VideoNuze Posts

Obviously there is no Oscar category for "Most Effective Advertisement at Oscar.com," but if there were, the hands-down winner last night would have been Unilever's "Dove Supreme Cream Oil Body Wash Ad Contest" display ads.

As many of you know, I'm a big believer that brand advertisers need to evolve their mindsets, which have traditionally called for making the cutest or the funniest or the quirkiest ad and then spending big money on placing it on popular programs, in the hopes of driving audience awareness and recall.

Instead, advertisers need to be focusing on user engagement, reinforcing brand authenticity, leveraging multiple platforms and extending the campaign's life. Dove did all of these and more with its "Cream Oil" campaign, and the resulting lessons for other brand marketers and their agencies are abundant.

Dove kicked the "Cream Oil" campaign off late last year, with a user-generated video contest asking women "how does showering yourself in everyday luxury with Dove Supreme Cream Oil Body Wash make you feel?" There were 3,500 entries received for the 30 second spot between Dec. 5th and Jan. 9th, which were winnowed to 5 semi-finalists on Jan 30th who were invited to LA for a private Oscars party. The 2 finalists were presented for viewing on Oscar.com. Dove's display ads on the site prompted visitors to click and vote for the best spot, which would become Dove's new ad. This voting process created an even larger user engagement opportunity than the original UGC contest. Capping it all off was actress Amy Brenneman, announcing the winning ad during a spot Dove bought during the Oscar telecast.

In my post last week, "An Intersection of UGC and Brand Marketing?" I proposed that brand marketers should create opportunities for passionate customers interested in expressing themselves to submit user-generated video supporting or explaining products. Dove's marketing people were clearly in synch with this thinking. The campaign shows their belief that the authenticity of the Cream Oil product could best be conveyed by real women using video to creatively express themselves. That sense of authenticity in turn resonates really well with other prospective customers. The YouTube age has conditioned many of us to appreciate each other's video more than the professionally produced, because its rough edges make it feel far more real.

Lastly, by having Ms. Brenneman announcing the winner in the on-air spot, Dove recognized that if it is going to spend $1.7 million + for a 30 second ad (last year's price), it better do more than just offer another cute, funny, or quirky spot. Instead it created anticipation, and capped off 3 months of contest excitement. I've argued in the past that these expensive on-air spots should reinforce or continue campaigns begun before and/or extended after in the broadband medium. Doing so increases their ROI, and will only raise the value of this on-air time in the future.

In the past I've been critical of brand marketers and their agencies for being abysmally slow in recognizing new opportunities broadband video presents. Yet there have been exceptions, and Dove's "Cream Oil" campaign is certainly one. Hopefully we'll see more like it in the future.

What do you think? Post a comment and let us all know!

For me, Google and its initiatives in broadband video advertising and distribution have conjured a comparison to the lion of the jungle. Like the lion, Google often seems to be slumbering in this hot space, yet every once in a while it wakes up, raises its head and roars to the market with a new video advertising announcement. These roars serve as a reminder to others that it is, of course, the king of the online jungle.

But then, rather than following up these periodic roars with steady follow-on news of accomplishments, financial success and new features, Google inexplicably seems to go back to its slumber, thus returning the jungle to the startup antelopes and established elephants to do the spade work of building the broadband video ad market.

Yesterday, Google roared again, this time announcing the "beta" release of its AdSense for Video product and the launch of its destination "Video Advertising Solutions" center, which explains all of Google's video ad opportunities and offers very well produced explanatory videos.

Video ads have been previously announced by Google, and AdSense for video builds on these by allowing a broad range of content providers to tap into AdSense for graphical or text overlay ads on their video streams. Google announced a large network of content and platform partners, augmenting the massive inventory already available on YouTube.

By tying AdSense for Video to its AdWords capability, advertisers have a one-stop shop for text and video ads contextually placed across web pages and video streams. Since participating publishers can expose a percentage of their streams to AdSense, they enhance their overall monetization opportunities.

I spoke with a number of people in the advertising/technology/content communities yesterday and there was a consensus that Google's actions help validate the broadband video advertising market opportunity and overlays in particular (note Google doesn't support pre-rolls). I agree with those who said that with the overall market growing fast, Google isn't terribly competitive with other contextual ad firms; there's clearly room for more than just one player.

On the content provider side, of course any initiative to better monetize video streams, particularly by an established player like Google, will always be welcomed. This feeling is offset somewhat by the underlying anxiety that all content providers have vis-a-vis Google - it is part competitor on the content side, and also part competitor on the ad sales side. This is particularly true of YouTube, which offers significant distribution benefits to content providers, but while also competing for eyeballs.

For content providers' advertising revenues, while AdSense promises improved monetization, it might also lead to channel conflict as advertisers may try to pay less for targeted ad inventory available through Google rather than from the provider itself. This has been less a concern in traditional web publishing, because Google hasn't sold display ads. The risk is that over time AdSense for video could lead to a "hollowing out" of content providers' crucial ad sales capabilities. This dynamic reinforces why it's so important that those who work with AdSense for video set business rules and then adhere to them, rather than be too tempted to grab the easy, short-term money Google can provide.

With the beta of AdSense for video, Google has again reminded the market that its unparalleled technology, content, monetization and financial strength makes it the lion of the online jungle. It is well-positioned to also become the lion of the broadband video ad jungle. Let's see if Google keeps on roaring, or if it appears to lapse back into slumber.

A clear implication of this finding is that current video providers that target 18-34 males better be aggressively pursuing broadband video offerings if they want to stay competitive in this new media landscape.

But less clear is whether video providers that don't primarily target 18-34 males, or maybe have them as secondary audiences, should also be investing in this new medium in order to stay in synch with broadband users. Though other age groups and demos are also adopting broadband video, they are clearly less fervent, at least for now. In a world with finite resources, should these other video producers not worry so much about broadband video and instead stay mainly focused on their traditional approaches? Or should they invest in the broadband medium as well, even if their true target audiences may be smaller for now? I think they should do the latter, for the following 3 reasons:

1. Eventually broadband video usage will deeply penetrate all age groups. This is a macro trend that all programmers need to be in synch with. Previous technology adoption patterns show that what starts with young, and often male, early adopters, eventually spreads out to other groups as well. There's no putting the broadband video genie back in the bottle. Three-to-five years from now, virtually all Internet users will view video as just another routine application, alongside email, search, commerce, etc. Today's video providers need to position themselves properly.

2. Cultivating younger audiences is critically important. Marketing types always emphasize how important it is to cultivate younger audiences. Brand choices and loyalties are developed early, and it is more difficult down the road to influence these. Look around and see brands that once targeted somewhat older, and wealthier, segments but which now also try to target the young - Heineken, BMW and Tiffany to name a few.

The fact is that young people have energy, enthusiasm, spending power and a strong desire to promote their favorite brands to cohorts. So even video providers need that may not normally skew young need to figure out how to have some appeal to this group, because they will be key drivers of the brand's strength down the road. In fact this is what a number of cable networks, like Lifetime, AMC and Food Network been doing in recent years. Though they didn't originally target younger audiences, they began cultivating them through programming choices and marketing campaigns. They are all succeeding.

3. Now is the time to learn about broadband video. Given the above two reasons, it is urgent that video producers targeting all age groups and demos start their learning process now. Finding pockets of current heavy users to appeal to is the key challenge. As a new medium, broadband has its own set of capabilities well beyond being just another pipe to funnel current programming. Understanding these opportunities will not happen overnight. No video producer should wake up one day 3 years from now, when a healthy percentage of its viewers are spending substantial time on broadband, and realize they didn't cultivate the knowledge and skill sets to succeed in this new medium.

One of my continuing goals for VideoNuze is to bring relevant research about broadband video to your attention. Today I'm pleased to share a short interview with Bruce Leichtman, president of Leichtman Research Group, Inc. regarding a new survey his firm just released to its clients, "Emerging Video Services II." Bruce is a veteran media market researcher who I've known for many years since we were colleagues at Continental Cablevision.

Following is an edited transcript of my interview:

VN: Please provide some background on your firm's new study.

BL: This is the second annual Emerging Video Services study that my company has done. The study is focused on non-TV-based services such as broadband video, mobile video and portable video (example iPod). This is one of five annual syndicated studies.

The survey was conducted in December '07 and January '08 with 1,250 people who were surveyed by phone. The reason that's important is that we're trying to reflect the entire population of the U.S. Remember about a quarter of U.S. homes are still not online, so when I'm doing these studies, I'm trying to project to the entire U.S., and so the studies are also pre-weighted to reflect the age and gender makeup of the U.S. population over 18 years of age.

VN: Talk about some of the study's high level conclusions.

BL: Not surprisingly, when compared to last year's study, online video usage is growing. But what's more important is the detail: who's using it, how are they using it, why are they using it? Today there is not across-the-board usage. It's still very weighted to young, 18-34 year-old males. So this has huge implications for players in this market. You need to know who's really using online video so you can better tailor your product to fit that demographic and the ones that may follow.

Another interesting finding is that the growth in the past year was in fact among the young. So online video's use is continuing to penetrate this demographic more and more deeply.

Yet another is that online video is really a medium unto itself, and consumers don't see it as a replacement for traditional TV, but rather for what it can do uniquely as a new medium. So it's important that companies not see online video as just a replication of TV.

VN: What are the implications of the growing intensity of broadband video adoption by the young?

BL: For companies targeting this demo the key is how to tailor product appropriately. There's a ton of multi-tasking going on, so younger people don't even necessarily see online video or TV as one OR the other, sometimes it can be both at the same time. They obviously live lives that are different than preceding generations. But given they're just one segment, we shouldn't conclude that everything is going to change in the next 3-5 years.

VN: Can you discuss actual usage time?

BL: Across the whole population, people still spend twice as much time watching TV as being online. However, among young males the gap is being squeezed. I don't want to read too much into this data, but TV watching is beginning to decline a bit in the group. Their use of media is changing, but we don't see that across all age and gender groups. The same is true on an income basis. The traditional gap remains for lower income groups.

As with so many things in consumer adoption, it's more about evolution than revolution. Basically what we're seeing is a market evolving. Increase in the number of broadband subscribers, increase in the content that's out there, and an increase in usage. But it's still just a small percentage compared to TV.

VN: What does the study find regarding session lengths?

BL: Over half of those who consume online video say they do it less than 10 minutes at a time. comScore talks about the average session as 2.8 minutes. Today it's really bite-sized morsels, its news clips, UGC, YouTube, comScore says one-third of all legal video is YouTube.

VN: How about in longer-form?

BL: Certainly there's interest in TV and movies, but the challenge is that in reality consumers have choices. And I always like to say "TV is a good place to watch TV." Given a choice of watching a TV show on TV, that is their choice vs. watching online. So there has to be a compelling reason for them to watch online that's differentiated.

VN: Did the survey offer any insight about consumers' interest in dropping cable subscriptions in favor of broadband-only options?

BL: From a consumer's standpoint it's not either/or. Just 4% say they'd switch to online only. The overwhelming majority of people, 87%, would not consider switching.

VN: Did you ask about what kind of broadband video consumers would like to watch on TV?

VN: Thanks for sharing information about this new study.

Click here to download the LRG study slides.

(Quick correction - there was a technical problem with the link in yesterday's email to register for the Feb. 28th webinar. The correct link to register is here).

Lately I've been thinking a lot about where there may be potential points of intersection between user-generated video and brand marketing.

On the one hand, YouTube and others have demonstrated there's huge interest among amateur producers in creating and posting video content. Since the overwhelming majority of these producers do not make any meaningful money from these videos, their motivation is emotional. On the other hand, brands are grappling with things like how to break through the clutter, deepen consumer engagement, create more authenticity and build loyalty.

So it seems like there should be a natural point of intersection if brands could incent their passionate customers to create videos which not only sang the praises of their favorite products but actually provided valuable information sought by other prospective customers. Offering these videos would enable customers to show off their favorite products in action and also provide a valuable service to prospects. The concept is sort of like a video-based TripAdvisor, but not limited to travel.

Here's an example from a personal experience. Recently I've been in the market for a 50+ inch HDTV. If you've been in this mode recently you know the drill - lots of online research, reading users' comments, going to stores to see different models, etc. Even after doing all this, I still felt like I was missing something. I really wanted to see the intangibles - what distance seemed right, what's the right height for the stand, what were the ambient issues, how were accessories connected and so on.

In short, I was looking for actual owners to provide short, but informative videos showcasing how the TV actually worked out when brought into their homes. To be sure, there's no shortage of text comments to this effect. But the best I could find beyond text was a link at Amazon to "Share your own customer images." It seems like such a natural to me that online retailers, review sites and TV manufacturers should all provide a user-generated video platform for consumers to upload videos providing further information on their TVs.

What I'm describing is not another brand-sponsored UGC contest, but rather solid consumer-contributed product information. T-Mobile has something like this running with Current TV right now, but seems to really be the exception. I looked at the web sites of Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Sharp, Philips and Mitsubishi and, although in some cases there are buying guides and FAQs, none of them seek to harness the enthusiasm of their actual customers by enabling video contributions.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I think this is a big untapped opportunity. I know companies like ViTrue and StashCast are pursuing opportunities like this, and then there are countless private label social network platforms like KickApps, Ning and others (TechCrunch has a good list here) that also enable some flavor of this. But I just haven't seen this concept clearly or pervasively implemented yet. If you have, please post a comment. I just have to believe that some smart brands - particularly those selling complex, expensive products that benefit from video-based information - are going to realize their passionate customers are incredible assets just waiting to be empowered to speak out through user-generated video.

There was a little technical problem with the registration link for the Feb 28th webinar.

To register, click here.

Today's a holiday for many in the U.S. and I'm preparing to head out to FAST Forward '08, so for now I'd like to just offer an invitation to an upcoming webinar I'll be participating in on February 28th. The title of the webinar is "Setting the Bar for Online Video 2.0: Best Practices You Can Use Today." PermissionTV, a VideoNuze sponsor, will also be providing insights based on its customers' experiences. The webinar will be hosted by Streaming Media.

Having done many webinars over the past several years, I've become a big fan of the format. I think it's a convenient way to share information create a conducive environment for Q&A.

Since the last webinar I did several months ago, there has been a ton of activity in the broadband video market and also a lot of recently-released research. I've heard from many of you that it's hard to stay on top of this activity and understand what's most important. Meeting these two challenges are in fact key goals of mine for VideoNuze: aggregating relevant news into one easy-to-access location and sharing insights about the market.

For this upcoming webinar, I'll be synthesizing some of the divergent activities we've all been observing and translate it into actionable takeaways. Though the broadband video market is extremely dynamic, there are a number of common beliefs guiding many companies' strategies today. After the presentations, we'll have ample time for Q&A and discussion.

Last November, Jeff Richards, VP of VeriSign's Digital Content Services, suggested to me that "net neutrality" would be the hottest broadband video topic in 2008. I was skeptical, believing that this was a classic "solution in search of a problem" and that yet again this topic would fail to gain traction among regulators and policy-makers. Based on events of the past week, it looks like Jeff may be right and I may be wrong.

Before getting to what happened this week, let's quickly understand what net neutrality means, and why it's important to all of us. To date the Internet has functioned as a level playing field of sorts. Anyone putting up a web site could be confident in the knowledge that broadband ISPs would neither favor nor disadvantage one player's access to users over another's.

Big online content and technology companies now want to codify this tradition in legislation commonly referred to as net neutrality. Big broadband ISPs (i.e. cable operators and telcos) regard this as needless regulatory meddling that would insert the government in network and technical matters it can barely understand, let alone figure out how to regulate.

This week brought news that Congressmen Ed Markey and Chip Pickering have introduced the "Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008" which would make net neutrality the guiding U.S. broadband policy, give the FCC additional oversight powers to ensure broadband ISPs weren't discriminating against certain traffic, require the FCC to hold 8 public "broadband summits" to bring together parties to "assess competition, consumer protection and consumer choice issues related to broadband Internet access services" and finally to report all this to Congress along with any recommendations for how to "promote competition, safeguard free speech, and ensure robust consumer protections and consumer choice relating to broadband Internet access services."

Broadband ISPs have precipitated some of this renewed interest in net neutrality with the recent news that they're de-prioritizing or blocking illegal video file-sharing traffic from services like BitTorrent (all of which was already widely understood in the Internet community). Net neutrality proponents have publicly seized on these incidents as evidence that broadband ISPs have discriminatory tendencies in their DNA, and that we're on a slippery slope to a world where broadband ISPs willy-nilly block certain traffic (i.e. their competitors) while favoring other traffic (i.e. their own services).

Last November in "Net Neutrality in 2008? Let's Hope Not." I wrote that there is no substantive current evidence to support this concern and that preemptive net neutrality legislation is unwise and unwarranted. In fact, I believe it's a net positive that broadband ISPs are proactively trying to manage their networks to ensure that legal traffic, generated by paying subscribers, is not adversely affected by the few heavy video file-sharers who diminish the network's performance for everyone. Broadband ISPs' actions help them run more efficient networks and better manage their investments, to the benefit of paying users.

Unfortunately, like many things in Washington, net neutrality is boiling down to a PR battle about how to shape policy-makers' perceptions, regardless of the underlying facts. For its part, Google is unabashedly framing this debate in populist terms, saying "net neutrality is...about what's ultimately best for the people, in terms of economic growth as well as the social benefit of empowering individuals to speak, create, and engage one another online." Huh? How does all that patriotic-sounding babble address the reality that network operators are grappling with 15 year-old kids downloading pirated HD movies, causing real and serious network congestion for everyone?

To defeat net neutrality, broadband ISPs better sharpen up their PR efforts. Congress is notoriously IQ-challenged and politically-motivated. My cynical belief is that its knee-jerk reaction will always be to do what looks best, rather than what actually is best. Then there's the current FCC chairman Kevin Martin, who has a serious anti-cable bias and will likely welcome an opportunity to smack operators. Regrettably, when taken together, Jeff Richards may indeed be right. This might be the hottest broadband video topic of 2008 and the year when net neutrality legislation finally does succeed.