Last year my video roundup of the best Superbowl ads was seen more than 7 million times, so I kinda had to make a sequel. Since this year’s theme (for both aired videos and those banned) seemed to be about guys being gay or wearing underwear, it felt right to use “I Wear No Pants” (used in the Shazam Dockers ad and written by The Poxy Baggards).
Want to see how the ads were rated? Check out USAToday’s Ad Meter, see Advertising Age’s Report, or watch them all at YouTube’s AdBlitz channel.
Thanks to Tim Street and the good folks at NewTeeVee for this gossip alert via GoRumors. Soon, according to a patent filing, you may not need a big budget and advertising agency to place Google/YouTube “InVideo” ads (the ones that pop-up over the bottom 1/5 of the video). Today small folks can buy text ads, but InVideo ads are more captivating obviously.
Self-serve InVideo ads. Better than text overlays or search-result ads, but a bit more expensive and less targeted than paid search. Still, a nice way to reach the tech savvy voracious video consumers without breaking the bank (presumably far less than the $25 CPM that YouTube launched with).
From the patent entry, I’d call it “Powerpoint meets text ads.” You’ll have some color and image options, but no eye-popping flash you might get from an agency.
Try some out. Start with the Nalts inventory.
Okay get a coffee and sit down. This is one of my important posts. You’ll learn in this one post more than you learned in that stupid communications major (the sender sends messages, and the receiver receives them). I switched majors the day I realized half of the women in my Freshman 101 communications class wanted to be the next Oprah.
Now traditional advertisers and commercial production shops don’t much like the notion of online video ads (especially consumer created) because they prefer to shoot $500,000 commercials in lovely locations. It’s one of the perks of selling your soul to agencies. And I’ve got friends that bemoan the future of television spots as they adore the romantic trip to Europe (to film a pool that looks remarkably like one in a New Jersey suburb).
Alas, advertisers and their favorite commercial directors need not fear online video! While we marketers may request fewer $500K commercials, we’ll still need good content. Lots of it. Instead of one Superbowl spot, however, we’ll want an assortment of creative ads that appeal to our various and fragmenting audiences. So we need to get our cost-per-produced-minute down by 50% or more. And I’m not talking about amortizing the shoot by rotating three actors: a white guy, one hispanic gal, and a slightly overweight Asian transgender.
We ideally want to tailor the ad content to the medium. I was thrilled to see V’s debut (the television show) with a character on YouTube’s homepage that actually mentioned YouTube. Hey, she belongs here. Check out this Louisiana hot sauce spot by pro-amateur Jared Cicon (embedded below), and if you drool over it like I do… check out the rest of his reel. Is it Superbowl material? Maybe not, but it would cost about the same as a single ticket to the game. And I think if Jared (who conveniently puts himself in most of his spots) would probably have just the same Q rating as the best-looking transgender Asian your talent agency could find.
We have two important forces at work: advertisers need MORE video content to participate in the 30-40% growth of spending on this channel. And we have lower-cost options like Jared that do damned good work. So what’s the solution? Wel you have three choices:
Mind you, Jared or PopTent offer advertisers low-cost but remarkable production quality via amateurs. What you won’t get, of course, is an audience. That’s why Hitviews, who contracts with “weblebrities” who already have an audience, makes more sense for some… you get a decent video, and fairly guaranteed views. Or, as I wrote about yesterday, you could bid for product placement on Placevine or Zadby.
By the way, I like an online-video contest that rewards the cat who drives the most views or votes, and Jared likes the ones where quality actually matters to the judges. He’s got talent and I have an audience. In the end, Jared always wins and I get a free f’ing Slurpy coupon.
In 2010 smart advertisers will commission work for less than the cost of an agency dinner. And here’s the part you say “hooray!” First, we can skip 45-stages of market research, and just flight the damned partially executed concepts and learn from them. How’s that for a dislodging that kidney stone? Maybe “ready, go, set” is better than “ready, ready, ready, ready, set, set, set…” Second, we can finally determine if the ad worked because of the messaging or the creative… because we can test multi-varied approaches.
What the hell do I know about research? I’m not even sure I used multi-varied approaches correctly. But I can tell you that I spent an assload of my employers’ money to test three sets of creative, and still wonder if we’d have been better off with a different execution of one of the alternative campaigns that died in market research maybe because the headline or image didn’t resonate with those pretend consumers that spend 50% of their life behind a two-way mirror for cash.
Can I hear an AMEN!?
Now you’ll flight 20 ads online, and take the crappy half out to pasture. See? Maybe we can finally kill that stupid quote: “half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, but I don’t know what half.” It’s about as cute as “Hang on Baby, Friday’s Coming.”
P.S. Some of you will love this ad, and some of you will hate it. But good news. Some day Google will save you the trouble of ignoring an ad or moaning over it… you’ll only see the ones you love.
Look, I’ve never been a big fan of pre-rolls. But this is insane. I searched for a movie trailer today and found IMDB (a site I love, and one that deserves to monetize itself).
But before I could watch the trailer, I was subjected to a pre-roll ad.
Woah, tiger. I just volunteered to watch an ad for a movie. You got the clip for free from the studio. Now you’re going to serve an advertisement before it? Do you honestly think I’ll search out another trailer on IMDB again?
This is the equivalent of the damned DVDs that force 3 trailers before the main menu. So if you’re in the middle of the film and someone turns off the player (which happens more often than you’d think in our house), you scream ooohhhhh noooooooo… and realize you’ve lost about 10 minutes of your day.
Advertisers continue to fear user-generated content (aka consumer-generated media) and Chupacrabas, according to an eMarketer report. Instead of contextual ads or sponsorships, buyers are sticking with 30-second pre-roll ads that reduce purchase intent compared to control.
Media buyers prefer online video advertisements (versus sponsorships or branded entertainment) because “viewers dislike or distrust video advertising—even though they freely accept television commercials.” David Hallerman, who wrote the report, says that distrust is what wins over digital buyers who overlook the reduced intent test/control data because the CPMs (cost per 1,000) are irresistibly cheap, and media buyers can’t resist a deal.
“Even on their personal time, a good media buyer can’t overlook a sale,” eMarketer’s Hallerman said. “I have a neighbor who is a senior digital media buyer, and he purchases randomly sized dresses and skirts at Loehmans each weekend.” Hallerman added that despite his neighbor’s peanut allergy, he can’t resist the Jiffy “buy one, get the other 50% off“sales. But, Hallerman added, “He’s certainly financially disciplined enough to resist the paltry 25%-off sales.”
“Like last year’s study, media buyers remain afraid of the dreaded Chupacabra,” says to Hallerman. “Many of the top digital-media buyers we interviewed at such leading agencies as Digitas, Avenue-A Razorfish, OMD, UMI and even Scient and Viant are terrified of the goat-sucking beast. This is especially true of those Puerto Rican people, whose fear rose from 18% to 37% from 2008 to 2009.” Hallerman believes the Cupacabra threat may have originated via sales representatives of advertising networks and large media properties, who wished to keep their buyers safe.
“More than 78% of media buyers are taking protective measures against consumer-generated content and Chupacabra attacks,” says Hallerman. “It’s not very different from the swine flu, except that the swine flu actually exists.”
“In my country, many beautiful media buyers would having look at consumer-media,” said Marcos Sanchez of Cerebro Muerto Digital (CMD). “And they no coming back from night after Chupacabra eating their blood.” Sanchez said, under promise of anonymity, that CMD invests no less than 30% of its client’s digital media budget on low-cost inventory on websites that have not been operational in five years or more. “We finding on professional sites like “The Daily Reel” that they video prerolls get 500,000 impressions daily and viewers very, very engaged in banners with 94% recall.”
So… umm…. I’m kidding about only some of that. The preroll is all the rage, while WVFF has showed how sponsored videos have measurable ROI. Did I ever mention on this blog that you can’t get reach without advertising near UGC (user generated content) because the VAST majority of views are of vloggers, YouTube stars, viral hits… not Hulu shows. Did I ever mention on this blog that you can actually pay a YouTube star a small amount of money to make a funny video about your product that you approve?
Anyway, some other key points for those that see online-video marketing as digital ads only:
- Why do many people distrust online video advertising?
- What can advertisers do to overcome that obstacle?
- Can social media and video advertising be an effective mix?
- What ad methods are needed with short video content?
- Is the online video audience as large as it appears?
Daisy Whitney gave two examples of companies shifting from a free to paid model. I agree that “training the customers early to pay” is good advice, but I also like other model… give it away for free, then offer meaningful upsells. For instance, I’d probably pay for Tubemogul because it saves me the hassle of visiting a number of online sites to distribute and track my videos. Likewise, I just upped my YouSendIt account to a monthly fee… it’s got a 2 GB limit (and I was always just a little to bloated for the free one), and it remembers my e-mails.
So yes “train customers early to pay” but “free” is a good marketing tool. The trick is to develop value-add additions once you have a regular user base. Oh- and note Daisy’s focus is on B2B.
Charging for online-video content is not a good idea right now unless you’ve got INCREDIBLE content and a major following.
Why watch the game, when you can catch all of the advertisements on these online-video sites? And hey- most of these ads don’t have any prerolls. That goodness Madison Avenue and the online-video sites are finally cooperating.
My friend ran a digital media buying company and literally wrote a book on internet advertising. He told me three things I never forgot:
So as a marketer I’d say — assuming you could reasonably target your demographic — you’ll probably get a better return on UGC (user generated content, or amateur stuff) than professional content.
A Nalts video is less captivating than an SNL skit on Hulu (and admitting that fact came a little easier than I thought). In the next year, advertisers will feel temporarily safer with Hulu because it’s a network site (and God knows the ad networks and reps will be greasing the palms of buyers everywhere). Brainless ad buyers in NYC will clamour for inventory on the “safe” sites, and drive the CPM artificially high. Meanwhile, there will be a growing inventory of amateur content as YouTube rolls out its “partner program” wider than the paranoid advertising market can handle. So it will invariably drop or maintain.
A study (reported here by NewTeeVee) by The Diffusion Group shows a gap on CPM (cost per thousand views) already emerging:
My short-term bet for advertisers? Buy ads against UGC content, but pick your channels carefully. Don’t buy Invideo ads on Nalts if you’re selling cosmetics, but if you’re Coke running a direct-response program via InVideo ads you’ll probably have better luck buying ads against YouTube amateur partners than Britney.tv (she’s actually entertaining to her audience). YouTube may content otherwise, because they have loads of inventory on professional players, and more at stake there.
For that matter, you’ll probably get a better awareness rating on amateur content because we’re less interesting than professionals. You may, however, get a higher attribute rating (as measured by something like Dynamic Logic) if you buy ads on killer content (like Universal) versus another Fred video. Hard to say there.
Note- I’m biased on this analysis for two reasons. First, I’m in the middle of business planning, and my right brain has been completely shut down as a result. I haven’t even watched a video in days. Second- as a YouTube partner, I have an interest in UGC CPMs (I get a piece of the advertising revenue).
Now the good news for creators and advertising. It’s not an “either or” proposition. The Diffusion Group estimates that $590 million video ad market today will be a $10 billion video ad market of the future. I’ll take a smaller piece of that growing pie.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has now proclaimed metric standards in a PDF document available here. According to the report, “These definitions are part of a larger IAB effort to stimulate video industry growth by making the reporting of metrics for agencies and advertisers across multiple media partners more consistent”
Thanks to Mike Abundo of Inside Online Video for alerting me to important stuff like this that I might otherwise miss.