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?
http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/25/aol-studionow-ted-cahall/
Coull Activator – the first fully integrated video technology for affiliate marketing launches at Affiliate Summit West to drive more income to affiliate programmes
15 January 2010, London, UK – buy.at, the affiliate marketing network, has announced the launch of Coull Activator – a new video affiliate platform developed in conjunction with Coull, the interactive video technology company.
As online video usage soars to its highest ever level[1], Coull Activator will launch at the Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas 17-19 January 2010.
The Coull Activator launch secures buy.at’s position as the first ever global affiliate network to offer online interactive video functionality across its entire affiliate marketing channel.
Available as a free member benefit to the many thousands of buy.at’s merchants and affiliate partners worldwide, including the likes of Ticketmaster and Sky, all videos used through the service will be managed by Coull. This ensures that affiliate links stay with videos when they are passed around social networks and blogs.
The launch of Coull Activator means that all buy.at affiliates will be able to include interactive video footage on their sites – to further engage and retain customers online, and increase sales.
Key Coull Activator features will enable affiliates to:
To support merchants and affiliates once they start using Coull Activator, buy.at will also be making a library of pre-approved video content available for affiliates to access and upload. This content will include its advertising back catalogue and sponsored sport interviews.
Paul Fellows, MD of buy.at, said: “In rolling out Coull’s interactive video technology across LittlewoodsDirect.com’s affiliate campaign last year, we saw first hand the impact it can have on product placement and sales.
“Online video directly influences website visibility, encouraging visitors to stay longer, engage and convert. By teaming up with Coull we are taking the very best in online interactive video right to our affiliates front door.”
Irfon Watkins, CEO of Coull concludes: “Engaging content, especially interactive video is an essential element in generating income for affiliate programmes. By making sites more interactive, Coull Activator delivers real SEO benefits and will ensure that buy.at’s affiliates are far better placed to increase the visibility of their sites and convert more sales.
“Online video usage is at an all time high around the world. In the UK alone, the number of online videos viewed in the UK is up 47% compared to last year[2]. As a result, it’s great to team up, yet again, with such a great player in the affiliate market to help their affiliate partners capitalise on the growth and increasing importance of online video, especially when it comes to the bottomline.”
but.at merchants and affiliate partners can sign-up to beta test Coull Activator up until the end of January 2010 by visiting http://www.coull.com/affiliate/register
Coull CEO, Irfon Watkins @Irfonw will be available for interview at Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas where demonstrations of Coull Activator will also be taking place. Irfon will also be available on Skipe, tweeting and blogging from the event.
Affiliate Summit West is the premier affiliate marketing conference. Taking place January 17-19, 2010 in Las Vegas, the three day conference includes an exhibit hall with affiliate merchants, vendors, and networks, as well as multiple tracks of educational sessions covering the latest trends and information from affiliate marketing experts.
[2] conScore Video Matrix (July 2009) 4.7b videos viewed online in the U.K. in April 2009 up 47 percent versus a year ago.
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.
E-marketer posted an article on the mechanics of how a viral video is spread yesterday, you can read it here. It turns out that the most effective way to get someone to watch an online video is to get their friends to tell them to.
Distributing a viral and making it a success is something of a dark art, sure you can seed it in the right places but nothing beats a personal recommendation. After all – The JK Wedding was not seeded, it got an extra bounce when a couple of celebrities started talking about it but the main way that it spread is simply by people talking about it.
The trick that marketers hope to repeat is to get people talking about a video in a way that builds their brand values into the viral. This is a current campaign for TDC in Denmark that our partners GoViral are running. It really doesn’t matter if you can’t speak Danish – it is funny and makes people want to watch, it is obviously an ad and the mechanics are in place to make it easy to spread and share. Have a watch – see what you think and if the mood takes you – go ahead and send it to your friends by clicking the ‘del film’ button. Danish bacon may never seem the same again.
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.
Just read this study, late I know but the numbers are impressive
http://digital-media.net.au/article/online-ad-engagement-25-times-higher-than-click-rate/493542.aspx
“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.
7 August 2008 – Gary Wilson
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.
20 July 2009 – Gary Wilson