YouTube Takes Roadblocks, Takeovers and Fat Boys To Yahoo Level

YouTube puts Yahoo and even About.com for the most intrusive ad campaign in the history of online-video advertising: Kung Fu Panda 2. While it’s not exactly consistent with Google’s ad model (subtle and relevant) it wins a few points for creativity. And hey… What would YOU do to market this Dreamworks sequel? http://mashable.com/2011/05/11/kung-fu-panda-2-youtube/

Dumbest Lawyer in Healthcare Marketing

Take a bold YouTube homepage-takeover advertisement like today’s “Flu Has Cooties” campaign then toss in this ridiculous disclaimer: “MedImmune has no control over the video content on the YouTube homepage.” What do you get? Shit. Without that insulting disclaimer, I might have sailed right onto the Flumist page, learned about a flu vaccine that comes…

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YouTube’s “Yahoo-Like” Homepage Makeover: More Ads, Professional Content

I’ve often said that you need to logout of your account to see what YouTube really looks like, since that’s what the majority of viewers are seeing. Let’s look at one of last year’s last Archive.org homepage screen shots of YouTube, and compare it to today’s. Some differences: 2008 has lots of white space and…

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When Will Online-Video Advertising Evolve to “Buddy System”?

This week we saw YouTube pushing its homepage advertising to a new level, selling Lionsgate (“The Haunting in Connecticut”) both the masthead and the standard right “box unit” for a new unit. It’s called the “cross talk” ad, which is a lovely name for it. It really does have a nice effect (from a marketer’s…

Madonna: Not a YouTube Virgin

Madonna aint acting like a virgin on YouTube. While other stars have fumbled in their attempts at the largest online-video site, Madonna gets 5 stars for her homepage video. Why? We imagine this video was featured by the advertising department (likely a paid promotion for her new album “Hard Candy”). And although YouTube editors may not…