Mashable article on video and SEO really struck a chord with me http://mashable.com/2010/02/01/web-video-seo/
We have been seeing huge interest in our affiliate video product recently launched with our partners at buy.at. This interest has been driven in main by our ability to add affiliate links to hotspots within the video but also because of the impact video is having on search results. I expect to see a lot more on this in the coming months
In the brave new world of online advertising we are able to break convention to deliver great pieces of creative that our target audiences actually want to see and enjoy, so much so that they will seek them out and then share them. This is a world apart from our TV brethren for whom the 30 second rule is indeed golden, if you haven’t sold what you’re selling in 30 seconds then you may as well give up the ghost and go and print something in a newspaper or something even more archaic.
Being free from the old rules means that you can make creative like this piece from Grey London for Toshiba
700,000 people have opted to watch the clip it lasts over a minute and gets across brilliantly the fact that Toshiba are doing some pretty wondrous things with technology. It is a piece of creative that is perfectly suited for online and the 100,000 people who have watched the ‘making of’ video in all of its glory (over 3minutes) probably agree.
Does this mean that everybody should now stop making 30 second spots for TV and now concentrate on making multi-minute masterpieces? No. Of course not, there are still billions of pounds being spent on TV advertising every year and for good reason – it works.
But what happens when that 30 seconds of cinematic glory is re-used online? More often than not it attracts 35 views from the advertiser’s marketing team and then gathers digital dust on the shelf and is never talked about again. The received wisdom is that you simply shouldn’t re-use a TV ad online because it doesn’t work and marks out your advertising as passé. Personally – I think that it is absolutely fine to get the most out of your hard work as long as you make it work for online!.
At Coull we specialise in adding interactivity to a video, making a TV ad as online friendly as possible makes it work harder for you and our recent work for TDC seems to hold this up. Their series of naturist advertisements are generating almost as many interactions as views and that is a stat that any online advertiser would be happy with.
The acquisition of StudioNow by aol makes a lot of sense to me.The content strategy currently being driven by Tim Montgomery needed the video solution. The issue now is how do they monetise it?
Coull and buy.at launch the first fully integrated video product for affiliate marketing.
The Coull Activator lets any buy.at affiliate generate income from any approved video even those from YouTube. It gives your site more interactive content and the SEO benefits that video can bring. The tool is free and easy to use, Coull host and stream the video and your affiliate links will stay with the video when it is passed around social networks and blogs.
Come and see us and buy.at during the Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas 17th-19th January 2010 for a demo or register here to be included in our beta program.
I’ve recently been talking to a lot of agencies about our products and one of the recurrent themes seems to be that advertisers using video are happy as long as their video is viewable on YouTube. In Coull’s opinion – this is missing one of the largest opportunities in online video advertising. If you have a product that you want to sell or an action that you want the user to complete then build that into the video. If a user is interested – allow them to satisfy that interest and if they are at the right point in the purchase funnel then allow them to go and buy without the need to go elsewhere.
Advertisers can be nervous around this concept so to prove that we believe what we preach, we have changed our business model so that the only charges come when a user clicks on the video after it is already playing. We hope that this will encourage agencies and advertisers to make all of their videos work harder for them. After all – if your video isn’t interactive then you aren’t taking full advantage of being online and your lovingly created video will only be as good as the one below for Milky the Cow.
“Video saw a 30% lift in engagement over non-video banners with dwell time nearly doubling from 37.37 to 71.51 seconds. With more than one in ten users spending over a minute, video banner advertising may be a popular alternative to intrusive pre-roll advertising.”
eyeblaster have done a great job on this report but why are they and other still charging on a cpm basis?
Surely paying for engagement is the way forward?
Digital Mission to New York is scheduled for 15th – 20th November 2009 and will coincide with the renowned Web 2.0 Expo (16-19th Nov 2009), New York.
This will be the second Digital Mission to visit New York and it’s shaping up rather nicely, building on existing relationships with New York-based entrepeuners, VC’s, agencies and digital practitioners to create a cracking line up of activities.
http://chinwag.com/digitalmission/nyc09
Really looking forward to this. We are just starting to work with clients in New York and I believe interactive video advertising is about to explode.
An interesting article on Ecommerce Journal this morning about Google’s accquisition of On2 Technologies for $106.5 million. The article makes a lot of relevant points. On2 video’s 8th generation (VP8) brings bandwidth savings far beyond any other format available. Currently most online video content is Flash using VP6. Google will be saving a lot of money as the article states in bandwidth costs and license fees alone.
However, we have to assume that most times Google thinks bigger and wider than just the dollars and cents, it thinks in terms of infuence, disruption and market penetration as well. Google continues to make strategic moves in the video space, it has to. This accquisition may give Google an immediate edge in terms of cost and quality, it also shows Google’s continuing desire to engage in the video space and to try and diversify and increase its market share.
YouTube may at times seem like the white elephant in the room at Google, but existing video is just content (a canvas) waiting to be “re”created, repurposed, re-energised and monetised. When the time comes and we have learned and taken up what online video can be, YouTube is going to be another little cash cow for Google, that just ticks in revenue with every impression or the possibility of revenue for every impression.
Google opening and releasing VP8 for general public use or charging fees for it’s use? Interesting question, but Google will probably see that the benefit of allowing everyone to use their format will profilerate it and therefore profilerate them.
The future is not bright, it is interactive and may be VP8….
How much difference is there to the quality? See for yourself below. They do recommend that the video be viewed in fullscreen. The average internet user is not going to notice much difference really, but it is improvement and we will always strive to improve.
A post by Murray Newlands on the future of social media marketing got me thinking. Social media marketing is not only affecting big brands but all businesses, even technology companies that are involved in Internet advertising. There is a lot of talk about how big brands are struggling to engage in social media arenas, but this condition is not is limited to big brands, it is pervasive through all sectors.
Tom Foremski is right. All companies are becoming media and publishing companies. As are people on a personal and professional level, we are all trying to get to grips with “brand me“.
Web and technology companies are no different. In the technology sector many companies are specialised and are trying to develop their services and products in a difficult economic times. This means there has been a natural “leaning” process in technology startup companies. Venture capital is expensive and more limited today and technology companies are getting leaner. This leaning process has an affect on resources. Ironically this means that startups will not be as able to leverage the new technologies which they used to be very good at doing.
It is not just big brands that are not engaging as quickly as they possible could, it is most companies, even companies operating in similar fields.
Social media has a cost, it is not free. It costs time.
Time in leaner companies is a limited commodity. While we may be running our companies more efficiently, it to has a cost. It limits our ability to participate in social media marketing. Catch22.
At Coull we have not got our social media marketing campaign sorted yet. We have not been able to engage as we navigate through the economic terrain are all operating in today.
We need a social media marketer…..
Interactive video advertising is quite similar, the return is very high, but there is an initial investment that needs to be made, time. As we all struggle with time to engage in the social media ecosystem and get to grips with how this revolution can assist our businesses, we struggle to find that balance and invest our most valuable commodity, time, in the most effective arena for the best ROI.
Social media traffic and seed has just scaled out massively and overnight. This is very positive from our point of view as it demonstrates, once again how disruption just emerges. It is hard to predict the future of online marketing and emergence. However, there are not many things that you can predict, interactive video is one of those. It just makes sense. One thing for certain is that one day all video will be interactive, it will be layered with information, it is just a natural evolutionary step.
One thing for certain, interactive video advertising is going to be a part of the future of online marketing (see Sitting on the Threshold). And for interactive video advertising as for social media marketing, the future is now.
