Tag Archives: online video advertising

Big Brands Tap Online-Video Stars

Caitlin Hill (thehill88) on ABC newsI’ve written before about Hitviews, and I’ve been working with the company on sponsored videos. This report (see video) by ABC’s NYC affiliate (channel 7), the most-watched local network in the US. It’s the story of how Hitviews co-founder Caitlin Hill (theHill88) and veteran network executives are turning online-video stars into promotional vehicles for large brands. 

As the recession hits marketers, I’ve seen no sign of a slow-down in this sector. Online-video continues to grow, and advertising dollars are shifting to sites like YouTube. What I find fascinating about Hitviews model is that it has nothing to do with display or overlay advertising. Rather than rely exclusively on “paid” advertising, some progressive brands are sponsoring well-known creators. For example, even though my videos are viewed more than 100,000 a day, there are dozens of independent creators that are far more “subscribed” and viewed. 

These amateurs, some with 300-500,000 views a day, offer advertisers a higher impact model to reach an engaged audience that eagerly await the next video of their favorite online-video stars. The audience trusts the star, and comment and reply. Meanwhile the stars are often 20-something kids who have a low cost of living, and are open to sponsorships and product placements that can be more profitable than, say, YouTube ad sharing. As a Product Director, I find a video about my brand exponentially more valuable than ads alone. As a traditional-media analog, consider the difference between a 30-second ad on American Idol and Coke cups on the judges table. The latter is an implied endorsement by the judges (and you may hate two of them, but probably not all four).

There are a few challenges, of course. And they’re non trivial, which is why few companies have cracked this nut…

  1. Most brands and even their agencies can’t establish relationships with these online-video stars on their own. Even if they do, the learning isn’t scalable. 
  2. The bigger stars are primarily focused on their audience, and not branding or even “business.” That means agencies may be surprised that the video creators aren’t cow-towing to them like a subcontractor. 
  3. Agencies and brands still don’t understand that sponsored videos are becoming both common and appropriate in social media (as long as the sponsor is disclosed), and partially controllable. The star won’t read from a script, of course, but the brand sponsor reviews all videos before they go live. 
  4. The creative challenge is to entertain first, and promote second. That requires sponsors to give the stars some creative freedom and trust their instinct.
  5. Online-video stars sometimes have agents, but often are “one-act shows.” That means that some are professional, and others are child-like. What made them popular with viewers — edgy, autonomous– can undermine them when it’s time to face such things as deadlines and review processes.
  6. Finding stars take significant knowledge of the online-video community. Some are easy to work with, and others are a nightmare. Some get top views, but have images and videos that are not right for some brands. Some work for cheap, and others demand top dollars.

I’m biased because I like Hitviews model, but I honestly can’t think of how brands & agencies can tap these video creators without an intermediary. Trust me because I’ve been on both sides. As a video creator I’ve dealt with agencies that think of me as a subcontractor and want a bloody advertisement instead of an entertaining video that promotes. I’ve not yet seen a company that bridges this gap like Hitviews. There are talent agencies that represent individual stars, and companies like Poptent that help brands find amateur talent. But no clearinghouse for brands/agencies wanting to do sponsored videos with video stars. In online-video’s infancy (2006-2008) it wasn’t uncommon for a popular YouTuber to work directly with a brands (like I did with Mentos).

But for this new-media play to scale, there needs to be a larger entities that can help broker the relationship so the key constituents (at least three) can all get what they need:

  1. First, audiences must like the videos. Failing that, nothing else matters.
  2. Second, the “star” must feel comfortable with the brand, and feel compensated appropriately. The videos take time, but more importantly an excess of them will harm their relationship with the audience.
  3. Finally the advertiser (a brand team or its steward) must feel like their money is well spent, and see the sponsored video as worth more than a preroll, overlay or banner. I’ve only seen about two interactive agencies that understand this, and I know that will change this year. As long as agencies see this as a “media buy” it’s doomed.

Burger King P’wns McDonalds in Viral Video

When we weren’t having “my dad can beat up your dad” debates as children, we had the “Burger King versus McDonalds” debate. Of course, now I go wherever my kids tell me because they’re not going to eat a thing anyway until the meal toys are edible.

But the WillVideoForFood 2008 “Fast Food Online-Video Award” goes to… Burger King. Don’t get me wrong- the freaky masked Burger King’s appearances in TV ads gave me Wes Craven nightmares too. But at least the brand’s recent online-video campaign “Cavalcade” makes sense (and I’m not even a Family Guy addict).

Seriously- this McDonalds “The Reality House” series is a classic example of a brand’s futile attempt to develop its own content on a desert island… it’s as tired as the old lady rapping. It’s as perplexing as McDonald’s first commercial. Contrast that with Burger King’s Seth MacFarlane Cavalcade program, which was a smart use of YouTube, a visible and high-engagement promotion for Burger King, and a brilliant way to leverage a known creator while “fishing where the fish are.” The deal involved a generous check to Seth (not to mention that the deal grew his own onlie audience), a healthy InVideo and homepage BK media spend on YouTube, and brief pre-roll promotion that didn’t interfere with the entertainment- in fact it was illustrated by Seth (or more likely outsourced child cartoonists that got axed by Martha Stewart).

For the love of God, agencies, please stop trying to create custom-branded programming with names like Menuaire, or expensive microsites packed with overly-baked video content. The result is that nobody cares, and then giant media budgets must be diverted to drive traffic to easily forgotten destination sites. If you’re buying Dove banner ads to engage consumers around natural beauty, that makes some sense (as long as you don’t run ’em against uploaded Ax ads). But please don’t promote a Dove web series written by frustrated screen writers slaving helplessly under the oppresive reign of a thick-accented agency creative executive with bad breath and untreated ADHD.

I’d rather see those ad dollars getting us to eat more burgers. I’m all about engaging customers with entertainment, but do it with people that know the medium or have proven they can draw a crowd. And put the billboards on a highway rather than erecting giant signs that say, “exit here to watch a mildly entertaining advertisement.”

When P&G wanted to access stay-at-home moms, they didn’t started a new branded entertainment network scripted by brand managers that spent more time with their heads in excel sheets than facing television sets. They convinced the big networks to write soap operas, left the writes alone to hydrate the insatiable drama thirst of moms, and jammed the shows full of ads. Today’s version might have involve product integration (her tragic car accident was a result of restless knee syndrome), but the model is fairly time-tested and simple:

  1. Promotion takes a quiet backseat to novel entertainment or nobody engages
  2. The content goes where people are already hanging… it’s extremely hard to compel someone to leave YouTube for advertainment.
  3. Leverage people who know the medium and have proven they can draw crowds in online-video (or in Seth’s case, leverage recognizable equity from television).

Just because entry costs to content production have dropped doesn’t mean brands should become entertainers. The result is often like watching a wedding slide show with cheesy Powerpoint transitions and random dissolves. Or that flier that screams “hey- I just learned desktop publishing, and look how many fonts and clip art I squeezed onto an 8.5×11!”

Marketers Tap Online-Video “Stars”

As you regular readers know, this WillVideoForFood blog is designed for three audiences:

  1. online-video creators who aspire to generate income from their work,
  2. marketers, public relations firms and advertisers looking to access the most visceral form of social media: online video (in a way that’s neither a “viral video gamble” or as uncontrollable as “consumer generated advertising),
  3. and, of course, you loyal WVFF tribe members that are the most vocal in comments.

I’m excited to announce a new company that can connect the first two groups, but let me first acknowledge that I’m not an objective journalist when I write about Hitviews. I’m also a “Hitviews Star” (shut up, I like the title) and I’m consulting with the NYC company. Here’s the release that announces the official launch of Hitviews. If you find any typos, you can blame me.

Caitlin Hill (aka TheHill88 on Hitviews) was tapped last year by broadcast veteran Walter Sabo to build a bridge between marketers and online-video stars (who aspire to actually, God forbid, make money from their creative talents and don’t aspire to become actors). Caitlin has been quietly recruiting a number of prominent online-video “stars” who, in effect, are like mini TV networks. They have large, recurring audiences that rival many prime-time television shows. You know who some of these “stars” are (a few are on YouTube’s “most subscribed” list), but their anonymity is being respected. Not everyone is as brave as Uncle Nalts to admit they want to monetize their work, and this is still oddly stigmatized in the inner circles of YouTube and other social networks. Due to my complete lack of talent, I was not on Hill’s radar until fairly recently… but I was aware that she had flown some top video creators to NYC from around the globe, and was sufficiently jealous.

As Sabo likes to say, “every new medium creates new stars.” Lucille Ball was a b-list actor until television. Nathan Lane can sellout broadway shows, but has a list of several failed sitcoms. Some super stars translate from television and film, but the evolution of media (from silent films to online-video) has proven that each era opens doors to new talent. Sabo and his investors are betting that marketing dollars will flow toward these new online-video stars, many of whom lack agents (or if they do have have agents they’re scrambling for acting gigs in traditional media, where most online-stars will go to die).

Until now, these “star” video creators have derived income from ad-sharing invented by Revver, then Metacafe, and now exists via YouTube as the “partners program.” While we online-video creators can disclose our Revver and Metacafe earnings (which are virtually nothing for me anymore), YouTube Partners are prohibited by contract from disclosing YouTube earnings. But it’s no secret that only a select number of amateur video creators have been able to quit their day jobs yet (sxephil, mrsafety and whatthebuck being notable exceptions). Yet many of my friends are making more via YouTube than I made in my first job after business school.

Meanwhile, brands have had only two options for promoting via online video (and I recognize that I’m over simplifying this):

  1. They can buy display ads surrounding videos (these are extremely cost efficient, but aren’t extremely profitable to YouTube or creators for that very reason). Studies have and will prove that these ads drive awareness and attributes at a decent price, but smart advertisers will want to go beyond pre-rolls, InVideo and display ads.
  2. Alternatively, brands like Mentos and other clients I’ve sponsored have done one-off deals with individual creators (sometimes directly, and often via an internet agency). This is where Uncle Nalts makes the majority of his video money, but certainly not enough to quit the day job. Naturally these indivudualized deals provide brands with higher impact, but are not easy to execute. A notable example is TayZonday doing “Cherry Chocolate Rain” for Diet Dr. Pepper Cherry Chocolate (as a Diet Dr. Pepper fan, I must confess the first 12-pack I bought was also my last). Other sponsored online-video deals are less transparent, and I don’t care for that as a creator or a viewer. I’ve never taken money from a sponsor who wasn’t thanked and acknowledged. And I don’t like the looming question about whether LisaNova was paid or not for the video I watched. Is she entertaining or persuading me? Again- most people don’t care that my Reader’s Digest dog and cat costume video was sponsored as long as the video is satisfying, but as a marketer, creator and avid viewer… I like when it’s clear.

A few startups have attempted to broker the complex relationship between hungry advertisers and hungry video creators. And while no model is perfect, Hitviews’ model is the best I’ve seen. It’s quite different from Xlntads (now Poptent) because it’s not about finding amateurs and video directors who can produce online-video content for use on television or online.

The Hitviews model is to introduce advertisers into the context of already popular video “shows,” videos or “channels.” This takes the form of sponsored videos, product placement or other offerings. The offline analogy I like to use is Oprah…. I can’t remember the last advertiser I saw drop a 30-second spot during Oprah, but won’t soon forget when she gave away Pontiacs to her viewing audience. And whether she’s paid or not, she can create a best selling book by simply mentioning it. In the same way, a popular online-video star can give brands access to their loyal and often sizable audiences. The web stars don’t yet have Oprah-sized audiences, but the top YouTube creators, as an example, have as many daily viewers as a prime-time show. And because they interact with their audiences, they’re as influential or more.

When I began writing about this space almost 3 years ago, I would have predicted there would be several Hitviews-like companies by now. But it’s a tricky market, and hard to enter even when it’s not your sole focus; brands have to be convinced that their audiences are moving online and that they don’t need to create their own content to engage them (do we need a Vlastic Pickle video portal?).

Brands will always buy ads, of course, but we’ll see a shift in 2009 away from $250K “viral videos” projects that fail to deliver view counts to justify them. They’ll give way to more creative programs leveraging popular video creators that a) already have recurring audiences, b) know how to promote with transparency but not perceived as “selling out,” c) can create videos that are promotional but more importantly entertaining, and c) are comfortable with providing advertisers with a final approval of their work (that latter criteria is not trivial).

It’s an important service that requires a delicately balancing four stakeholders: The “stars,” the sponsors, the audiences, and the investors. But the financial potential is promising for the simple reason that a brand’s investment and risk is relatively low, and the impact is far higher than a preroll, InVideo ad or banner. And the “stars” have booming audiences but lack the costs and complexities of traditional broadcasting.