Davis ThinkingIt all started with Freedom Rock. Since I saw those hippies extol the virtues of the good ‘ol days of war, protest and going to jail, I have been a huge fan of infomercials. Their sheer showmanship and exaggeration suck me in like so many Smart Mops and make me laugh with joy like so many women using Wrap, Snap & Go! hair rollers. An original type of long-form advertisement, the infomercial tells stories of wonder and amazement as intriguing and impossible to resist as ye olde carnival barker beckoning “Step right up! You won’t believe your eyes!” Sure, carny. Here’s my ha’penny. Show me what you’ve got.
We’ve seen a new development around the tradition of shocking internet memes.
Many a geek can tell you the story of the huge music and video collection they used to have. Yes, used to have.
{self}Amazon’s Beedle the Bard idea illustrates four criteria any company could use to brainstorm and evaluate content strategy ideas.{/self}
Never underestimate the power of an agency creative team to sweep in on a successful Internet phenomenon and whore the idea out to a client. So it goes with Kohler—the bold toiletsmiths of tomorrow. Taking a cue from the wildly successful Blendtec “Will it Blend?” series of catchy YouTube videos, Kohler has plunged the depths of their creatives to come up with JosPlumbing.com.
I recently received a forwarded e-mail containing this YouTube video. Cute, huh? Those penguins really know how to get jiggy with it. After watching the penguins pop and lock, I went to YouTube to see if there were any other versions of this cuteness and to my surprise found hundreds of videos of cartoons edited as music videos for rap songs, including:
Small publishers taking it on the chin as they deal with OCR challenges
The YouTube One Channel, as it's called, gives users the ability to slap a big header (called Channel Art) on the top of their channels and to have a video trailer which starts playing for all visitors who aren't yet subscribed to the channel.
With ever-increasing YouTube lunch breaks and Vimeo dinner dates, online video is becoming a constant companion--one that every brand is rushing to take advantage of. Follow these five tips so you don't turn off would-be viewers.
The 2012 Olympics in London are being touted by some as the world’s “first social Games.” While some question just how social they’ll actually be, there’s no doubt that networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube will play an unprecedented role in how information is disseminated from London, and how the global sports conversation is driven during July and August. Why the big shift? It’s simple: Four years is an eternity in Internet time and since the last Summer Olympics in 2008, social media has exploded.
Eager to define itself as a major entertainment player, YouTube is exploring charging subscriptions for cable content as it has already pledged $100 million to create a slew of premium channels.
72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. In 2011, YouTube had more than 1 trillion video views, which is 140 views for every person on the planet. Among all the hours of uploads and billions of views, nonprofits, educators, and activists have a strong presence on YouTube. “Nonprofits and activism” and “Education” are among the fastest growing categories on YouTube.
Siri is about to get one-upped by Google. The company on Wednesday unveiled a long-rumored concept called "Project Glass," which takes all the functionality of a smartphone and places it into a wearable device that resembles eyeglasses. The see-through lens could display everything from text messages to maps to reminders.
Brand mascots are rebounding as marketers redeploy old characters in new ways, create fresh ones from scratch and use digital media to spin out rich storylines not possible in the past, when critters and cartoon characters were pretty much confined to TV. While it might be too early to declare a full-fledged mascot revival, brand characters are undoubtedly regaining attention.
There’s a new movement underway. If you haven’t come across Pinterest yet, you soon will do. It’s a new virtual pinboard site that everyone’s talking about. It allows you to easily share visual things you’ve discovered online with your followers. You simply browse the web, spot something that inspires you and ‘pin’ it onto one of your boards. It’s as simple as that.
Darling social media site Pinterest is taking heat after being revealed to have made a practice of embedding tracking code into links users post on their “boards” to generate revenue.
Because you work in advertising or media, a little more is expected of you when it comes to Super Bowl advertising knowledge. It's not enough to mindlessly chuckle along with the masses at the CareerBuilder monkeys or Volkswagen's body-image-obsessed canine. You need to be able drop some serious knowledge on this, advertising's biggest day, whilst juggling a microbrew and a plate of nachos.
It was a move many saw coming, eventually. Turns out, eventually was Tuesday. That's the day Google amended its user privacy policy to begin sharing data collected from users across all of its services, including Gmail, Google+, YouTube and even Android. The changes start March 1. There is no opt-out for users. There is also no opt-out of the PR nightmare Google's brand is about to weather.
The acquisition of Twitter by Google is the ultimate strategic buyout. We know that Twitter turned down a $10 billion buyout offer from Google sometime in early 2011. There have also been other overtures made over the past several years by Google, Facebook and Microsoft. Surprisingly, Twitter is still independent. Why hasn’t Google paid up with all of that cash on its balance sheet? How could Twitter turn down $10 billion when the company isn’t worth anywhere near that based on earnings or even projected earnings (1999 style)?
After months of speculation with almost no official confirmation, YouTube has finally announced its long-awaited channel strategy in a post to the company’s blog late Friday evening. The announcement falls in line with what had previously been reported in the press: namely that YouTube will be expanding its lineup of channels to include new offerings from a variety of partners, including well-known personalities and brands in the Hollywood, music, news, and sports worlds.
Have you met Maru? No? Maru is a cat. A cute cat. Is there anything special about Maru, apart from the cuteness, which, if we’re honest, he has in common with quite a few other cats? Maru is just a cat. But he’s also more than just a cat. Maru is a bellwether of the state of the culture. Maru is a meme.
Despite online video and commercial-skipping DVRs, companies still spend 38 percent of their advertising budgets on television ads and just 1 percent on online video. YouTube is trying to change that.
If we're headed into a second-dip of the recession, no one told Google. The company turned in a 33% surge in revenue in the third quarter on big increases in search, display, and increasingly, mobile advertising.
Over the last decade, American culture has been overtaken by a curious, overwhelming sense of nostalgia. Everywhere you look, there seems to be some new form of revivalism going on. The charts are dominated by old-school-sounding acts like Adele and Mumford & Sons. The summer concert schedule is dominated by reunion tours. TV shows like VH1's "I Love the 90s" allow us to endlessly rehash the catchphrases of the recent past. And, thanks to YouTube and iTunes, new forms of music and pop culture are facing increasing competition from the ever-more-accessible catalog of older acts.
I have been spending time on Google+ since its launch, and though people on Google+ are talking a lot about Google+ (isn't that breaking the first rule of fight club?) every day I begin to see its potential take it into different directions – not based upon the platform itself, but rather, based upon its interoperability with Google's other properties. Seamless YouTube video integration. Real-time photo sharing via Google Photos. Music library streaming via Google Music. Document sharing. Connections via Google Talk. Surely, more features will be rolled out over the coming weeks to millions of users still trying to figure out the purpose of the platform. And that's the beauty of platforms – the users get to figure out how they are ultimately used, and shape their evolution.
Google Inc. is working on a major overhaul of YouTube as it tries to position itself for the rise of televisions that let people watch online video in their living rooms, according to people familiar with the matter. YouTube is looking to compete with broadcast and cable television, some of these people said, a goal that requires it to entice users to stay on the website longer, and to convince advertisers that it will reach desirable consumers.
In an uncharted world of boundless data, information designers are our new navigators. They are computer scientists, statisticians, graphic designers, producers and cartographers who map entire oceans of data and turn them into innovative visual displays, like rich graphs and charts, that help both companies and consumers cut through the clutter. These gurus of visual analytics are making interactive data synonymous with attractive data.
Much is being written about the impact that new communication technologies and channels (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) have on traditional marketing. The deeper question is: Will these new communication channels actually force material changes not just in the way companies market their products but in the strategies and operations they use to develop and build those products as well? In my view, the answer is an emphatic yes. It's another instance of the proverbial medium that changes the content.
GE, known for aircraft engines, wind turbines, refrigerators, NBC Universal, "bringing good things to light" and all that is known for offering serious ad messages for serious people. So why, then, is GE on YouTube working with DeStorm, iJustine, Sexyphil, Shaycarl, Smosh and 10 other "cewebrities" to get their "Tag Your Green" message out? Well, kids grow up and GE wants the brand to be considered part of the solution.
Today, music video site Vevo and S-Curve Records are teaming up to introduce a new artist via a very cool piece of technology: a choose-your-own adventure music video.
When Robert Wagstaff came up with the idea for a tongue brush to cure bad breath, he was sure he had a best seller. But a decade later, after dozens of pitches to dentists and retailers and a $50,000 TV infomercial, he had a dud. That all changed last year, when he posted a funny video about bad breath that advertised the tongue cleaner, called Orabrush, on YouTube.
Google, the online search ad giant that rarely advertises, has decided it needs to advertise the fact that it is in the online display advertising business. And if that is not enough advertising about advertising, it has picked one of the most crowded advertising venues to get the message out — Times Square.
Back in 2006, Mentos became an early leader among brands in social media when it capitalized on two performance artists posting videos of what happens when you put the candy in Diet Coke. (Explosions.) After the resulting YouTube viral phenomenon, Mentos embraced the creators and rode a wave of viral buzz while Coke issued a dour statement that it wasn't amused. Fast-forward to 2010. Coke now ranks as the third most popular brand on Facebook with 11.3 million fans. Mentos, as of March, had only 10,000 fans. But then its agency, Isobar, in an effort to play catch-up, paired a two-for-one offer with a pricey reach block on Facebook -- it can cost over $500,000 to reach every Facebook user for a day -- and Mentos saw its number of fans grow to 120,000 in a single day. Brands that are only now establishing themselves on Facebook are playing a desperate game of catch-up.
Google and Verizon, two leading players in Internet service and content, are nearing an agreement that could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content’s creators are willing to pay for the privilege. The charges could be paid by companies, like YouTube, owned by Google, for example, to Verizon, one of the nation’s leading Internet service providers, to ensure that its content received priority as it made its way to consumers. The agreement could eventually lead to higher charges for Internet users.
Old Spice has made history, dominating YouTube last week with 8 of the 11 most-watched videos on Friday and racking up tens of millions of views. Its "Smell Like a Man" campaign, in which its spokesmodel quickly shot mostly unscripted and hilariously funny replies to nearly 200 online inquiries (including some from famous people). It prompted numerous copycat videos and got covered by just about every news outlet in America. Now what?
As customers make or break brands online, companies rush to hire social media directors…and figure out what they do.
Sometimes Google takes a break from its mission of organizing all the world's information and decides to embark upon an artsy project that encapsulates...organizing all the world's information. Late on Tuesday, the search giant posted an entry to the Official Google Blog announcing the creation of "Life In A Day," a film project that solicits video submissions from YouTube users around the world--the criteria is that they must capture some kind of moment filmed on July 24.
Lady Gaga has given a boost to Virgin Mobile and Miracle Whip via her video hit, Telephone, which has already been viewed 63 million times on YouTube. There’s nothing new to product placements like these – but what is new in this growing trend is the prominent positioning of brands in a clear bid for additional revenue.
Not long ago, I was presenting along with some folks to the senior executive team at a large division of a massive insurance company. I had the great pleasure of listening to Eileen Naughton of YouTube, when she referred to Google as the operating system for search, Facebook as the operating system for social, Twitter as the operating system for real time and YouTube as the operating system for video. I found her characterization of the services fascinating and useful.
MTV will soon start to sell ads for music videos owned by Warner Music Group, the companies announced on Wednesday. MTV will have exclusive rights to Warner Music's video ad inventory, Warner said in a statement. The move comes less than a year since Warner signed a similar agreement with Outrigger Media. Rumors began circulating last week that Warner Music was shopping for a new means to sell ads. A music industry source said that Warner Music had spoken to music video portal Vevo about the possibility of that service selling Warner's ads.
The World Cup has long been a social experience for fans around the world who cheer their teams on at games, bars and other public gatherings. This year, brands are betting on a different kind of social to connect with fans in ways unimaginable just four years ago, when the last Word Cup was held. Coca-Cola, Nike and Anheuser-Busch are just some of the brands that have made YouTube an important component of their World Cup ad campaigns. Others, like Visa, have added Facebook to their efforts, while still others, including Microsoft, are tapping into the still-emerging field of location-based services.
Today Google is releasing new tools for politicians using YouTube and Google. The YouTube You Choose 2010 Campaign Toolkit and the Google Campaign Toolkit are both designed to help political candidates better deliver their messages to their audiences. With YouChoose 2010, federal and state candidates who want to leverage YouTube in their campaigns can apply to have their own YouTube Politician channel. The political offering supports branding, longer videos, custom thumbnails, and includes Google Moderator and YouTube Insight for video analytics.
YouTube is looking to ramp up engagement between viewers and content creators through the integration of Google Moderator, the search giant’s crowdsourcing and feedback product. Google Moderator, which launched in 2008, is one of the company’s lesser-known products. It allows a person to manage feedback and questions from large groups of people. Users submit their suggestions or questions via Moderator, and can then vote specific questions or suggestions up or down to bring the best ideas to the top.
Google Inc. will make an ambitious bid to extend its reach into the living room when it debuts its Internet television software this week. Through a joint initiative with other prominent technology and consumer electronics companies, the Web search giant is expected to showcase technology that TV viewers can use to flip seamlessly among familiar shows, YouTube videos and home videos on their sets.
YouTube has just introduced a new privacy option for videos uploaded to the site, Unlisted Videos. The new option lets users post videos to the site and mark them as “unlisted.” Essentially Unlisted Videos are private videos that anyone can view if, and only if, they have access to the video URL. These videos will not show up on public pages, in search results or on user channels. There’s no limit on the amount of people of who can view the video and anyone can see it, regardless of whether or not they have a YouTubeaccount.
There was a time when YouTube was considered a wild-wild west of content — a place where marketers shied away from uploading their commercials, let alone building a branded channel. But these days, YouTube has become more mini-van than stagecoach. From Toyota Sienna’s high-profile television commercials urging consumers to visit their YouTube channel, to (what might be considered the anti-minivan) Harley Davidson’s fan-centric YouTube universe, there has been a noticeable shift in corporate adoption of the platform. Whether your brand already has a YouTube channel that’s in need of a facelift, or if you’re interested in developing one from scratch, this article will provide some practical tips and valuable tricks to help you kick-start the process.
Magazines have tried to bring their pages to life with “snappable” icons that serve up ad offers or extra editorial content to mobile users, but reader response is often low. Entertainment Weekly is hoping to do better with its upcoming summer movie preview issue, though. The April 23 issue will let readers view the trailers of 20 films by snapping or scanning a 2-D Microsoft bar code with a smartphone. They’ll then be directed to YouTube, where the trailers reside. Five advertisers, including HBO, Absolut and Honda, are running snappable ads in the issue.
Some of Europe’s leading telecoms groups are squaring up for a fight with Google over what they claim is the free ride enjoyed by the technology company’s YouTube video-sharing service. Telefónica, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom all said Google should start paying them for carrying bandwidth-hungry content such as YouTube video over their networks.
YouTube began pushing out the site's redesign Wednesday after testing the format since January. The cleaner, stripped-down version, which comes after a year of planning, more closely resembles the style and design of pages from parent company Google. The changes might seem subtle at first, but that's only because the site sports a cleaner look. Metrics from preliminary tests that YouTube ran earlier this year suggest that overall video playbacks with the redesign rose 6%. People stay on the site 7% longer to view and comment longer. The cleaner design also helps pages load faster.
Retailers have always been drawn to celebrities as vehicles for luring in teens and fashion minded consumers through their doors. This week Kmart announced a new line with Selena Gomez and Macy's release plans for a fashion line with Madonna and her teen daughter Lourdes. But most of the mass retailers have been slow to pick up and embrace the new breed of micro-celebrities and tech-savvy fashionistas. From teen fashion bloggers to YouTube "haul" stars to girls taking camera phone pics of outfits from the dressing rooms and sending to friends, technology is playing a huge role in fashion, and retailers need to start tuning in.
According to ForeSee Results’ 2010 Social Media Study, YouTube is the second most powerful social network for consumer engagement. This critical component of the social web remains vital for causes, associations and government organizations. Non-profits have been engaging with YouTube for years, but it’s still important to have a specific online video strategy. The following five tips can help organizations maximize their YouTube offering for the most impact.
The U.S. District Court has just made public the documentation in the controversial Viacom vs. YouTube case. It's a goldmine of data, most of which is really dirty mud-slinging by Viacom, based on internal emails from YouTube's past. Google's been quick off the mark to react to the unsealing of the court documents, and has a blog post defending its position and decrying Viacom's tactics already. Viacom's argument, it says, is based on misconstruing "isolated lines from a handful of emails" from way back in YouTube's history, and spinning this information into the suggestion that YouTube was "founded with bad intentions." The post also alleges that Viacom "secretly uploaded its content to YouTube," and then roughed up the footage to make it appear to have been leaked.
TiVo, the Silicon Valley pioneer of digital video recorders, is once again trying to get consumers to pay for another set-top box that combines traditional television programming with a vast array of content from the Web.
While the so-called "Twitter effect" and its impact on a movie's box office remains enigmatic at best for most studios, Lionsgate is hoping its latest social-media marketing milestone will put them one step closer to a solution. Lionsgate will become the first advertiser to sync up its sponsored brand pages on YouTube, Facebook and MySpace under one platform to promote its upcoming comic-book movie "Kick-Ass," out April 16.
A useful survey from global PR firm Burson-Marsteller this week looks at the ways in which the Global Fortune 100 companies are using social media. The tools they are using and how they are developing a social media strategy. The survey looked at 100 firms in the US, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America and examined how these firms are using social media.
Google has announced plans to add social media-esque updates to its Gmail program. Currently, Gmail users can update their availability through the Gmail chat feature, but it simply consists of “available” or “busy” settings, along with the ability to add a custom message.
Google has launched a series of videos on its official Nexus One YouTube channel, documenting various details on how one of the world’s best Android phones was created.
SlideShare, the “YouTube for presentations,” has been steadily ramping up its offerings for business users. Last year, the startup unveiled two premium services for businesses, LeadShare and AdShare. SlideShare lets anyone share presentations and also serves as a social discovery platform for users to find relevant content and connect with other members who share similar interests. Today, the startup is launching another business-friendly offering, branded channels.
By the measures of the movie rental market, YouTube’s first foray into the business of charging users to stream full length feature films was hardly a runaway success. YouTube said last month that it would dip its toes into the digital movie rental business with five independent films tied to the Sundance Film Festival. The company said the five films, which were available for 10 days, received a combined 2,684 views.
Who would have thought we'd ever miss the days of the Budweiser talking frogs? The main advertising buzz around this year's Super Bowl has been CBS' inability to sell discounted time and the controversial advertisers who are taking advantage of the cheap rates. In the good old days of, say, five years ago, the Super Bowl meant three things to its 90 million viewers: football, partying and ads. At 44, the Game is beginning to show its middle-age paunch, with the media focusing on its problems, not its successes. Sounds more AARP than MTV!
YouTube is the world's No. 2 search engine -- behind only its parent company's search engine, Google.com -- but does that mean it can monetize like one? The difference could decide whether YouTube becomes a mildly profitable media business based on home-page ads and video campaigns, or if it can scale like Google search, tapping a world of small advertisers using self-serve tools to bid on keywords.
YouTube is on a roll. Last night, the world’s largest video site rolled out HTML5 support, its first video rentals, and even a nifty music feature called Disco. Today, it’s making an even bigger change: the site is launching a new ‘Watch’ page, stripping it down to its most key elements and ensuring that nothing is drawing your attention away from the video on the screen. To most people, this Watch page is really the heart of the YouTube experience — it’s where you view clips and browse for the next thing you want to watch, so any significant changes are a big deal. The new streamlined page is opt-in for now, and you can activate it here.
YouTube made its long-awaited entry on Wednesday into the business of online movie rentals. But do not expect to be able to stream to your PC the latest Hollywood blockbuster or even a flick from a studio’s dusty catalog of classics. YouTube, which is owned by Google, is introducing its rental service with just five movies, all from independent filmmakers.
Within a week of going live on YouTube, Coca-Cola's new "Happiness Machine" video -- the brand's first global video produced exclusively for viral distribution, with no use in TV ads -- has already racked up more than 645,000 views. Coke set up a special vending machine on a real college campus and rolled footage of students' surprised and delighted reactions as the machine proceeded to dispense everything from free bottles of Coke to flowers, a whole pizza, a six-foot sub and balloon animals.
Procter & Gamble is taking a nontraditional tack to help Tide, the best-selling detergent in America, fend off challenges from lower-priced rivals as strapped consumers continue to ponder practically every purchase. An image campaign for Tide, now under way, eschews the brand’s long-time pitches celebrating its ability to get clothes clean. The most recent such ads, which began appearing in 2007, carried the theme “Tide knows fabrics best.”
YouTube, the video site owned by Google, is about 10 times more popular than its nearest competitor. But Hunter Walk still thinks of it as an underdog. For Mr. Walk, director of product management at YouTube, the competition is not other Web sites: it’s TV.
Media companies would be better off handing their online video activities to Google’s YouTube video-sharing site than pursuing home-grown efforts such as Hulu.com and the US cable industry’s TV Everywhere initiative, according to senior Google executives.
Marketing may resemble warfare from time to time, but if you play by the rules of war -- dividing commerce into winners and losers -- you will eventually be defeated. The relationships which are the true foundation of marketing have always been consensual. Misunderstand this in this, the Age of Limitless Choices, and you're cooked.
One of YouTube's greatest challenges with advertisers has been the notion that it's a repository for clips of dogs riding skateboards. But one marketer, at least, sees this as a plus. American Apparel has been targeting ads to over 100 videos of pets, including a clip of a skateboarding canine, to promote its line of dog clothing. The Los Angeles-based brand chose the videos based on suggestions from employees. "It would be hard to do an advertisement on the back page of LA Weekly or a fashion magazine for the dog T-shirt," noted Ryan Holiday, a Web marketing executive at American Apparel.
‘Consumer-created content’ is a red-hot topic at the moment. I've posted on it here. According to many experts we must give up control of brands and invite consumers into the driving seat. Consumers will come up with great ideas of their own, and this in turn will generate interest in the brand online. We have to stop taking at consumers, and start ‘a conversation’.
Among the seasonal songs that radio stations play before Christmas is the 1949 pop hit “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” A retailer is introducing commercials that reminds shoppers just how cold, wet and uncomfortable it can get outside -- and just how enjoyable that can turn out to be. The commercials are the first that the retailer, REI, has ever run on television. They are part of a holiday campaign that also includes radio commercials; print and online ads; direct marketing; e-mail messages; signs in stores; presences on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube; search-engine marketing; and ads on the REI Web site.
YouTube, which is already trying out the movie rental business, wants to get into TV, too. Google's video site has been trying to convince the TV industry to let it stream individual shows for a fee, multiple sources tell me. YouTube already lets users watch a smattering of TV shows for free, with advertising. Now it envisions something similar to what Apple and Amazon already offer: First-run shows, without commercials, for $1.99 an episode, available the day after they air on broadcast or cable.
Online video continues to capture the attention of producers and viewers, with the market as well as industry leaders, leading us into a more pervasive form of video entertainment, communication and education. With YouTube quickly transforming from a user-generated video network into an invaluable repository for content, the associated behavior for creating, uploading, discovering, and watching online videos is evolving. What many have yet to realize are the effects YouTube has aroused. It is where many online experiences begin and end.
YouTube has signed up NPR, Politico, The Huffington Post and The San Francisco Chronicle for YouTube Direct, a new method for managing video submissions from readers. The new feature, to be formally introduced on Tuesday, is a tool to make it easy for YouTube users to submit clips that news media companies can choose to highlight. The site plans to sign up other media partners. “We’re trying to connect media organizations with citizen reporters on YouTube,” said Steve Grove, the Web site’s head of news and politics. With the tool, YouTube, a unit of Google, seeks to further portray itself as an ally of media companies and other news gatherers.
You may not have noticed it, but YouTube is evolving. Unlike sites like Facebook, where even a subtle change in a header’s rounding gets noticed, YouTube has so much going on that it’s often easy to miss one of the site’s new features. But they’re there, and more are coming soon. Earlier this week the YouTube team invited me over to talk about how the video portal is approaching its role as an inherently social site, and what it’s doing to help surface videos that users will find interesting from the oceans of content that’s uploaded every day. YouTube PM Brian Glick describes YouTube’s social trends with three F’s: Find, Follow, and Feed.
Many consumers may still think of Kodak as mainly an enabler of still images. But the company is becoming deeply involved in the Web's most popular site for moving pictures: YouTube. Kodak has launched a branded YouTube channel, ForMom, featuring user-generated testimonials from real moms on topics ranging from parenting and cooking to health, beauty and exercise. "It's a Web site that has a lot of different content for mothers," says Mike Mayfield, Kodak's marketing manager for branding and content. "We've created some videos for that Web site, sort of like mommy how-to videos. This is just another way we're reaching deep into YouTube to explore different parts of the brand."
Viral marketing — the technique of wrangling word-of-mouth to create a buzz around your product or idea — has been a powerful tool since the first caveman started the first rumor. Spreading the word person to person is the stuff of Avon dreams — and Bernie Madoff nightmares. And it requires the confidence to lose control of the message by setting it adrift. The modern age of viral marketing began in the mid 1990s with (of all things) a cultish, childish cable TV show that defined “guilty pleasure” way before Beavis and Butthead. The producers of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (the premise of MST3K is almost too ridiculous to articulate) knew immediately they had something viable, new and remarkable, and that their best marketers were the show’s smallish but loyal audience. In those dark days before streaming media, they encouraged the show’s viewers to videotape their copyrighted shows, and pass them along to friends — creating that sought after word-of-mouth buzz.
A U.K. firm is set to launch a camera to capture every moment of a person's life. While you may reel at the privacy implications, I'd wager that the high price of not capturing and sharing every moment of our lives will soon dwarf the cost to our privacy.
Fact: Most people never click on web ads. And that poses a problem for marketers who want to know if their display ads are working. Google, though, is starting to provide an answer. In a bid to build a brand-advertising business, the search giant is using its vast trove of data culled from search queries and web traffic to measure the effectiveness of brand advertising. The system, called Campaign Insights, has been in beta test in the past year with marketers like PayPal and Simplexity and beginning today, the company will start offering it to its bigger advertisers in the U.S. and U.K. Ultimately, like Google Analytics, Google will offer it to all of its display advertisers for free.
Television is going cross-platform. Video content is becoming unshackled from the broadcast transmission towers, terrestrial coaxial cable plant and the living room television sets of old. While the business models for Web-distributed video are far from developed and proven, video content creators and producers can now use the Internet to deliver their programming directly to the vast majority of U.S. households. This trend is already impacting the television industry in a significant and disruptive way, and its effect is intensifying. Many companies are now taking steps to try to control their destiny in a future where TV can be consumed "everywhere," on a multitude of different and widely distributed devices and platforms. So today, I am going to discuss my thoughts on how this future might play out -- who might find the elusive business model for profitable cross-platform video scale, and who might not.
One of the wisest bits of advice I've gotten in my advertising career came from an old creative director who once noted that "there's a reason 'America's Funniest Home Videos' is a top-10 show." His point, which predated You Tube's sneezing pandas and dancing babies by at least 10 years, was that the most popular entertainment is often the safest. Which doesn't make it bad or wrong or awful. It's just not cutting edge. It's something to keep in mind as we move deeper into a world of democratized content, one where consumers are their own editors and make the call as to what gets passed on.
Google Inc., a champion of the belief that advertising should be less about art and more about science, is embracing its inner creative side. As it searches for new growth, the company in recent months has focused more on creating custom ad campaigns spanning multiple Google services for big spenders including Hewlett-Packard Co. and Ford Motor Co. Since the summer, Google has helped J.C. Penney Co. and PepsiCo Inc.'s Quaker Oats unit launch ad campaigns on YouTube and on some of the hundreds of thousands of sites across which Google sells display ads, along with search ads.
When naming products, it’s always prudent to investigate potential online marketing challenges and pitfalls before launch. Failure to do so may preemptively damage your marketing team’s ability to cast an appropriate branding net. Traditionally due diligence surrounding the naming process involved trademark search, category and creative considerations. Now that’s no longer enough. Crucial naming decisions must also include rigorous SEO, social, reputation and paid search analysis. Here’s a checklist of factors to take into consideration to assure your product name is search-friendly from the outset.
In April, when Domino’s suddenly had to grapple with the fact that a YouTube video of a couple of employees doing disgusting things with the company’s food was circulating rapidly across the Web, it was bad for the pizza chain’s business. But Domino’s problem turned out to be good for business for a fast-growing segment: companies that track Web chatter. Text mining, which is already used by some Wall Street traders to track issues that could affect stock prices, is now employed by many top marketers, including Cisco, Hormel, Microsoft and Intuit, as a sort of blunt instrument to gauge online sentiment about a brand.
PSFK recently covered what the internet is killing, and this video we came across shows through various statistics how the internet is changing our lives. For example, the average American teenager sends an average of 2,272 text messages every month and more video was uploaded to YouTube in the last 2 months than if ABC, NBC and CBS had been airing new content 24/7/365 since 1948, when ABC first starting broadcasting. The cleanly presented video runs through some shocking statistics about technology and the dramatic shift of our society.
I was talking with a senior marketer at one of the most famous brands in the world last week. She said, "executives keep coming to me with stuff they find on the internet, stuff they find on YouTube about us, and say, 'take it down!' Of course, I have to explain that I can't take it down. No one can." If your brand has any traction at all, people are talking about you. Of course, they've always talked about you, but now they're doing it in writing, in video and in public. Today, Squidoo (a company I founded) is launching Brands in Public.
AT&T knows its iPhone-burdened network has become a public relations mess, with a number of major news outlets recently recounting how heavy iPhone use has resulted in spotty service. But the No. 2 U.S. wireless carrier's latest effort -- meant to address its network and explain why it took so long to turn on a long-awaited multimedia message service for Apple's iPhone -- isn't helping.
Ford is into the eighth month of its Fiesta Movement social-media program to promote the eponymous car from Europe by letting 100 young social-media-savvy Americans drive the vehicles for several months. Each month, Ford has been assigning tasks to the "Agents" involving lots of driving and just as much blogging, Twittering, YouTubing and Flickring. This month, they will be sent to do things likely to generate more attention than what they have previously done, including training with U.S. Navy SEALS, learning to cook with insects, and going hiking in the Rockies.
The first video on YouTube was uploaded at 8:27 p.m. on Saturday, April 23, 2005. It’s called “Me at the Zoo,” and it features the musings of Jawed Karim, one of the site’s founders, as elephants nose around in hay behind him. The video has a certain pleasing obviousness. “Here we are in front of the, uh, elephants,” Karim says. “They have really, really, really long” — suspense, but no double entendre — “trunks.” Karim turns to face the elephants as if to confirm his observation. Waits a beat. Readdresses the camera. “And that’s pretty much all there is to say.” The video is 19 seconds long.
"We're sorry." That's what you say when a large number of your customers are upset with you. AT&T customers have been complaining for months about dropped calls, spotty service, delayed text and voice messages and slow download speeds for the iPhone. So, AT&T released this video on YouTube.
Google Inc.'s YouTube is in discussions with major movie studios about streaming movies on a rental basis, a test of whether the online video giant can persuade its millions of users to pay for premium content. For Hollywood, the move could represent a bold attempt to offset its dwindling DVD sales with online revenue.
YouTube is looking to turn those bolts-from-the-blue viral videos from cash drain into advertising gold. The video-sharing site, under pressure from parent Google to start turning a profit, today began placing ads on the kind of one-off viral hits -- mostly uploaded by the amateurs that made the site famous -- that, until now, haven't had advertising.
On the morning of April 15, 2009, everything looked bright for Domino’s Pizza. The company’s share price had risen overnight, the group’s expansion plan was on track, and the brand was as strong as ever. But at 3:32 pm that very afternoon, the first text messages began beeping their arrival on the CEO’s mobile phone. They kept coming – one after the next, after the next. The phone’s inbox maxed out. The voicemail message light was blinking in overdrive, and soon filled to capacity.
By now, we’re all pretty familiar with how digital music works: People get sued, content gets deleted, and start-ups go bankrupt. YouTube’s ContentID marks a welcome change from that routine by freeing people to infringe copyright while generally keeping copyright holders happy. In an area known for bitter lawsuits and hastily issued “take down” notices, this is that rarest of birds: a feel-good digital music story.
Google Inc., which has struggled for nearly three years to turn YouTube into an advertising platform, is aggressively pushing new ad formats and ramping up deals with media companies for the online video site.
Spreading a branded video message on the internet isn't alchemy; it's common sense. Trust me, I've seen hundreds -- both good and bad. Here are five things that we're seeing work today to "hit to spread."
With its ability to collect articles and sell advertisements against them, Google has already become a huge force in the news business — and the scourge of many newspapers. Now its subsidiary YouTube wants to do the same thing to local television. YouTube, which already boasts of being “the biggest news platform in the world,” has created a News Near You feature that senses a user’s location and serves up a list of relevant videos. In time, it could essentially engineer a local newscast on the fly. It is already distributing hometown video from dozens of sources, and it wants to add thousands more.
Gene Munster, the analyst with Piper Jaffray, put a report out Thursday looking at the finances of YouTube, and he makes a suggestion that I haven’t seen before: Google should charge a “nominal fee” to people to upload videos to YouTube if the video isn’t appropriate for advertising.
When motion pictures were invented at the end of the 19th century, most films were shorter than a minute, because of the limitations of technology. A little more than a hundred years later when Web videos were introduced, they were also cut short, but for social as well as technical reasons.
Meet Simon, a laid-back groom who’s in way over his head in the world of wedding planning. And meet Rochelle, a budding bridezilla prone to shrieking meltdowns over flower arrangements. Watch these two head toward the Big Day, mockumentary style, and wackiness will no doubt ensue. That’s the premise of a new series called Road to the Altar from MWG Entertainment, a Los Angeles digital production house that has gathered Pier 1 Imports, iRobot and Panda Express as brand integration partners and got semi well-known actors like Jaleel White (Urkel from Family Matters) and Leyna Weber (of Days of Our Lives) as stars. But don’t look for the show on any of the broadcast or cable networks. It’s available via YouTube, Joost, Sling and various mobile platforms.
If information is power, the first step to gaining power is to get the right data. The Obama administration is a big proponent of opening up government data and making it digitally available. Today at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York City, the government’s new chief information officer Vivek Kundra announced USAspending.gov, a new site which launched today that tracks government spending with charts and lists ranking the largest government contractors (Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, etc.) and assistance recipients (Department of Healthcare Services, New York State Dept. of Health, Texas Health & Human Services Commission, etc.). There is also the Data.gov project, which is attempting to digitize government data and make it available in its raw form for citizens and companies to sift through.
Google would like YouTube to become profitable -- a tough task when it's providing free bandwidth and video storage for much of the world's videos, most of which have limited interest to advertisers. But providing all that bandwidth isn't as expensive and YouTube is far closer to break-even than previously thought, according to IT outsourcing firm RampRate.
YouTube has just enabled a new feature that allows users to directly share their recently uploaded videos to Facebook, Twitter, and Google Reader. This means you’ll be able to syndicate your newly uploaded content directly into your friends’ feeds. You can link your accounts on YouTube’s ‘Upload’ page.
Samsung, for the release of a new phone with a built-in high-def camera, made a YouTube video that tricked the eyes of the people who watched it and encouraged viewers to figure out how the trick was done. The video was filmed using the phone to follow the narrator around his apartment where he describes the camera’s high-def features, suggesting there will be subtle clues in the video that will be noticeable because of the picture quality.
As YouTube has grown into the preeminent video sharing service online, marketers have tried, with limited success, to broadcast themselves and to reach audiences with their messaging. And while individuals have used YouTube as a platform to step into the spotlight, most brands have been left behind in the shadows. Save for the occasional media-supported viral video blitz, or user generated contest, commercial success on YouTube has been elusive to the many brands that have tried to reach for that brass ring.
Justine Ezarik might not be a household name, but the 25-year-old has a cable TV-size audience. The only difference: Ezarik's audience is on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
Sunkist is using everything from break dancing grannies to basketball phenom "Baby Jordan" to show that it is "12 ounces of awesome." The new brand repositioning, which targets trend savvy teens and young adults, broke this week.
Bill Gates once derided open source advocates with the worst epithet a capitalist can muster. These folks, he said, were a "new modern-day sort of communists," a malevolent force bent on destroying the monopolistic incentive that helps support the American dream. Gates was wrong: Open source zealots are more likely to be libertarians than commie pinkos. Yet there is some truth to his allegation. The frantic global rush to connect everyone to everyone, all the time, is quietly giving rise to a revised version of socialism.
This week in social media has seen everything from Twitter revolts to Facebook scams. Twitter made big news with a change to its @replies system, Saturday Night Live created another classic clip and we featured a particularly trippy YouTube mashup.
Since its inception in 2005, YouTube has opened up online video to the masses. Its embedding and sharing features helped make thousands of viral of videos. Today, YouTube has over 100 million unique viewers every month for everything from cute kittens to university lectures. Innovation and change in the social media space occurs lightning fast, though. YouTube, once without rival, is feeling the heat from new competitors, primarily the fast-growing Hulu. Other innovations, like live streaming video, are also ratcheting up the online video stakes. So where exactly is online video headed? Let’s talk about the YouTube and Hulu models.
In the past, we've done Newbie's Guides for certain services, but we wanted to switch things up and really dig into a product's advanced features. Video-sharing site YouTube is the perfect service to start with because it's massively popular and incredibly simple to use, but also has a few powerful features that are tucked away. This guide is to help you learn how to use some of these advanced features and to serve as a simple reference page.
Why would Google take on Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla in the web-browser war and not try to win it? That question has been asked since Google ambled into the Safari-Explorer-Firefox derby last fall with its own entry called Chrome, but took a remarkably low-key approach to marketing it.
Music videos started life online as giveaways to win bands new fans — much as they did when MTV actually showed videos. But now, as the future of music sales seems dim, music labels see gold in what they used to handout for free. The change started about five years ago when labels began charging distributors for the right to show videos. Then the rise of YouTube brought enormous exposure for music videos online, but record labels claim YouTube’s payouts are skimpy.
Anomaly has introduced its latest foray into product development with the introduction of a cosmetics line backed by an unlikely YouTube star.
TV advertisers are finally discovering that YouTube + viral imagination = free media. The good news for you is that money is not a barrier, which means that marketers of any size can play. But the rules are different, as they always are online.
Social media is going to change the health care industry just as radically as it changed entertainment, finance, and publishing. I know this to be true not because of any insider info or the research backing Chuck Salter's Doctor of the Future story in this month's issue. I know it's true because out of all the panels and conferences I've attended in the last two years, the session with the most passionate, activated and engaged participants in it was titled "Social Media and Health Care."
Citizen journalism has become tightly integrated with many cable news programs, whether it’s simply soliciting the audience for tweets or more robust projects like CNN’s iReport or Fox News’ uReport. The latter is now getting on MySpace (also owned by Fox News parent company News Corp), giving the cable channel another big medium to get submissions from potential uReporters.
Sprite is hoping it has discovered the next pop sensation. In an effort to promote itself to teenagers, the Coca-Cola brand of lemon-lime soda is revving up its marketing engine to propel the career of British singer-songwriter Katie Vogel. It's doing so by underwriting the production of a new, interactive Web reality series on YouTube called "Green Eyed World," which will follow Ms. Vogel as she tries to make it big.
Only 24 hours ago Domino's was looking for a reasoned response to a web video showing two employees apparently defacing its food. The pizza chain had located the employees and was examining its legal options but was trying to stay below the radar. What a difference a day makes. After a blogosphere firestorm, the video went from 20,000 views on YouTube to 760,000 views, the errant employees were fired and warrants were issued for their arrest. Domino's has also posted a statement on its corporate website.
Volvo is promoting the Twitter feed for the 2010 Volvo XC60 crossover vehicle through the biggest ad placement YouTube has run to date.
User-generated content may have changed the Internet, but sites like YouTube are suffocating under the costs of storing it.
A couple of Domino's employees are suggesting that the chain's subs have a secret ingredient. In a video posted on YouTube last night, two youths identifying themselves as Kristy and Michael besmirch a pair of sub sandwiches and the pizza chain's reputation. Michael inserts pieces of cheese into his nose and waves pieces of salami behind his backside. Both the salami and the cheese are placed on the sandwiches. The video had gotten more than 21,000 YouTube views at press time.
Google's YouTube and Universal Music Group, the world's largest record label, are going into business together in a deal they hope will forge a future for ad-supported music.
YouTube, that incandescent tower of video Babel; monument to the sloughed-off detritus of our exponentially-exploding digital culture; a Technicolor cataract of skateboarding dogs, lip-synching college students, political punditry, and porn; has reached the zenith of its meteoric rise; and Icarus-like, wings melting; is spiraling back to earth. Despite massive growth, ubiquitous global brand awareness, presidential endorsement, and the world’s greatest repository of illegally-pirated video content, Google’s massive video folly is on life-support, and the prognosis is grave.
Auto makers must boost fuel economy under new government regulations, and a sure way to do that is promote small cars. But that poses a challenge for Detroit: How can the Big Three battle back in a market segment dominated by foreign rivals such as Toyota and Honda?
And now it's Axe's turn. It, too, is dipping into the Modernista! school of Web marketing with an "Axe Effect" site. Technically, it's not an un-site, but it follows the same theme set by Modernista! and subsequently imitated by Skittles: Let others define your brand.
Search giant Google announced it is closing down its AdSense video unit—which allows Web sites to show YouTube content and ads—a bit more than a year after the service was introduced.
I came across this video by Laura Ross in my Facebook. It seems that YouTube suspended her account for reasons unknown and unexplained to her. What follows is quite an interesting video about the nature of free speech, discourse, dissent, profanity, and the censorship of our voice.
Disney and YouTube are in the final stages of negotiations to put clips from ESPN, ABC and other Disney assets on YouTube, according to sources familiar with the situation. The two companies would share revenue, with Disney controlling the ad inventory; YouTube and Google could get some inventory to sell. As important, YouTube would refer back to ESPN.com, ABC.com and the other Disney sites. Disney declined comment; a YouTube spokesman said the company does not comment on rumor or speculation.
Sanyo Fisher is promoting its new digital camera by hiring the crème de la crème of YouTube video creators. Eight top YouTube creators made videos with the help of branded content firm Madison Road Entertainment. Each video was shot using -- and also features -- the Sanyo Dual Camera Xacti and shows off some of the high-definition device's attributes.
Johnson & Johnson is venturing into social media to back its eponymous baby- and body-care brands, putting considerable star power behind pushes this month and next on YouTube and MySpace.
Geico draws inspiration from YouTube in its latest campaign that pairs viral video stars with its popular ad icons like the Gecko.
The nation's top marketers are known for a lot of things, but here are two things they're not known for: turning over their brands willingly to the YouTube hoi polloi and, well, doing anything together.
What happens when people use your brand in unconventional ways? Sometimes you end up with the Diet Coke and Mentos experiments. Sometimes you get "How to Smoke Smarties."
The Blockbuster is dead, long live the blockbuster. At least that's what the technology omens are saying. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Blockbuster Video, whose shares are trading below $1, is seeking advice on how to file for bankruptcy. Blockbuster counters it's only trying to get help to restructure its debt.
It doesn’t matter if you’re on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr; your online personality is not only part of your overall brand, it becomes an interactive experience for you and your business. So, who is the face or voice of your brand and what do they share? It’s a very important decision in and of itself.
Google’s YouTube and the Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music label, are in advanced discussions over a licensing agreement that could lead to the creation of a premium site for music videos, according a person briefed on the talks.
The Obama-YouTube love affair is at its end…at least in its official role on whitehouse.gov. The Obama administration recently bailed on its embeddable YouTube videos and chose clips powered by Akamai, a web service hosted on local servers rather than those of Google. The administration cited concerns over privacy voiced by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Digital Democracy.
Machinima is so popular that it has inspired blogs, books, magazines, a YouTube network and even a film fest. But it's still likely to register as "Machini-wha?" with many marketers and consumers.
What? Is Battelle crazy? Hear me out. Think back when YouTube was growing like a weed, and Google snapped it up. Most folks (including me) saw this as Google "getting into the video business," and sure, that in fact was one part of the equation. But as we all know, making money from consumer driven video ain't a cakewalk, and hosting that video is really, really expensive. So why did Google really buy YouTube? My answer, which of course looks brilliant given it's 20/20 hindsight: YouTube was a massive search asset.
As we battle a global recession, corporations are looking for new ways to sell their products and engage their consumers. Many have turned to the Internet, with Social Media in particular, to market their goods. Let’s take a look at 10 companies that have done a phenomenal job of taking advantage of social media platforms.
Michael Adams doesn't claim to be the equal of famed Depression-era songwriters like Woody Guthrie. Still, the 39-year-old from Tucson, Ariz., aims to leave his musical mark on the current economic crisis. Editor of the nutrition-oriented Web site naturalnews.com, Mr. Adams says his personal outrage about all the federal funds being shoveled to crippled corporations prompted him to write a hip-hop song called "I Want My Bailout Money."
Last Sunday's Super Bowl might be nearly forgotten, but advertisers are still mulling the effectiveness of their pricey investments. YouTube has weighed in by crowning Doritos as the big winner with the video site's millions of visitors. The Pepsi snack brand had two spots crack the top-five tally in YouTube's Ad Blitz, a special section it created to showcase Super Bowl commercials.
The comments from my post crapping on the New York Times for buying remnant advertising are telling. Lots of people agree that advertising is “broken.” They just don’t know what they want to do next. Do you?
President Barack Obama's use of YouTube has drawn fire from the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is questioning whether it poses a threat to people's online privacy.
Well, now we know one customer who's excited by Google's new ad possibilities at YouTube: Google.
The explosion of all types of video content on YouTube and other sites is quickly transforming online video from a medium strictly for entertainment and news into one that is also a reference tool. As a result, video search, on YouTube and across other sites, is rapidly morphing into a new entry point into the Web, one that could rival mainstream search for many types of queries.
Here in Los Angeles, the city rang in the New Year by closing down all of its public access TV studios, signaling an end to homegrown, grass roots production of eclectic and often monumentally weird alternative programming. Cities in Michigan, Illinois and Indiana are also shutting down facilities, and if the amount of locally-based “save public access” postings on the Internet are any indication, the trend is continuing.
Two years ago, a YouTube member named MadV put up a short, cryptic video. He held his hand up to the camera, showing what he'd written on his palm: "One World." Within a few days, hundreds of YouTube users had posted videos displaying their own scrawled messages. DIY tools for shooting, editing, and broadcasting video aren't just changing who uses the medium. They're changing how we use it.
A generation after the launch of MTV, major record labels are hoping to revive the music video business online by creating a single digital destination for their artists’ output.
One year after YouTube, the online video powerhouse, invited members to become “partners” and added advertising to their videos, the most successful users are earning six-figure incomes from the Web site.
The latest online video audience numbers, released today by ComScore, are sort of a good news/bad news scenario for Google.
Plentitube aspires to be the middleman for the YouTube generation, helping online content creators find a way to pull in revenue.
YouTube CMO Chris Di Cesare, speaks about the genesis of its upcoming live event, how its advertisers were woven in, and what it has in store for marketers moving forward.
Glowing press reviews of NBC Universal and News Corp's joint-venture Internet video Web site, Hulu.com, now promise even better news. With some $70 million in total revenues -- virtually all advertising revenues -- Hulu's numbers are getting close to, dare we say, YouTube.
For many viewers, the 2008 election has become a kind of hybrid in which the dividing line between online and off, broadcast and cable, pop culture and civic culture, has been all but obliterated.
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