The “New Cheap” – Inventory is Cheap and Production Getting Cheaper
I was talking with a couple of video and photographer professionals and we shared some ideas. What we are literally seeing before our eyes is the marketplace being flooded with new advertising inventory. The obvious driver is the Internet. What the Internet is doing is giving advertisers options away from radio, newspapers and TV. Supply and demand are at work in a big way and we are all effected by it. One thing for sure is that Google’s PPC inventory is still strong and so are their prices. As with any direct response media there are advantages and disadvantages as well as market sectors that one media can reach over the other.
So lets first start with search engine optimization. When I first built a blog called SpeechRep.com I only wanted a site that allowed me to write simple posts and comment on others work. It does just that. Simple stuff. Then I wanted to rank for a simple keyword phrase “Internet Marketing Consultant.” I made a feeble attempt to do that knowing full well I did not care if I did or not, and all the while knowing exactly what I had to do to rank for it. The reason I bring this up is I got a call the other day. Tim Pipher of Major League Video said he was perusing the web and found me by typing in “internet marketing consultant.”
What is interesting about this is I potentially did not find a customer, but a supplier using SEO. Cost = $0.00 and a hour plus of simple SEO and maybe a few links from some articles I wrote. It gets more interesting. Tim has a company called South Eastern Studios. These guys have spent a small fortune building a studio with all of the special effects and hi-def camera equipment and on air talent. So at the end of the day you can get a super high quality video for less than a $1,000 bucks for a minutes or less. People do business with people they know like and trust, online video does a great job at communicating this.
What can this do for you? It can even the playing field with your competitors as a small business competing with players with bigger budgets. Tim is going to drive the profits out of many typical DRTV production studios and other studios competing for the same advertising dollars. What will make Tim’s business fly or not are the business processes he has in place to actually produce the videos or the direct response commercials. He is going to have to do volume and have smooth production processes to make this all work profitably.
In this brilliant article The Collapse of Complex Business Models by Clay Shirky he surmises what the media executives are thinking, “Web users will have to pay for what they watch and use, or else we will have to stop making content in the costly and complex way we have grown accustomed to making it. And we don’t know how to do that.” I think the last sentence is a pure cultural thinking problem and should read, “And we won’t do that.” Every blogger and Twitter user is in some way giving Rupert Murdoch a run for his money. While some of might not pay for “journalism,” my question is do we need to pay for journalism? And is what we were being force-fed on i.e. TV News and the Newspapers “journalism” at all? The guy who sent the Tweet of the US Air plane in the Hudson published “news.” Does that make him a “journalist? Hell no, but do we need a professional journalist to then spin the “story” dozens of different ways and then call it “news,” and is that worth paying for? Maybe not.
So if the media can’t get the advertisers to pay the “old cheap” prices they were charging, guess what? More of “the news” will move into the studio and be manufactured infotainment in my view.
Now advertisers have two options, pay “the new cheap” rates and pay “the new cheap” production rates and create their own channels and create their own “online media” with Tim and Southeastern Studios.
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Like radio and TV and television advertising networks there too is a place for online networks like BrightRoll which specializes in online video advertising. Many of the traditional online ad networks like DoubleClick have been snapped up by the bigger players like Google. Until just recently there were several hundred online networks however they have been winnowed to just a few dozen with the economy sputtering.
O.K. online video is big we all know that and we have all heard of Hulu if you are in the industry. These guys at BrightRoll are serving more video than Hulu. Go figure. I would expect these guys or someone like them to get reeled in by a Google or a Microsoft in the not too distant future.
Their 57 slide presentation might seem like a lot and I almost ditched it but it goes super fast, so check it out. It might be interesting to me to check out some of their remnant inventory to test.
What is a video ad? It is also known as a “pre-roll” an ad before the video starts or a “mid-roll” an ad that plays in the middle. I saw Buisiness Insider do this and it was super annoying. Check out one of their videos.
To take a look at the other top 10 online video ad networks in the space check out this link on Mashable. It is interesting to see how some of these highly generic technology companies do as well as they do while at the same time creating a brand new category.
Don’t miss any of my future articles! Subscribe to this blog by RSS or by e-mail. Let’s also get acquainted on my About and Contact pages.The Lowdown on YouTube Videos and Video Optimization
With over 3 Billion Monthly searches YouTube is easily the second biggest search engine, behind Google. Imagine 20 hours of content being uploaded every minute of every day to YouTube? That’s a lot of “stuff.” But like Greg Jarboe says paraphrasing Yogi Berra “no-one likes to eat there any more because it is too crowded,” couldn’t be more off base. He shares a few tips on how to get noticed but at the end of the day this is an awareness video of how big the opportunity is you all of us if we use YouTube and Online Video correctly.
Don’t miss any of my future articles! Subscribe to this blog by RSS or by e-mail. Let’s also get acquainted on my About and Contact pages.Google Sees Growth in Online Video Ads
The Future is “Advertising” is Here, according to Google. While seeing this growth is no real big surprise for the consumer or Google it appears to be a big surprise to some. I would like to think that Google does a littel research before they spend $1.65 Billion on Youtube. Same too the investors for companies like Twitter. While the payday might not be TODAY the payday is coming for these technologies and the investors who bet on them.
If this is so then it is not surprising that Google sees growth in online video ads, that’s because most of us have high speec ocnnections that make viewing of video enjoyable.
Don’t miss any of my future articles! Subscribe to this blog by RSS or by e-mail. Let’s also get acquainted on my About and Contact pages.What if Google or iTunes Was Our Next “Cable Company?”
Think about it. Google or iTunes could actually be streaming content into our homes instead of Comcast or DirectTV. How would that change our viewing habits. I know tonite I was watching a couple of videos on Archive.org which if you haven’t been there has some fantastic content as well as music.
About two years ago I took back my Cable Box to Comcast. I found myself gravitating more towards the “news stations” and felt that there was more out there and chose to spend more time in books and on the internet for my information consumption. I think where both these guys will trump the old business models is in a la carte offerings. For example, I had no intention of watching Barack Obamas speech on why we need to add more troops in Afghanistan, but I would have paid $1.50 to watch a hockey game or something on the Discovery Channel.
However the current offerings have so many channels that are of zero relevance to me that I have turned it off all together. I find that many of the folks I know watch very little TV. There are way too many options now other than TV.
Don’t miss any of my future articles! Subscribe to this blog by RSS or by e-mail. Let’s also get acquainted on my About and Contact pages.Drug Addiction Treatment for Women Video
In this project we produced a drug addiction treatment video that is a direct response video that has the pain, problem, solution and call to action video. The idea is to capture the users attention. Bring to light the issues in addiction and then share with them the solution of how they can get the proper care if they only pick up the phone and call. This video was distributed out on scores of social media sites, video directories, social book marking sites and podcasting sites. The attempt is to get maximum distribution.
Safe Harbor Treatment Center for Women specializes in 90 Day + long term treatment center and drug rehab for women who have PTSD alcohol abuse problems. Safe Harbor is one of the only long term treatment centers in Orange County California that delivers highest quality care in all aspects of alcohol rehab in women and drug rehab for women. You are only one call away from the other side of addiction.
Halloween Ad Entertains – Walgreens Does it Right
I don’t remember the site I found this ad from Walgreens on but I found it to be sophomoric in it’s humor, hence highly entertaining. While I was engaged on the next place the Halloween spiders would be found I forgot that I was watching an ad. NOW, I will remember Walgreens for their uniqueness in a pretty much a commodity retail little box business.
Notice how they are NOT selling a darn thing.
Walgreens Halloween Spider Invasion!
Uploaded by HalloweenSpiderInvasion. – More lifestyle, fashion and how-to videos.
Online Video is a Big Part for Future of the Web
In this interview Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google discusses what the future of the Web will look like in 5 years and not only will it have a lot of Chinese language in it it will also have a lot of rich media including video.
He has expressed surprise to the quality of the videos being produced for Youtube which also include advertising. My son brought home a Rubrik’s Cube and I wanted to learn the secret on how to solve this little game and sure enough there are plenty of Youtube videos on how to do it…..thank goodness! Frankly it appears that Youtube will probably surpass the cable companies in “quality content” very shortly if they haven’t already.
Don’t miss any of my future articles! Subscribe to this blog by RSS or by e-mail. Let’s also get acquainted on my About and Contact pages.Viral Videos – User Generated, Music Video’s and Movie Video’s
It is late and night and I can’t sleep so i went into my e-mail account that has all the e-mail’s I wish I could find the time to read but don’t have the time to read. Some how I found an Adage e-mail that talks about viral videos. In that e-mail was a super cool video of a guy on a trick bike doing some stuff that I have never seen before take a look.
Some how looking at the Inspired bicycles video took me to Visible Measures who seems to have a pretty good handle on where the real traffic is for some of these viral videos.
What is interesting is most of the videos seem to be either user generated, music video’s or movie video’s. What we aren’t seeing in here is Madison Avenue or maybe we are and we just don’t know it. Here is one that is definitely Madison Avenue actually it is created by Mad Men, love the Subaru in the Ad.
Don’t miss any of my future articles! Subscribe to this blog by RSS or by e-mail. Let’s also get acquainted on my About and Contact pages.Thought Leadership – Using Online Video to Spread Your Message
Seth Godin in this TED Talk gives a simple illustration of how anyone can make change. How anyone can be a leader. How people like to feel connected. How people want to be missed if they aren’t there. Spreading your message not to everyone but only the ones who want to hear your message is more important.
I found this video by visiting David Bullock’s web site. Hope you enjoy it. IT makes you think.
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