VideoNuze Posts

This Shycast-IKEA campaign caught my eye this morning. As many of you know, I’m a big believer that the openness of broadband video makes it appealing to lots of companies that can creatively tap its potential.

In this case, startup Shycast is creating contests for big brands to enable customers to submit video in order to win prizes. I like the social media angle here, however, in looking at the site, the part that’s missing to me is the engagement with the IKEA brand. All I can see is an IKEA banner. It might as well be from anyone. The site needs to be infused with the IKEA brand personality to make it really feel like an IKEA contest. Given today is just launch day, I’ll standby and look for improvements.

Chicago Tribune article suggests that user generated content producers being paid for their works will soon be ubiquitous. Of course Revver and others have been doing this for a while now. Steven Starr from Revver raises the “recognition vs. reward” question that undoubtedly passes through any UGC producer’s mind.

I’ve said for a while that if someone had laid the YouTube business plan next to the Revver business plan back in 2005, logic would have suggested that Revver would have better prospects given its willingness to share revenues with producers (thereby creating more incentive to post there).

However, what would have been missing from that logic would be the 2 things that I believe made YouTube an early (and big) winner – namely its willingness to push the envelope in allowing copyrighted material to be posted on its site and its superior user experience. Having won the first battle, YouTube appears poised to overlay the financial incentive long missing for content producers. If well-executed, this should make the landscape even tougher for all the others to succeed.

OK, even as the enthusiast that I am about the value of Super Bowl ads increasing, this seems over the top to me. WSJ is reporting that a number of sites are selling pre-rolls on their Super Bowl ad galleries. Call me skeptical, but I just don't see how consumers are going to stomach this.

In February of 2006, following Super Bowl XL, I wrote a newsletter entitled, "The $10 Million Super Bowl Ad?". I suggested that despite all the anxieties around the future of the 30-second spot, the future of Super Bowl ads was very bright. This was the case because of all the broadband and online opportunities that can lead into and follow up the 30 second ad that shows during the game.

My proposition was that marketers would be less concerned about "throwing the long ball", i.e. spending $2.5 million per spot ($2.6 million for Super Bowl XLI, btw) if they were able to monetize that investment beyond just the on-air showing. And broadband is a great way of doing exactly that.

Today Stuart Elliott at the NY Times had a great piece, "Multiplying the Payoffs From A Super Bowl Spot", exactly on this point, and how it's playing out for Super Bowl XLI. It showcases the advertisers who are leveraging broadband this year, including Anheuser-Busch, GM and Garmin. I continue to forecast that broadband is only going to drive the price of 30 second Super Bowl spots (and in fact likely add new value to all :30s) higher as marketers come to understand how they can leverage their investments and tangibly drive revenues from them.

In yet another great example of how brand marketers are embracing broadband to build closer relations with their customers and prospects, Adweek carried this story today about Lexus launching its own channel this summer. The channel is being desigend to create a "parallel with the character of the brand," according to Lexus national interactive and contextual marketing manager Brian Bolain.

LA Times is reporting a full-on integration of its print and online news efforts is now happening, as the paper is in "a fight to recoup threatened revenue that finances our news gathering," as Times Editor James O'Shea put it. Hurray for them. We took a long look at newspapers' broadband video efforts in our Q2 '06 industry report and found that separate news operations was a key impediment to newspapers realizing their web/broadband opportunities.