Tag Archives: seventh

OMG a Good Article About Viral Video Marketing?

viral video advertisingOh it’s so rare when someone writes an intelligent article about online video (aka viral) marketing. And it’s pretty funny when you’ve never heard of the author but she happens to work for the digital agency you employ in your day job.

Anyway, here’s “Strategies for Making Video Ads Go Viral,” by Christine Beardsell (Digitas) via ClickZ. Christine explains paid and organic “seeding” of videos, which is not very well understood. She references two companies I hadn’t heard about: Kontraband’s The 7th Chamber and Viral Manage, which apparently seed videos, and offer tiered plans that include viral tracking and blog/forum seeding.

She also observes that a little money can go a long way with smaller video sites, and I’ve also found that to be true. I once got a promotional video past one million views by throwing a modest media buy to a second-tier site for some premium placement.

I’m not sure I agree that online video banners aren’t effective. In general, it’s true that banners are ignored. And auto-play banners are repulsively annoying. But I do believe there’s a role for embedded video in interactive, rich media ads. I found her thoughts about RSS and videos interesting, but caution people from thinking too many people will RSS for commercial videos. Get a well known YouTuber to mention your brand and you’ll get exponentially more visibility for far less money than your agency will charge for a FedEx.