really, really bored? No- I mean SUPAH FREAKY bored? Okay then here’s a challenge. Make a montage out of these nearly 100 video replies to my “bore me” challenge (where more than a year ago I invited people to make 30-second videos that reach into their inner bore).
I’ll feature your montage here on the blog and my youtube channel page. It might be funny to select a handful of the best and return to them a few times as you rotate through the rest.
Here’s the collection. Get rippin’ and editing!
I had forgotten about this contest until Chris sent me this YouTube Poop version of my video (youtube poop is when someone mixes up your video to make it even stupider).
Watching Chris’ video made me realize why Starbucks people don’t understand me. My wife sometimes wants half caffeinated and sometimes defaffeinated, and the words started to blend together. So when I say “half caf decaf” I mean “half caffeinated and half decaffeinated, or “50% caffeinated.” Now I realize they’re hearing a contradiction (I want half caffeinated… no, I want defecaffeinated) and they’re seeking clarity. As they pursue clarity about the caffeine I’m too busy thinking about whether I’ve translated the size correctly (Tall/Venti) and trying to remember how many pumps of vanilla and what the french term for hot milk is (latte).
- “A loaf of bread, potato milk and a stick of butter.” That was one of the most-quoted lines from Sesame Street when I was young. It’s a little cartoon African American girl trying to remember her grocery list, and she says it over and over… “A loaf of bread, potato milk and a stick of butter.” We found out later that there was no such thing as potato milk, and it she was saying “container.”
- The Alligator King’s 7th son was saying “daddy, it appears to me that you could use a little help” and not “Daddy- apestamego you could use a little help.”
- And The Electric Company intro was not “H You Stay.” Oh screw this post. I need to do a 1970s kid show nostalgia post.
Two years of anxiety ordering my wife’s Starbucks, and now I find out why the whole thing breaks down.
My Babysitter’s Cat Got Featured July 25, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Online Video , 19comments
My babysitter’s cat got featured on YouTube’s animal section. So doesn’t that mean babysitterofnalts has to name it Nalts?
In similar news, I used her dog Rusty to fetch views too.
People, desperate times call for desperate measures. I have cute pets and I’m not afraid to use them.
Plunging Deeper Into Online Video? Or Do the Day Job? July 25, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Online Video , 21commentsSpeaking of the perpetual conflict between climbing the splintered ladder as a full-time salaried marketer versus plunging deep into the cool ocean of online video… here’s a note from a (successful) friend who suggests consulting full-time with brands in the online-video space. It’s one of those notes you don’t get every day.
I think this is your moment in time. If you chicken out you will regret it for the rest of your miserable, resentful, vodka-besotted life.
I can’t decide which is the angel or the devil on my shoulder, but one of them better shut up because this is getting really, really distracting. And 8/8/8 is exactly two weeks away.
