YouTube still doesn’t seem to deliver sufficient revenue and the video ads on offer still haven’t been picked up by the ad community. In addition to the regular display ads, there are also overlay ads, which cover one third of the video. (Google says they will also be introducing pre- mid- and postroll ads, when they’re launching full length videos.)
However, the overlay ads have not yet been widely accepted, so Google has now undertaken a study:
Teaming up with the neuromarketing firm NeuroFocus and the branding consultancy MediaVest, Google conducted a study in which it measured people’s nervous-system responses – through brain-scanning skull sensors, eye tracking, pupil dilation, and galvanic skin response – as they watched YouTube ads.
There were only 40 participants, whose score for overlay ads was apparently above average:
Specifically, after fielding a study among 40 participants last May, InVideo ads scored above average on a scale of one to 10 for measures like “attention†(8.5), “emotional engagement†(7.3) and “effectiveness†(6.6). According to officials, a 6.6 score is considered strong. (Source)
Yet they worked best when in combination with banners:
The combination of overlays with companion banners also grabbed users‘ attention more than banner ads alone, scoring a 6.6 compared to a 6.3 for just banners. (Source)
I can see that getting in-video ads right will be a huge leverage for YouTube to achieve sufficient revenue. And it’s probably one of the best ways to quickly and substantially increase revenue options on the site.
Yet I would prefer more creative and user relevant options for displaying the messages of my clients…
Another interesting fact is the news about the advanced neuroscience approach Google has taken to evaluate their overlay ads. Only 40 participants, but probably much more data available than you would get from 100 traditional focus groups.
All social networks are heavily working on finding ways to earn money through some kind of advertising or marketing.
MySpace, one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) social network is already earning close to billion dollars in revenue.
Now they launched a new self serving ad platform. Ads are served on a CPC basis and you have to design them yourself. However, they’re not text ads, they’re display ads, which you can design yourself on the myspace website
The most interesting feature, however, is the targeting options you have. As Techcrunch writes:
The key to MySpace’s ad platform is their hypertargeting technology. Facebook allows targeting as well, although it’s based on interest areas put in by users directly. So if someone says they like books, you can target ads to them based on that. What MySpace does is much different – they build out a profile of each user based on what they do on MySpace over time, with 1,200 different ways to categorize each user. So if you only want to target women who live in California between the ages of 25-30 who like motorcycles, i can. There are 2,842 of them on MySpace.
If that works properly – and if it is accepted by the community to be targeted in that way, it could well be a huge opportunity for myspace to increase advertising revenues!
At the beginning of the video it says that the agency was asked to create online advertising for Doritos. Sounds like a typical briefing, but the agency instead came up with something completely contradictory: a tool that removes online advertising (and let’s you fill the space with something you like instead).
The idea behind this:
what if the internet was just like a bag of Doritos. Filled only with the stuff you like.
Great idea to achieve awareness on regular media sites without actually pushing ads in your face. Here is the case study video:
Websites based on fullscreen video seem to be really trendy at the moment! Agent Provocateur now released an interactive fullscreen video experience in which you can choose how you want each scene to continue. There isn’t much story to it, but hey…
The Toyota Scion social media campaign is amazing for two reasons. First, the casestudy written by the agency lists a few „rules“ for social media strategy which I find quite interesting. You can find those listed below.
The second thing: in the case study, it sounds like a huge, complicated social media campaign, when read quickly. But instead, it’s just a crowd sourcing campaign from what I can see. Users can create their own scion crest on the Scion Speak Website, download it, upload it to facebook or stick it to their car. Nothing more, nothing less. One of the key parts of the campaign was engaging a grafitti artist, who designed all the details you could use to create the crest:
With Scion, we ensured that we developed Scion Speak in collaboration with the Scion enthusiast audience. In fact, we used some of the leaders of the existing online Scion communities to help us to develop the Scion design language. We also ensured that this brand site was designed for purely social and expressive purposes and did not feel like a corporate or money-generating venture.
So apart from the general idea, which seems to fit well to the target audience here are the social media strategy considerations that were mentioned in the casestudy:
Define the key social behaviors of your target online. Where are they socializing? What are the social habits, (e.g., Forrester has social-networking consumer profile segments such as critics, spectators, sharers, etc.) online?
Identify your brand’s social behavior and objective in the social space. How should it socialize with your target? What is the brand’s primary purpose in the social network? Facilitating self-expression? Listening? What is its role at this social party and what useful tools can it create to facilitate this?
Create social-media content; don’t advertise on it. If you’re not providing content, ensure that you are providing a useful service. Social media helps people manage their social lives. It enables them to do something they are already interested in. It gives them the tools to allow for this. Social media provides a service—information, connection points, etc.
Be careful you’re not duplicating established social communities. If your audience is using a strongly established community (i.e., recipe sharing), why create a duplicate, marketing-based branded version of the same community? Why would your target leave the existing community for a branded version of the same offer?
Don’t hijack consumers’ social networks. At the least, marketers should be invited into the social culture. But even better, marketers should create their own culture that consumers want to join. They should also be mindful of forcing friends to endorse products among their peers. Users should be voluntary brand ambassadors, not an enforced sales force.
These points might make it into my set of powerpoint slides regarding social media.
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