One Small Step for Video Ad Standards. One Giant Leap for Creators and Brands. May 7, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Future of Online Video, Google, Making Money, Video Advertising, Video Business, YouTube, advertising, google video , 10commentsOne of the factors that has limited the growth of online-video advertising is the production and traffic work. Mike Shields of Mediaweek reports that the Interactive Advertising Bureau this week introduced a set of guidelines to standartize online-video advertising and make the medium “easier for advertisers to buy.”
The new guidelines cover three basic forms of online video ad formats: linear ads — interruptive video spots which are typically of the pre-roll variety, non-linear ads — which include the increasingly popular ‘overlay’ ad units, and companion ads — bannerlike ads that appear alongside video as it plays on the Web.
The guidelines, writes Shields, are the product of work conducted by the IAB’s Digital Video Committee, which is composed of 145 leading media companies, including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. “This is a historic day,” IAB president and CEO Randall Rothenberg said, likening the announcement to a similar set of landmark guidelines put in place for banner advertising in the late 1990s. IAB senior vp David Doty said he thinks leadership and marketing, predicted “seismic shifts” would occur in the online ad business as a result of their adoption.
So while the viewer in me isn’t too excited to see the new “interruptive video spots,” the creator and marketer in me looks forward to the possibility that this may unlock some of the potential of this medium.
In related news, tech writer Leah Messinger writes about other sites beyond YouTube that offer advertising models brands can consider.
Want to Be Seen and Paid on YouTube? Your Relatives Matter… April 16, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Making Money, Making Videos, Online Video, Viral Video, YouTube, popular videos , 21comments
As many as 25% of the views of a video may come from people finishing a related video. This chart shows the percentage of views that come from various sources to my “The Best of Naked Vlogs.” This is not a representative example, but look at the percent of traffic that comes from “related video” (more than 50 percent). That means someone watched another nude vlogger and then saw mine show up as “related video” and stopped by. Or it means they saw one of the other nude vlogger videos that was posted as a response to mine (or vice versa).
So what’s this mean? Please don’t jam your tags with the same words of popular videos, because that used to game the system but frustrates people. YouTube/Google also has means for penalizing this trick if overused. But do try to make videos about things that are of high interest or topical, and you’ll get some help from relatives…
In other news — as you might have read — YouTube announced that it has paid out $1 million in cash to video creators that are part of its Partners program. Excerpt from NewTeeVee article…
YouTube said today it has paid out more than $1 million to its user partners through its partner program. The figure came as part of an announcement that YouTube is expanding the program to users in Japan, Australia and Ireland. YouTube doesn’t disclose how it splits its revenue, but we’ll make do with what scraps of numbers we have. The site currently lists 100 partners, though that also includes entities that we’d think would be designated as professional partners rather than “user partners,” such as Universal Music Group and CBS.
Southpark on Monetization of Digital Content April 4, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Future of Online Video, Killer Video, Making Money, Making Videos, Online Video, Profit, Viral Video, popular videos , 5commentsKyle from Southpark puts it well in this 30-second clip from “Canada on Strike.” The clip’s called “The Promise of Future Revenue.” Thanks to Jan for finding it.
Boy I’m sure glad that’s over with. Me too. Yeah, but you know I learned something today. We thought we could make money on the Internet. But while the Internet is new and exciting for creative people, it hasn’t matured as a distribution mechanism to the extent that one should trade real and immediate opportunities for income for the promise of future online revenue. It will be a few years before digital distribution of media on the Internet can be monetized to an extent that necessitates content producers to forgo their fair value in more traditional media.
In this part of “Canada on Strike,” the Southpark folks meet some YouTube weblebrities (the cliche one-hit wonders). There’s something pervursely symbolic to see all of the Internet stars — laughing baby, sneezing panda, gopher, Chris Crocker, Chocolate Rain, Tron guy, Numa Numa — end up in a bloody mess on the floor.
How Much Money Does a YouTube Partner Make? April 2, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Making Money, Making Videos, YouTube , 20commentsOh how’s THAT for a blog title, when you’ve signed a confidentiality document that precludes you from talking about your revenue as a YouTube partner?! Don’t worry, YouTube. I’m not breaking rank. But I’m very interested in what people THINK partners are making.
Before YouTube, I’ve always been transparent about my revenue related to online video. I feel that’s part of my role on this blog… to give creators a realistic sense of what they can make in online video (beyond food). Alas, YouTube prohibits it for reasons that aren’t quite clear to me — are there tiers? If compensation varies, then I can be sure I’m at the bottom based on my complete lack of negotiation skills.
I do believe that some prominent YouTube partners are beginning to earn what amounts to a full-time job through the site. But I also understand that some of the early Partner contracts are up for renewal about now.
- Could some be overstating their earnings? Yes. But some partners are doing $10K a month, especially those that already had an audience and moved them to YouTube. And some creators get millions of views consistently.
- When some say they’ve quit their day jobs, is that beacuse their costs are so low that even a couple grand a month can sustain them? Maybe.
- Could the earnings be based on a point of time where, say, they had a video featured that was monetized? Sure.
While there’s no question that many could still earn more money per hour doing something else (like consulting or bartending), I am happier with my income from YouTube than what I was making from YouTube before I became a partner (zero). And while I’m not sure whether the per-view profit is as strong as Revver’s and Metacafe’s (I don’t even have access to any such metrics), I’m not getting any significant views on those sites anymore. So YouTube is far outperforming them.
My advice remains: if you’re looking to get rich, create a bunch of mortgage blogs and sell adsense. Or go into financial services or recruiting like the former co-worker that just called me to “network.”
But if you love video and the community around it, then it’s nice to get an income subsidy that helps you justify the time commitment to yourself, wife and family. I remain optimistic that more of the top creators of YouTube will be able to quit their day jobs, but that’s partially because amateurs will slowly get trumped by the semi pros (whose day job is performing or video creation). It’s already happening. While the amateur vloggers are holding top positions, we’re seeing more semi-professional content done by comedy troups, bands or known offline celebrities.
Now here’s the purpose of my post. I’m curious what people THINK partners make. I can tell from a lot of comments that people WAY over estimate what creators make: “You get paid for this shit?” “You’re asking us for ideas? You’re the one who gets paid.” I can’t participate in this thread, but it will be fun to watch.
And if you’re not a Partner yet, don’t let it upset you unless you have hundreds of thousands of monthly views. Grow the audience and reapply later. Even if YT did make you a partner, it’s not worth it unless you have some views. Take it from a guy that tried Google ads on his blog for a while, and quickly realized that it wasn’t worth the cosmetic interference.
“Sorry, Partner” says YouTube March 26, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Google, Making Money, Making Videos, YouTube, google video , 31comments
Sorry, Partners. Seems a few YouTubers have been getting the following response when trying out for YouTube’s Partner Program.
“The current level of viewership of your account has not met our threshold for acceptance.”
- Should they announce what that threshold is on the “who qualifies” page?
- Or provide a message that is a little more human?
- Maybe let people know that the ad revenue would be laughable if views are at x level?
- Give applicants a banner and credits to the Google store, which would be enough for many?
Nah, I think they should just send this clip without any text.
Is Yahoo TV Closing or Widening Chasm Between Online Video & Television? March 25, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Making Money, Making Videos, Online Video, Video Advertising, Video Business, Yahoo Video, YouTube, advertising , 13comments
Which online-video site is mostly likely to be part of the bridge between television and the Internet? You can fault the model, and question it’s sustainability. But Yahoo TV is well poised to leverage its partnerships with Verizon and TiVo to start serving its bite-sized video content via television sets equipped with broadband boxes.
Take, for example, Yahoo TV’s “Prime Time in No Time,” a show hosted by Frank Nicotero that recaps the prior evening’s television shows. It’s interesting on at least two levels:
- It appeals to TV junkies. I’m not sure there’s a market for general prime-time recaps (since audiences tend to form around tighter niches). But it’s clearly targeted at TV viewers who maybe need some hand holding to start consuming via Yahoo’s mini-TV play. With some prime time promotion, I can see this audience growing.
- The ad model is interesting. Verizon gets a brief intro (not a preroll that I noticed), some banner wrap-arounds, and even a logo tucked nicely in the host’s corner frame. It’s dominant without being obtrusive.
So we’re still in the infancy of the “TV and online video” collision, which is clearly going to take much more time than we hoped. I’m far less interested in television administered in once-a-day pills (instead of intravanious drips). I find the more fascinating side to be the amateur creators gaining broader exposure than they currently get (assuming they’re good enough, and have consistent content that appeal to steady audiences even if relatively small).
While YouTube is still better poised for the latter, Yahoo comes at the web more like AOL: looking more like TV on the computer than web video as most consume it now. So we see less and more polished content, but fairly superficial interaction between the content and its audience. It’s still “one to many” unlike the magic of online video “many to many” play.
It’s Amazon not eBay.
As an example, one of my few popular videos on Yahoo has 90K views but just 90 comments. While one in a thousand comment on Yahoo Video, most of my YouTube videos get 1-2 percent of viewers commenting. My Mac Air spoof got 27K views with 13 comments, while the same Mac Air spoof on YouTube got 374K views and 1564 comments.
Typically the initial online successes are “pure plays” and not an offline entity moving in. This is true with almost any industry: gaming, retail, travel and media. But it will take a few failures along the way. YahooTV is bringing TV and online video ever so slightly closer together — even if it ends up being a log over the river.
Note that Yahoo Video (the quasi amateur section) still exists, but it’s not part of the primary menu on Yahoo. In fact, I almost gave up in my search for it, so it’s not likely drawing in many Yahoo users (Alexa won’t let me isolate http://video.yahoo.com/ from Yahoo.com, so I don’t know how it’s fairing). The featured videos seem to get paltry views relative to YouTube features, and even the Yahoo Video Awards blog post has just 35 comments 4 days after announced (by contrast, most top 100 YouTubers get that kind of views and interactions within an hour of posting).
P.S. Updated 3/27: Check out what InsideOnlineVideo has to say about Yahoo.
Why Media Buyers Are Stunting the Growth of Online Video March 21, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : AOL, Future of Online Video, Killer Video, Making Money, Making Videos, Nalts, Online Video, Video Advertising, Video Business, Viral Video, YouTube, advertising, marketing, popular videos , 9commentsBalding white marketer desperately wants to meet smart, strategic media buyer. If you’re one, please recognize you’re not the target of this rant. But the rest of you are just so friggin’ short sighted and clueless.
There are some amazing online-video series that could be incredible opportunities for smart brands wanting to engage with early adopters of a medium that is changing the way we relate to content and brands.
Brands can reach depth and relevancy with their target, even if it’s not driving total significant awareness and immediately creating ROI through driving intent, store visits, and trial.
I give you exhibit one. iChannel. A mere 8000 people are subscribed to this series on YouTube, but the views of the weekly series are roughly three times that (I’m the inverse of that with 30,000 Nalts subscribers, but some recent videos ranging in the 8-15K views). So it’s a healthy and highly devoted and interactive audience. Episode 31 had 180K views alone.
And it’s deeply philosophical, well acted, intelligently scripted and short and addictive. I had the pleasure of appearing in one last May.
These guys spend more time setting up one shot than I do on my entire post production. The audience is like a microcosm of those watching Lost. Or The Office. They’re engaged, passionate, and hold their breath waiting for the next episode.
So why would a media buyer pass on this?
- It’s not a big media deal. No hot AOL ad reps are pushing it.
- The audience isn’t big enough. No scale yet.
- The conversion from the episode to a bloated brand microsite wouldn’t be great.
- They can just advertise on YouTube’s invideo ads and get there.
Why should an electronic manufacturer dye to have sole sponsorship?
- They could probably own it for the equivalent of pocket change they dug from the back of their marketing budget couch.
- It would be ground breaking.
- The audience is perfect, and the level of product engagement would be far richer than an ad we’re trained to ignore.
- It sets the stage for a new model where advertisers contract directly with creators of content (who carry fixed audiences). No worthless intermediaries clogging the pipes between.
What’s the solution to grabbing these types of opportunities? Have these deals championed by someone outside the regular media-buying job. While I was at Johnson & Johnson, the big deals between media players (networks and magazines) were done by folks that weren’t inline marketers like me, but had influence over the way media budgets were set across the many brands. After all, J&J couldn’t get interesting deals if each brand fended for itself, and the interesting partnerships required someone that could step outside the short-sighted world I live in when charged with P&L of a brand.
What Does Google’s Acquisition of DoubleClick Mean to Online Video? March 11, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Future of Online Video, Google, Making Money, Making Videos, Online Video, Revver, Search, Video, Video Advertising, Video Business, YouTube, advertising, google video, marketing , 13commentsGoogle closed on the acquisition of DoubleClick today, and issued this statement to address concerns (continued Dart service, as well as privacy provisions).
As a buyer of interactive media (primarily paid search but also targeted display), I like this deal. Google’s muscle, innovation and discipline from the paid search origins means this could enhance the metrics around otherwise cute but unaccountable display ads. I’m tired of the “let’s do another bloated consumer survey to find out what display does to awareness, recall and intent.” There’s got to be a way to get conversion rates tied better to display, and if anyone can now prove the “one-two-punch” theory of paid ‘n display (think chocolate and peanut butter yummy), Google now can. And should.
Oh, I almost forgot. Here’s my “Enlightened Stupid Marketers” video I posted this morning to spoof my profession, and it touches on the impact of friggin’ newspaper ads versus paid search. Did you know that stupid marketers have two choices: to remain stupid, or pretend not to be? The core YouTube audience really doesn’t care much for these niche videos, but readers of WVFF might.
Where was I? Oh. Now here’s the challenge. This deal kinda makes some online media buyers a little twitchy, as some get threatened by consolidation downstream. Some of those flickering-bulb types (you know- the pretty ones that talk too much if they talk at all) will feel they’re one step closer to being as obsolete as their moms or older sisters who were, naturally, travel agents. Maybe they should be doing PR afterall?
In reality, the online media mix is dynamic and will always require smart, strategic buyers. It’s just that they’re only about 10 of them in the world, and 7 of them lose their charm exactly 6.5 days after they win the new account. Like Candycorn, the first few handfuls are delicious, and then suddenly you feel like you’re eating sweetened candles and can’t stand the site of them. You loved the little puppies in the litter, and now they’re just pissing on the furniture, biting the couch and barking all night.
So get to the damned point, Nalts. What does this acquisition mean to video? Well, probably nothing initially. But long term it’s good news for two reasons:
- Text ads are currently more relevant than display ads around videos. Since Revver hasn’t been selling many single-frame display ads these days, we’re seeing the Google-run text ads (Adsense) served “InVid” style. Guess what? They’re actually relevant and capture my attention more than current display ads. I watch a lot of videos, and have developed ad anethesia for the limited number of CPG companies doing “run of site” ads across YouTube. Don’t stop, guys. I owe my YouTube partner income to you.
- Since it’s Google buying Doubleclick (and not the other way around), we’ll see display develop some of the maturity of paid search. Harnass the visceral medium of InVid (quarter frame ads) with their sister display ads, then add the relevance of text relevancy. And if the databases can be merged in ways that don’t freak out the privacy people, then ads become even more relevant albiet sometimes creepy.
Now Google has two more challenges to make video advertising really interesting.
- The Google account teams have to grow beyond paid search. This is not an easy transition. SEM (search engine marketing) buyers have a very hard time with CPM (cost per million- a term for buying for an ad based on impressions not performance). Meanwhile SEM sellers need to be trained to talk to CPM junkies. It’s kinda like being bilingual. You need a translator around for a period. Currently, it’s a buyer’s market for video advertising. I am convinced that the “marketers are afraid of buying ads around CGM (consumer generated media)” hype is a big, fat, stinkin’ red herring. It’s just that nobody is showing marketers how online video ads and more creative sponsorships can move their business. Google plus YouTube plus DART should be able to pull that off, but it’s going to require behavior and organizational shift.
- Now the big challenge. If I get a CPC (cost per click) based on text ads around my videos, then I’ll tag them all with free Viagra, mortgage, loans, lawers and digital camera. So we need that ever-evasive “text recognition” technology that turns my droaning voice into targetable text. Blinkx was supposed to be doing this years ago. Then, of course, I’ll just start saying all those tag words as part of my scripts.
YouTube as Marketing Channel (free 30-minute podcast): Nalts and Obama Girl Creator February 20, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Making Money, Making Videos, Viral Video, YouTube, marketing , 2comments
Here’s the archive podcast of the Blog Talk Radio show I did with Toby Bloomberg and Ben Relles (read more). Ben’s story about “I Have a Crush on Obama” is always interesting. And maybe you’ll learn a few things about how brands can harness the power of YouTube. Here’s the Diva Marketing Blog description of the show if you want a quick scan.
The Marketeter’s Cheat Sheet to Viral Video February 19, 2008
Posted by Nalts in : Blogs on Video, Contest, Future of Online Video, Making Money, Making Videos, Nalts, Online Video, Video Advertising, Video Business, Viral Video, YouTube, advertising, popular videos , 12comments
You’re running a brand that is trying to “dip your toe” into social media and online video, and you’re facing some important questions:
- Is my brand right for this?
- How can I experiment without ending up as a “case study” failure?
- Can I convince my company that we should do this?
- What are my options for developing compelling content and distributing it widely?
Here’s a quick guide that encompasses a lot of topics we’ve covered on this blog. It’s the “least a marketer or agency needs to know” about online video, and will give you a roadmap for a good program.
- Step 1: Determine if your brand is right for online video. Is your brand compelling and simple, or complex and direct-response oriented? If you’re a consumer-product goods (CPG), it’s a no-brainer. If you’re in a complex, crowded, regulated and boring industry, it’s going to be more difficult.
- Step 2: Keep it quiet. The more senior management and attorneys you bring into a pilot, the more internal battling you’ll do before experimenting. Get some “air cover” from an executive sponsor, and avoid excessive internal scrutiny.
- Step 3: Let go. Your marketing message is critical to you, but if your content is driven by an advertising objective it’s at risk of being a flop. If you want to go viral, you’ve got to entertain first and promote subtly. There are countless case studies on this, and it’s an inarguable fact. If you buy media, your ads can be boring. But if you expect people to share your video, it better be entertaining, provocative, sexy, funny, outrageous or at least interesting.
- Step 4: Develop a creative brief. Don’t make it too narrow, but give it some focus. If you ask people to make a funny video that includes your brand, you’ll get a lot of stuff that may or may not support your objective. But if you require creators to insert a series of “unique selling propositions” then you’ll end up with ads instead of entertaining videos. With my smaller clients, I develop the brief. Larger clients often already have one, and simply need ideas or video content.
- Step 5: Engage creators. You have four options here.
- Option one, you can hire your agency to create video content. This gives you control, but most agencies (advertising, online, and public relations) lack experience in social media and online video in particular. I’ve found this to be extremely expensive, and often the agencies lack the expertise to make the videos “not suck” and get the videos widely viewed and “seeded” in the right places.
- Option two, you can hire individual amateurs. This gives you access to people that know the medium and have established audiences. Some smaller brands (and larger ones) contract directly with people like me, InvisibleEngine, Rhett & Link and Barely Political (just a few creators that are interested in building entertaining, promotional content). This keeps things safer, but requires some oversight since you’ll need to interact individually with these companies or people.
- Option three, you can run a big, public contest. These are still quite common, but rather expensive. You’ll spend a lot on media to promote the contest (money I’d prefer to see brands use to promote the brand itself). You’ll also get a lot of lame content, but hopefully a few winners.
- Finally, you can contract with a third party that can represent a variety of proven creators. For example, a few large brands have contracted with Xlntads to help reach a collection of experienced amateur creators (note: I consult with Xlntads, and run its creative ad board). There are probably similar brand/creator models that offer this service, but I’m less familiar with them. I see this as an evolving industry that can either contract directly to brands or via agencies. For instance, Daily Motion has brokered between certain major advertisers in France, and works from the agency’s creative brief to identify, engage, pay and leverage the presence of appropriate creators that produce content on the site.
- Step 6: Get the videos seen. If you want to buy media, you can run your videos as advertisements on a variety of sites. The second and third tier video sites are especially receptive to giving prominence to promotional content in fairly inexpensive media buys. If your content is good enough, you can hope it will travel “viral” style: people will share it with friends, post it on their blogs, feature it on their websites. There are three magic tricks that make this work:
- First, your content has to be good.
- Second, it really helps to leverage the distribution and audience of known creators. If an amateur has a popular blog or YouTube channel, this gives you a much better chance of wide distribution.
- Thirdly, you can “seed” it yourself or have the creators, third parties or agencies do it. This “seeding” involves reaching out to appropriate online properties, channels, discussions, forums and blogs. If it’s good content and you reach out to people politely your chances increase. I’ve seen bad videos that get lots of attention, and good videos that die. So this third step is non trivial and often overlooked.
- Step 7: Evaluate. Did the videos get lots of views and positive feedback? What did the comments say? Did people take a measurable action after watching the video? Keep your expectations in check: few marketing videos break into the millions of views, and very few of those viewers will take an immediate action (visiting your site, and making a purchase). These videos will, however, help your rankings via Google and other search engines. So maybe the next time a prospect is searching for your brand on Google, they’ll find your brand-friendly videos instead of a competitor’s content or disgruntled customer. This is a powerful and often overlooked outcome of a good video pilot.
- Step 8: Scale as Appropriate. Most online-video marketing projects are simple experiments to help brands learn and “test the waters,” and few have scaled radically. However some brands have been so excited about results with online video that they return annually with programs that are hard to miss.
With a few exceptions, I haven’t yet seen many online-video pilots driving significant, immediate sales for a brand. But I have seen online-video initiatives that have increased the awareness of the brand, and changed the attributes and preference of target consumers (as measured by awareness trackers). Most of my clients have enjoyed an online presence they wouldn’t have gotten on their own and found it a good investment. A few have confided that more people watched my stupid video than visited their big, bloated agency-developed website (which contained a variety of expensive videos they produced). It’s much easier to reach people on the highway of YouTube than to hope they’ll stop at the little rest stop you create (which is usually a huge expense and a “throw away” at the end of the project).
Other suggestions? Bring ‘em on. This is a blog, for crying out loud.