If you’re an average online-video watcher, then today you’ll watch about 2 videos, and spend 6 minutes doing so. You’ll most likely be on YouTube, but if you’re watching long-form television on Hulu you’re probably skewing the average by watching for much longer per session/view.
So, friends, you’re probably watching online-videos for more time each month than you are having sex — depending, of course, on whether you’re one of those 2.7 minute ”slam bam thank you mam” YouTube people, or if you prefer the longer forplay of “Hulu-like” engagements.
And I’m not sure all of that online-video viewing is going to help you in the sex department, but it’s a more reliable, albeit often less climaxic, alternative.
Check out Stephen Shankland’s “Online Viewing Clears Three Hours Per Month.” Neilsen is the source. Do you know how silly that headline will look by the end of the year? First, we’ll have a more difficult time what’s occuring “online” versus “offline” as devices merge. Second, because that three hours will grow dramatically as people begin to consume an episode of Lost (which is, by my crude calculations, roughly the same time it would take to consume about 20 or so short videos on YouTube).
Here are some other notable points from Shanland, and a pretty chart so you can see that YouTube is dominating viewers and videos viewed. But this is going to change when we look at duration spent per site. After all, Hulu has longer-form content, and Yahoo’s 25 million users could, with a little prompting by Yahoo, start watching more video. Hulu has more ad inventory than it has sold, and one can only assume the ad inventory isn’t sufficient for Yahoo to compel its visitors to consume video. Or perpahs Yahoo visitors are busy enjoying display ads and drinking their Tabs or Mr. Pibbs.
March viewing rose 13 percent to 191 minutes. Total video streams viewed increased 9 percent from 8.9 billion to 9.7 billion. And the number of videos per user grew 7 percent from about 70 to 74.
If time spent is going up faster than videos streamed, that means a) we’re tolerating 2.7-minute YouTube clips, or b) Longer form content is skewing the average, and we’re continuing to expect our YouTube clips to be 2-3 minutes. I suspect the latter, but Neilsen and the Shankenizer aren’t saying.
The market share:
Google’s YouTube continues to dominate the category, with 5.5 billion videos and 89 million people using the service in the U.S.
Hulu is in second place with 348 million videos and 9 million users.
Yahoo is in third place with 232 million videos, but it’s got more users than Hulu, about 25 million users.
Before we armchair quarterback Geico’s YouTube spend today, let me share a secret story. The names will be changed to protect the innocent.
An extremely popular YouTube star (let’s call him Spiffy) last fall mentioned something fascinating to me in private. A major consumer-products good brand (let’s call them “Yummy Snack”) paid him handsomly to create an enteratining video incorporating Yummy Snack. A member of the Yummy brand team had shared the success story at a conference I attended, but left something critical out. It seems Yummy’s agency hadn’t asked Spiffy to post the entertaining/promotional Yummy video on Spiffy’s channel!
The talented Spiffy voluntarily posted it on his channel, and THAT was the Yummy video that popped. Not one posted by Yummy Snack on some branded YouTube channel page. Not because media dollars drove views. I thought that Spiffy’s generous move was so cool, I’ve decided not to call out Yummy’s agency on this horrible oversight.
YouTube might have saved Yummy, but can you blame them? Google is more concerned about selling media dollars than tipping off agencies to the organic power of a star’s audience.
YouTube doesn’t make money when a promotional video goes viral… only when there’s an ad buy.
I like to think agencies have learned something in the past year, so it’s sad to find history repeating itself even today. Geico insurance purchased the expensive YouTube homepage spot to boast its ”Gecko & Numa Numa kid video,” which prerolls (without audio). Today’s ad spend cost the Geico more than you or I make in a year, and Gary Brolsma (NumaNuma), the online-video sensation, isn’t posting the video on his own channel concurrently.
Are you kidding me? Much of the value of the YouTube stars is his or her embedded audience. Most stars have fans that will propel the video to the top of the “most watched” and “highest rated,” and share it with friends (assuming it doesn’t suck).
As an example, if Fred made a video endorsing Poprocks, his video would get million of views. If the agency posted it — even with some advertising dollars promoting it — it would get far less.
For a moment, let’s put aside the debate about Geico’s agency associating itself with the NJ kid who is mostly a “one-hit wonder” lacking a recurring audience. Numa only has 35K subscribers and his recent videos are fetching just a few thousand views. Even so, Numa dual posting the video would certainly attract views for an ROI that’s as good as any media spend. The agency gets credit for driving homepage views to its own ”Its the Gecko,” channel instead of Numa Numa’s… but one can’t help but wonder if there’s a longer vision for that branded channel or if it was an afterthought.
Why on EARTH would Geico not pay Gary a few clams to post it on his channel? Even without a lot of daily views, Gary could have posted it on his channel concurrently, and gotten views by:
Showing us a “behind the scenes” footage
Featuring the video on his channel page
Making the Geico spot a video reply to his big hit, where it would get residual views
I’d love to know if this was an oversight or a thoughtful decision because, for instance, Gary wanted more coin to distribute it than made sense for the agency. But absent that, it’s going to be my case study for being “half pregnant” on YouTube– smart enough to tap a star and invest in media, but not savvy enough to tap into the creator’s audience as well.
The lesson: It’s not smart for brands to tap into know YouTube stars without buying media, and it’s not smart to buy media without getting some “street cred” from a known YouTuber. It’s smart to do both. Who’s going to help brands figure this out?
(I’d like to use the case study I referenced at the beginning, but the star would get tainted by the agency for mentioning this slip and ”Spiffy” doesn’t deserve it).
A YouTube for All of Us
As a community, we have come to count on each other to be entertained, challenged, and moved by what we watch and share on YouTube. We’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to make the collective YouTube experience even better, particularly on our most visited pages. Our goal is to help ensure that you’re viewing content that’s relevant to you, and not inadvertently coming across content that isn’t. Here are a few things we came up with:
* Stricter standard for mature content – While videos featuring pornographic images or sex acts are always removed from the site when they’re flagged, we’re tightening the standard for what is considered “sexually suggestive.” Videos with sexually suggestive (but not prohibited) content will be age-restricted, which means they’ll be available only to viewers who are 18 or older. To learn more about what constitutes “sexually suggestive” content, click here.
* Demotion of sexually suggestive content and profanity – Videos that are considered sexually suggestive, or that contain profanity, will be algorithmically demoted on our ‘Most Viewed,’ ‘Top Favorited,’ and other browse pages. The classification of these types of videos is based on a number of factors, including video content and descriptions. In testing, we’ve found that out of the thousands of videos on these pages, only several each day are automatically demoted for being too graphic or explicit. However, those videos are often the ones which end up being repeatedly flagged by the community as being inappropriate.
* Improved thumbnails – To make sure your thumbnail represents your video, your choices will now be selected algorithmically. You’ll still have three thumbnails to choose from, but they will no longer be auto-generated from the 25/50/75 points in the video index.
* More accurate video information – Our Community Guidelines have always prohibited folks from attempting to game view counts by entering misleading information in video descriptions, tags, titles, and other metadata. We remain serious about enforcing these rules. Remember, violations of these guidelines could result in removal of your video and repeated violations will lead to termination of your account.
The preservation and improvement of the YouTube experience is a responsibility we share. Let’s work together to ensure that the YouTube community continues to thrive as a positive place for all of us.
1. Why should videos be demoted on profanity alone? Why not just hide them for people not logged in and are 18 or older?
2. Some of YouTube’s most popular stars…Bo Burnham, Charles Trippy, sXePhil, Chris Crocker, Mark Day, etc…(name as many as you want) all have used profanity.
3. The new thumbnail idea sucks. Now what if none of the thumbnails are good?
4. YouTube sometimes features videos with profanity.
—————–
OK, now I finally understand YouTube’s “Stricter standard for mature content”
“Videos that are considered sexually suggestive, or that contain profanity, will be algorithmically demoted on our ‘Most Viewed,’ ‘Top Favorited,’ and other browse pages.”
Sophia (aka Mugglesam) goes to a Canadian Internet conference and meets the viral video genius. So fascinating to relive this day through the eyes of a shorter child than me.
And if you’re marketing to kids or parents, help me understand why you wouldn’t make Sophia your spokeperson. Because otherwise she might be a tractor when she grows up.
Seriously. I couldn’t make something like that up. In case you don’t recognize the name, he’s the guy who wrote the TechCrunch article about how marketers can “game” YouTube with fake thumbnails, fake comments, et cetera. This blog called him the Wicked Witch of the West to my Glenda the Good Witch, and that’s something you don’t soon forget.
Dan- do you want me to renew the URL I parked (www.viralvideovillain.com) pointing to your LinkedIn page?
P.S. Y’all like the new masthead designed by The Most Excellent Gage Skidmore? He’s with Cosmic Flight.
I like this “Viral Video: Cashing In or Selling Out” by Jennifer Hollett (Canadian Globe & Mail), and not just because I’m featured in it. It’s actually a well-balanced view of the issues surrounding paid sponsorship and product placement.
As you may know, there are two different ways to make money via online video. You can share in the percent of ad proceeds based on the publisher (Revver, Metacafe, and now YouTube’s Partner Program). This is easier, but low margin. And you’re at the mercy of the publisher. Currently it would appear YouTube is selling fewer InVideo ads associated with amateur content, and I’m seeing more Google Adsense copy ads or display only. InVideo ads are far, far more profitable to YouTube and creators — selling at about $20 per thousand impressions. Advertisers get much more exposure, since the ads peek up at the bottom and are interactive (a far cry better than banners that we tend to tune out). The second way a creator can profit is by working directly with brands to feature products and services for a fair fee.
If you read this blog regularly, you’ll recognize my POV on this article (worth a scan). I satirize “selling out,” but I actually think you can find a balance between helping an advertiser and entertaining. I even contend that promotion need not come at the expense of the entertainment and vice versa. That said, I do respect the opinion of Kalle Lasn, editor in chief of Adbusters magazine and author of Culture Jam. Kalle, according to the piece, feels product placement on YouTube is a sad development. Lasn says there are already between 3,000 – 5,000 marketing messages coming into the average North American brain everyday. “I don’t think we really need 5001,” he says.
The article highlights (oh I hate that word) Brandfame, which helps facilitate the interaction between creators and sponsors. I’ve also met with Placevine, which represents a number of different brands interested in tapping creators. This article references a video I made called “Viral Video Broker,” where I spoofed this industry almost two years ago exactly. (Another one of those videos I wish I had shot with a better camera, but at least I was somewhat ahead of my time… the voices were, of course, people in my offices at J&J not real weblebrities).
Watch for five trends in this area in 2008:
Creators are going to cross the line by pushing the advertising too hard, and alienating their viewers. It will feel right for them and their sponsors, but ultimately make for a jaded bunch of viewers.
Brandfame and Placevine are the signs of an emerging cottage industry that will become more vital than the labor intensive machines helping broker product placement in television and films. Online video will give brands more inventory (it’s not called the “short tail” folks), access to niche audiences, and — here’s why the legacy firms will struggle — easier scalability. You’d better make it easy for brands and creators, and take a fair portion but not excessive. Product sponsorship is the only way many brands will penetrate the vital medium of online video, because it’s a fairly ad resistant one. In the “lean forward” generation of online-video, we’ll only watch your advertising if it’s interesting or if you force us. I’d content the sustainability of the latter is weak, and you’d have trouble arguing otherwise. Enter TiVo bloink sound, or the sick delight we take shutting a browser window that “serves” a pre-roll advertising with all the tact of a bad-breathed vacuum cleaner salesman. As David Spade said as a flight attendant on SNL, “Buh bye. “
The online-video sites will struggle in this area. Currently mama Google doesn’t profit if I cut my own deals with Mentos (except when Mentos flighted my video as a 30-second ad). But it’s not an area of high concern since YouTube needs to focus on scalable revenue. What happens, however, if creators join forces and agree to sell prerolls embedded in the video file… a Toyota ad pops up gently in the intros or before the “Next New Network” bumper at the end of a clip? Does YouTube take issue with this advertising that they facilitate but don’t profit on? Or is it analogous to a producer selling his show, but retaining rights to a fixed amount of the ad space (I’ve heard Ryan Seacrest does this with his show).
There will be no trend four. Trend four is often wrong, which itself is a growing trend.
The backlash associated with hidden sponsorship is far from over. I wish there was a law that required film makers to disclose any paid advertisers, even though I know much of the “product placement” is offered free by directors. Federal Express, for instance, does not often pay to have its boxes appear in a film. The directors want the film to feel authentic, and seek permission not pay from FedEx to avoid needing to distract viewers with a Garbagepatch Kids-like bastardization of FedEx (FoodEx). In the end, however, I feel like the video creator owes me, as the viewer, disclosure. If you’re getting paid to hold a Mountain Dew, more power to you. Just let me know, so I don’t feel like you’re being sneaky every time your camera pans a mall and I see logos.
According to AP Business writer Jim Salter, this “Swear Jar” video is part of a “fast-growing growing trend, now increasingly embraced by beer makers and other mainstream marketers.”
Known as viral ads, such Web-only spots have become YouTube staples and show up in social networking pages, get e-mailed between friends and co-workers, though whether they generate sales remains an open question.
Viral ads have the freedom to run as long or short as they want – no 30- or 60-second constraints.
They can cross boundaries even cable TV respects, and they focus on entertainment as much selling the product.
Some are shot – or made to look like they’re shot – with hand-held cameras, just like the most of the rest of the videos in those Web venues.
Viral marketing has been around for more than a decade, but viral video ads have grown in popularity as it has become easier to watch and share video on the Web and video-sharing sites like YouTube have grown.
This post is for those of you dumb m&thr f*rs that have only been looking at the pictures on WillVideoForFood for the past 2 years ,and needed to play catchup. Thanks, Marilyn, for this post. It’s about time you carried some of your own weight on this blog.
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=EJJL5dxgVaM]
No knocking Kevin MacLeod from Incompetech.com. He’s saved us from many default musical loops and countless copyright infringements. But now and then, we need a bit of variety. And here are some additional options for music, sound effects and even video footage.
To help you return to this post, I’ll add the words Helen Keller. Then you can just do a Google search for Helen Keller and WillVideoForFood, and you’ll be back on this page. See, Helen Keller couldn’t hear or see, so she’s not a name you’d expect to see as a mnemoni, and… oh never mind. You’ll remember it.
MUSIC
I’ve got some of my Nalts themes (recorded using every loop I could buy for Garage Band).
Jonathon Mikel Taylor Roberts has a nice MacLeod-like site at jmtr.com.
DigitalPh33r (a creator for Machinima.com) identifies two sources, and does so without sounding as angry as usual. He credits stockmusic.net
Then there’s RoyaltyFreeMusic, which seems a bit pricey for the amateur and a bit cheesy for the pro.
The MusicBakery is a mixed bag. Some fantastically cheesy 1980s music mixed with some robust classics. Prepare to dig, but you may find something worth the $30-$50 price tag for a song download.
Opuzz.com was also hot and cold, but I quite like this contagious whistling song called “Easy Stroll.” Prices range for $3 to $30 per clip, depending on how much you want.
Free Sound Project is one that’s a bit more complex, but interesting. Sounds not songs.
PartnersInRhyme has a nice mix of free and pay-as-you-go sound effects… all royalty free.
I’ve also used SoundDogs before, and you’ll need to dig around but usually find what you need.
Avoid the CD-ROM collections since they’re usually not royalty free, even if they’re inexpensive.
VIDEO FOOTAGE
iStockvideo.com and Pond5.com offer user-generated content at low price points ($5 to $100). This is a better alternative to higher-end stock companies like Gettyimages.com, Artbeats.com and Corbis.com (who average $200 or more, and have some footage for closer to $1000). Source: DV.com
Here are a few more from a threaded discussion on the topic: www.thinkstockfootage.com, www.digitaljuice.com, www.dvcuts.com, www.veer.com, www.liquidlibrary.com, www.creatas.com
www.comstock.com.
Boobies and animals are adored. You want to piss people off? Throw a puppy from a cliff. You want to get a video seen? Put boobies on the thumbnail image.
Ladies and gentleman of the public jury, KFC may not be facing the worse public relations ever. But when I saw this Pam Anderon KFC Cruelty video today (this particular version uploaded by popular YouTuber TheHill88), my “spidey sense” tells me the worst is ahead.
You don’t have to be an advocate for big boobies OR PETA to watch this video and decide not to eat KFC for at least a few weeks. Stories about abused, deformed and slaughtered chickens can anger people. But video turns it visceral: like the difference between hearing about a car accident and seeing one. My keyboard and I are really glad I happened to have a veggie wheatbread pizza for lunch.
This slaughter montage is not new, but it’s certainly compelling and picking up steam. This version of the KFC/Anderson YouTube video is the 5th highest-ranked Google result for KFC, and features a thumbnail of a deformed chicken and more than 400,000 views. Do a search on YouTube for KFC and sort by date if you don’t take my word for it.
Here’s the KFC Cruelty website, which ranks fourth on a Google search for KFC. And here’s KFC’s Animal Welfare Program (somewhat hard to find on the KFC’s official homepage). The public will determine KFC guilty until proven innocent, but I’ve got my money on boobies and animals versus a fast-food restaurant. I imagine the KFC trademark attorneys are looking back at last week’s Onion Feedbag parody, and forgetting why they even got upset.
P.S. Let the record show that, according to Wikipedia, Colonel Sanders was neither a colonel nor a slave owner, even though he did refer to KFC’s gravy as “sludge” with a “wallpaper taste.”
Kevin "Nalts" Nalty is one of the most-viewed YouTube comedians with nearly 800 short online videos seen more than 74 million times. He also consults with top brands to help them engage in social media & video (check www.NaltsConsulting), and is chief strategical officer at Hitviews.com.
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A YouTube for All of Us
OK, now I finally understand YouTube’s “Stricter standard for mature content”
As you may know, there are two different ways to make money via online video. You can share in the percent of ad proceeds based on the publisher (Revver, Metacafe, and now YouTube’s Partner Program). This is easier, but low margin. And you’re at the mercy of the publisher. Currently it would appear YouTube is selling fewer InVideo ads associated with amateur content, and I’m seeing more Google Adsense copy ads or display only. InVideo ads are far, far more profitable to YouTube and creators — selling at about $20 per thousand impressions. Advertisers get much more exposure, since the ads peek up at the bottom and are interactive (a far cry better than banners that we tend to tune out). The second way a creator can profit is by working directly with brands to feature products and services for a fair fee.
No knocking Kevin MacLeod from Incompetech.com. He’s saved us from many default musical loops and countless copyright infringements. But now and then, we need a bit of variety. And here are some additional options for music, sound effects and even video footage.
There are two things we know about videos.
This slaughter montage is not new, but it’s certainly compelling and picking up steam. This version of the KFC/Anderson YouTube video is the 5th highest-ranked Google result for KFC, and features a thumbnail of a deformed chicken and more than 400,000 views. Do a search on YouTube for KFC and sort by date if you don’t take my word for it.
