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New Comscore stats show internet video uptake soaring

August 30, 2009 by Leave a Comment

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Comscore has released new research showing Internet video viewing continues to grow at an impressive rate. Some highlights:

  • 158 million US viewers watched 21 billion videos online in July
  • Google continues to eclipse it’s competition with over 10 times the number of videos viewed compared to that of it’s next closest competitor
  • Interestingly however, Google has only twice the number of unique viewers compared to Microsoft – it’s closest competitor in that category
  • 81% of people online watched videos
  • 8 hours of video was the average time spent per viewer watching video online in July

See details here:  Comscore  July 09 online viewing survey

Filed Under: Video Statistics Tagged With: ,

Social Media Revolution… the video.

August 27, 2009 by Leave a Comment

This video presents some impressive and thought provoking stats on the prevalence and influence of social media. Are the numbers true? Hard to know but the overall thrust of the video is clear – Social media – YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. is changing how companies communicate with their constituents and the rate of that change is accelerating.

Follow this Socialnomics link for more detail and discussion around the topic.

Filed Under: General, Video Statistics, YouTube Video Tagged With: ,

1980′s 10 point Video Marketing Checklist:

August 25, 2009 by Leave a Comment

1980′s 10 point Video Marketing Checklist:

1. Smokin’ hot models? Check.
2. … with big hair? Check.
3. Flashdance-style soundtrack? Check.
4. Wicked locations? Beach & Ghost town, check.
5. Incomprehensible video plot? Check.
6. Popular movie to rip-off (pay homage to)? Footloose, check.
7. Disco dancers? Check.
8. Neon? Check.
9. Product? Yeah… it’s butt-ugly but the client wants it in the shots (stupid client). Check.
10. Cultural Reference? It’s a French car, we couldn’t get the guy with a beret on a bicycle carrying a baguette so we went with mimes. Check.

In many ways the eighties were a cultural wasteland. This marketing video for the Renault Alliiance (Convertible) represents that era well. At over three minutes I can’t imagine where this video would have been shown (Disco’s?) but considering the obvious investment in staging, sets, choreography etc. it must have had an audience. It’s fun to watch but I’m not sure why. What’s the opposite of nostalgia?

Filed Under: Corporate Video Examples, General, Marketing with Video, Video Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Frequency – the next frontier for online marketing video?

August 24, 2009 by 1 Comment

 

 

Much of the attention to date for online marketing video has been around single viral videos that, if the stars are in alignment, spike a few weeks after release with hundreds of thousands of views and then die a relatively quick death.  Reach is good – if your viral video takes off, but that’s no way build or sustain a market.

The ‘Will-it-blend’ series by Blentec was a great example of a well executed series of viral videos that helped sell a lot of Blentec blenders. Had Blentec stopped at the first video they would never have achieved the same level of success.  Which brings us to the Sons of Maxwell…

Dave Carroll – the lead signer for the Canadian band “Sons of Maxwell” promised that he would create three separate music videos to express his anger over the mistreatment he received after United Airlines wrecked one of his guitars and then did not take responsibility for their actions. The first video has received over 5 million views on YouTube alone. United is still reeling from that musical beat-down.

While the second video (above) will never get close to doing the numbers the first video did, it was very smart to create a series of videos to keep the momentum going and to keep his newly acquired fan-base in touch with the band. The second video is rather catchy and it’s fun to watch. The video also serves to showcase the musical range of the band which could help broaden their longer term fan-base.  Video three, when released will undoubtedly be different again, and will further reinforce the name and music of the Sons of Maxwell band.

Frequency of message – always important to the success of broadcast marketing, will start to play a larger role in online video marketing.

Filed Under: General, Marketing with Video, The Effect of Video on Your Brand, Video Marketing, video production, Viral Video, YouTube Video Tagged With: , , , ,

Video marketing and video conferncing to emerge from recession

August 17, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Interestingarticle in TechTarget’s Search CRM portal that looks at the two ‘tecnologies’ that they see emerging from the recession: The use of video conferencing to save travel costs and the use of video in marketingbecause of the lower cost of production and distribution of video combined with the effectiveness of the medium.

The article goes on to forecast that these two technologies will figure more prominently in the CRM suites.

Filed Under: Content Marketing, General, Marketing with Video, Video Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Is successful viral video always good marketing?

August 14, 2009 by 1 Comment

“Yes, I’m looking for a new notebook – high def screen, lots of memory and something I can catch with my butt.”

With over a million views on YouTube, this video has definitely gone viral. It’s well done and it’s not easy to tell how they faked it so that alone gives it a lot of viral juice. The matching spandex suits are also a nice touch.

Would I recommend this style of viral video to a client?  No.  Here’s why:

Little, to no brand presence.
I’ve never heard of MSI before – now I have, but only because I actually took the time to follow the link at the end of the video. I would be surprised if one in a thousand people bother. The link sends you to http://xslimvideoevent.msi.com – which is a video contest sub-site for MSI. Considering the 24 video entries on this site are averaging about 300 views each I don’t imagine many of the million- plus YouTube viewers are taking the time to investigate. Would many people understand what www.msi-xseries.com means without doing some research. I doubt it – it’s too subtle. I have to admit I enjoy the ‘viral video producers ethic’ that says it’s OK to show people catching your product with their buttucks but don’t you dare offend viewers by making a viral (intended) video too commercial!

What, if anything, do you assoicate with the brand?
Spandex suits and guys catching laptops with their butts. At some point you have to take a pass on crazy concepts… don’t you? Or is any concept a good one as long as people watch the video?

It’s been done.
Guy catches sunglasses with face was done last year to promote Ray-bans and received over 4 million views. It was fairly original when it was released and it caused a lot of buzz at the time. As soon as someone does something that is successful on YouTube everyone comes out with variations on that theme. There should be a reasonable limit to the number of commercial objects that can be caught with different body parts.

Most (99.9%) of videos that are intended to be viral aren’t. This one is. But just because it happened to go viral doesn’t mean it added any appreciable value to the company that sponsored it. Of course the gonzo marketers will argue that making a million people aware of your product – however marginally - is worth it, regardless of the method, subject matter or consequence.

As a friend put it, maybe these guys were just going for a different type of viral.

Filed Under: Corporate Video Examples, Marketing with Video, Viral Video, YouTube Video Tagged With: , , ,