If you remember the days when having a “transportable” telephone meant you had to carry around a powerpack the size of a beer cooler, then this collection of videos is going to send you down memory lane.
For anyone who doesn’t recall those golden years, this gallery is a fascinating insight into the cellphone technology of yesteryear. Commercials are like windows onto a society’s cultural mores. Here you can catch a glimpse of what was aspirational at the time.
Prepare yourself for some seriously retro tech, some cheesy commercial toons and some just plain awful hair and click through the gallery. Let us know in the comments below which ads are your favorites.
1. Ericsson Commercial
Let's face it. The only reason that woman can hide her humongous phone is because her hair is so big.
2. BT Cellnet Commercial
Ex-Doctor Who Tom Baker sells out, sorry, advertises BT Cellnet phones by comparing them to a Roman amphitheater. We don't really get it either.
3. Radio Shack Commercial
This phone is only "transportable" in the very loosest sense of the word.
4. Nokia Advert
Here, Nokia takes an unusual approach by promoting the cell phone as a high-tech little black book for sleazy yuppies.
5. General Electric Cell Phone Commercial
If you ever wondered why General Electric never made it big in the cell phone market, this advert from 1989 should help shed some light.
6. Motorola Flip Phone Commercial
Motorola's approach to flogging early cell phones was to highlight every single scenario in which such a device might prove useful. We get it already!
7. BT Pagers Advert
This ad is so bad it's good.
8. Centel Commercial
Billed on YouTube as the first cell phone ad, this ghastly video is all aspirational lifestyle and good looking, healthy and affluent people. It apparently didn't do Centel much good in the long run.
9. Qualcomm Commercial
Now this is just plain scary.
10. Motorola DynaTAC Commercial
We leave you with our favorite video of the lot. This informative clip from Motorola brings the news that eventually, "seeing people using cellular phones may seem as commonplace as someone checking time on an electronic watch." Bring on the "cellular revolution!"
Interested in more Retro resources? Check out Mashable Explore, a new way to discover information on your favorite Mashable topics.
This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.
The path to YouTube marketing success can be littered with potholes that budget- and time-strapped small businesses can’t afford to fall in to.
We’ve spoken to three top experts in the video marketing arena to get professional advice about the common mistakes that small companies make on the video-sharing platform so that you can avoid making those same errors.
For your viewing pleasure and enlightenment, we’ve also included a few successful YouTube videos that were produced by small businesses.
1. Having Unrealistic Expectations
Some businesses mistakenly believe that they just need to upload a video to YouTube and wait for viewers to watch by the millions. According to Sarah Wood, founder of social video distribution and engagement company Unruly Media, this rarely happens.
“Yes, there is a massive appetite for online video content, but there are 35 hours of video content uploaded to YouTube every minute, so the competition for eyeballs is intense,” says Wood.
You need to manage expectations when it comes to the success of your YouTube content. There are a ton of high-quality, company-made videos on YouTube that never manage more than a few thousand views.
“Remind yourself that having a video go viral is a notable success, not the norm,” says Matt Smith, director of strategy at digital agency The Viral Factory. Smith counts Blendtec’s “Will It Blend?” series (see above) as one such success.
“Blendtec happens to be one of the most brilliant viral marketing campaigns ever, and it’s the exception rather than the rule,” he says.
No matter how good your content is, you can’t just upload a clip, sit back and wait for people to come to you — you need to have a promotion and distribution plan.
“You need to think through why you’re on YouTube and what you want out of it, then tailor the content and the delivery strategy appropriately,” says Smith. “Putting content on YouTube is step one, step two is getting out there and promoting it.”
Justin Gonzalez, social media strategist for creative video agency BARS + TONE agrees that videos won’t go viral on their own — you must allocate time and resources to seed it properly.
“Try using social networks like Facebook and Twitter to get your social strategy started — then promote your video using those vehicles. At the very least, friends and family are a great way to get a video to start circulating,” says Gonzalez. “After all, you put money into making the video, so you better do it justice and get it in front of the right people.”
2. Thinking Small
Although expectations need to be kept realistic, don’t think that viral success is totally out of reach just because you’re a small business.
“There are plenty of small brands that think they need to be a Nike or an Adidas to be successful in social video,” says Wood. “This is simply not true! Any brand, large or small, can score a hit in social video.”
And Wood has a great example of a small business with a successful video: Alphabet Photography’s Christmas Food Court Flash Mob (see above). The clip was one of the surprise hits over the holidays last year, garnering more than 30 million views and almost 773,000 shares on Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere, according to Unruly Media’s Video Viral Chart.”
3. Treating a Viral Video as a Commercial
YouTube is new media, it’s social, it’s about engagement. Don’t sign up for the platform with a limited, old media perspective.
“When you go into online video with the understanding that it can do more than just sell a product or service, you’re already ahead of the game,” says Gonzalez. YouTube is a social channel where people want to consume and share fun and engaging content, so don’t hit them over the head with a sales pitch.
“YouTube requires as much thought as any other social media channel and shouldn’t be looked at as a dumping ground for marketing videos,” says Gonzalez. “Everything you post should represent your brand’s personality and inspire some type of reaction from your viewers -– whether it’s provoking thought, laughing out loud or making a purchase.”
4. Putting All Your Eggs in the YouTube Basket
It’s certainly the biggest, but don’t forget that YouTube isn’t the only online video platform, and it may not offer the best chance of success for your brand. Vimeo, for example, could be considered a more credible platform for creative professionals.
“Businesses that want to leverage the word of mouth potential of social video need to focus away from just YouTube and explore the world of social video that exists beyond YouTube, Twitter and Facebook,” says Wood.
Wood also names action-sports site Mpora and comedy site Funny or Die as effective outlets for hopefully-going-viral videos because they can “deliver high-quality video engagement to a more targeted and niche demographic.”
5. Basing Success on View Counts Alone
Too often, businesses produce videos and hope to get 1 million views. On today’s social web, success isn’t always counted with stats or measured in view counts — meaningful engagement is what matters.
“At Unruly, we place a greater emphasis on brand engagement, so we also look at the number of times a video has been shared on various social media platforms, time spent with the video and uplift in relevant brand metrics,” says Wood.
Gonzalez thinks this is a particularly important point for small businesses, which have limited resources and must decide from the outset what they hope to gain from YouTube.
“Sometimes marketers get bogged down in looking at the metrics and trying to determine whether the number of video views really made a difference in the bottom line, or whether it was just enough to build buzz around the product or service,” says Gonzalez. “When you can clearly define why it’s necessary for your business to be on YouTube, you’re ready to move on to the next steps.”
BONUS: Don’t Underestimate the Power of Cats
And finally, Smith chimes in with the most insightful and important point of all that will help any brand on YouTube — regardless of size or industry.
“Don’t ignore cats. Failure to put a cute or funny cat in your YouTube marketing material will cost you dearly in terms of exposure, credibility, sales and reputation,” he opines. “Everyone will know you are a failing business, and they’ll hate you and your product.”
Google and Mozilla have both announced new browser initiatives that will allow users to opt out of having their activities tracked by online advertisers. These developments are at least partially in response to the “Do Not Track” lists proposed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
In December, the FTC released a 122-page report [PDF] outlining the concept, which has been called a “Do Not Call” list for online behavioral advertising. Rather than make calls for legislation, the FTC has pushed for browser makers and advertisers to self-regulate.
Although targeting the same problem, Mozilla and Google are are approaching opt-out online behavioral advertising from different directions.
Firefox: Do Not Track HTTP Header
On Sunday, Mozilla formally announced its plans to build a do-not-track feature into future versions of Firefox. Alex Fowler, the global privacy and public policy leader at Mozilla, explained the proposed feature on his blog:
“When the feature is enabled and users turn it on, web sites will be told by Firefox that a user would like to opt out of OBA. We believe the header-based approach has the potential to be better for the web in the long run because it is a clearer and more universal opt-out mechanism than cookies or blacklists.”
Mozilla’s Sid Stamm has written his thoughts on the proposal and he explains why the HTTP header approach was chosen fro Firefox:
“Currently, to opt out of online behavioral advertisements, you have to get a site to set an opt-out cookie so they won’t track you. There are various web sites that help out (NAI, IAB UK) and there are Firefox add-ons (TACO, beef taco, etc.) that can streamline this process. But this is a bit of a hack; it’s nearly impossible to maintain a list of all the sites whose tracking people may want to opt-out from. It would be more attractive if there was one universal opt-out signal that would tell all sites you want to opt out.”
Instead, Stamm proposes the use of a HTTP header that is transmitted with every HTTP request and that lets ad networks know a user does not want to bee tracked.
This approach of using a Do-Not-Track HTTP header differs from some other opt-out online behavioral advertising solutions, which utilize either opt-out cookies or an opt-out registry. Michael Hanson from Mozilla Labs has posted a technical analysis of Mozilla’s proposal on his blog.
One advantage of using a header and not a cookie to carry opt-out information is that even if user clears his or her browser cache, the opt-out settings will still remain in place.
As The Wall Street Journal points out, however, for Mozilla’s tool to work, “tracking companies would need to agree to not monitor users who enable the do-not-track feature.” As of this writing, no companies have publicly agreed to participate. Mozilla will have to convince advertisers to comply with its header proposal for this idea to actually gain traction.
The Google Approach
Meanwhile, Google has released a new extension for Google Chrome called Keep My Opt-Outs. The Google Code page for Keep My Opt-Outs describes the extension as a way to “permanently [opt] your browser out of online ad personalization via cookies.”
The extension works with Google-served ads as well as with ads from companies that have signed up with AboutAds.info.
Other Initiatives
Last month, Microsoft announced that IE 9 will include a way for users to create lists of sites or companies that are blocked from tracking their data. This is significant because of reports that Microsoft previously removed similar features from Internet Explorer 8 at the behest of online advertisers.
The features and plugins proposed by Google, Mozilla, Microsoft and others are a good start in making it easier for users to opt-out of online behavioral ads; however, these solutions will only work if advertisers and browser makers can work together in a cohesive way.
TargetSpot, an advertising network for online audio ads, has just announced an $8 million Series C. Fred Wilson’s Union Square Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, CBS Radio and Milestone Venture Partners all participated in the round.
This startup connects national brands and local advertisers alike to the online radio and video audience.
TargetSpot offers advertisers a self-service advertising platform as well as traditional ad account executives. Campaigns featuring audio, display and pre-roll video ads are placed across TargetSpot’s network of online properties, which it says are in the thousands.
Advertisers can also target consumers by geography, demographics and even listening preferences. They also get the beenfit of real-time analytics.
The funds raised in this Series C will be used to grow the startup’s advertising technology, expand its network of properties and hire more salespeople.
In a release, Fred Wilson said, “TargetSpot has been a pioneer in developing the digital audio advertising market. Its early investments created the largest network of its kind, incorporating many of the leading online radio groups and pureplay music streaming companies.
“The funding will help us accelerate TargetSpot’s growth trajectory by expanding our advertising product lineup on both the web and mobile platforms.”
The startup hasn’t taken funding since March 2008, when it raised an $8.6 million Series B. All current investors, with the exception of CBS Radio, also participated in the previous round.
That alone serves as evidence that the traditional media outlet is taking online radio (and online radio advertising) quite seriously. CBS Radio is also one of TargetSpot’s distribution partners.
Google Product Listing Ads are now being rolled out to all of Google’s advertisers in the United States. The format, which has been in testing with select advertisers for the past year, makes AdWords more visual by allowing advertisers to list specific products with accompanying images.
While the ads represent a departure from Google’s traditional text ads – and what some might argue is yet more clutter in the once spartan Google search interface – the results apparently speak for themselves.
Writing on the Inside AdWords blog, a company spokesperson says that they’ve “found that people are twice as likely to click on a Product Listing Ad as they are to click on a standard text ad in the same location.”
With the program now expanding from a reported 800 advertisers to Google’s entire advertiser base, it could mean significantly more graphical ads in search results, as well as better returns for advertisers and more revenue for Google.
Google explains the format a bit more in the video below:
Google has just launched Boost, a location-based ad product for local businesses.
Built on Google Places, Boost beta is available in San Francisco, Houston and Chicago right now and will roll out to more cities soon.
Boost ads show up when users search for local businesses; they appear in the “sponsored links” section of Google’s web search and Google Maps, as well. Ads will appear when the right combination of vertical keyword (e.g., “restaurants”) and location keyword (e.g., “San Francisco”) is met.
The ads can contain basic location information, such as the address, business name and phone number, as well as more consumer-focused tidbits, including a star ratings, number of reviews received and a special Maps marker.
Business owners can create Boost ads from within their Google Places account. Initial setup is simple, and campaign management is automatic; all the business owner needs to do is set a budget, and Google’s advertising algorithm takes care of the details of placement and frequency.
These two companies are in a tight battle for ad dollars, and Facebook has been able to gain a competitive advantage by delivering hyper-targeted, highly relevant ads based on user-supplied information. With more location-based information flowing into the network via Facebook Places, Facebook is also poised to lead location-based advertising.
However, Google’s advantage here is that they’re capturing not only highly qualified but also actively interested consumers. On Facebook, the user’s ad viewing may be much more passive and less likely to end in a purchase or other desired action.
Here’s what Boost ads will look like (the blue marker indicates the advertised business):
Local and location-based information has been a focus at Google lately. The company announced it would focus on delivering more geo-specific search results earlier this month, right around the time it named Marissa Mayer, thenVP of search product, its location and local services chief.
According to various reports, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is considering instituting a “do not track” list, similar in concept to the Do Not Call registry, for Internet users who want their browsing activity hidden from online advertisers.
If implemented, this registry would keep advertisers from tracking your browsing and shopping history via cookies and serving customized ads based on your behavior.
This opt-out solution would be great for consumers who’d rather not have the commercial version of Big Brother watching their every online move while still allowing those more lax in matters of online privacy to benefit from increasingly sophisticated e-commerce technologies.
FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz told members of the Senate Commerce Committee recently, “We may explore in the context of behavioral advertising… a do-not-track mechanism that’s more comprehensive and easier to use than the procedures currently available. Under such a mechanism, users could opt out of behavioral advertising more easily rather than having to make choices on website-by-website basis.”
Back in 2007, similar legislation was proposed. At that time, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Consumer Action, the Consumer Federation of America and the Electronic Frontier Foundation were among the registry’s advocates. These groups also suggested that advertisers should give consumers details about exactly what data they intended to track.
We’re unclear on exactly why this idea wasn’t implemented three years ago. What we do know now is that it’s going to be difficult for the FTC to make these changes when it might not have the deep and wide control it would need to institute such a registry. Moreover, this list is guaranteed to be extremely unpopular in the online ad industry, which itself is one of the main arteries of Internet revenue.
We won’t know anything about the fate of this idea for quite some time; whether or not it’s even feasible will be explored in a comprehensive report on online privacy due to be released later this year. If the online ad industry takes proactive steps toward explaining and protecting users’ privacy and data beforehand, the legislation may not even be necessary, Leibowitz noted.
What do you think about the concept of a do-not-track list for online advertising? Would it harm the Internet industries as much as it would protect citizens? Let us know your opinions in the comments.
Love them or hate them, Apple’s iconic “Get a Mac” ads have made a huge impact on pop culture. Today, we’ve learned that the campaign is slated for the deadpool.
In an interview with the Onion’s A.V. Club, actor Justin Long was asked about the status of the campaign. He responded, “I heard from [fellow actor in the spots] John [Hodgman], I think they’re going to move on[...] Not only am I going to miss doing them, but also working with John.”
AdWeek called “Get a Mac” the best campaign of the decade. The four-year campaign spawned countless YouTube parodies from fans and foes alike and even the occasional Linux user. Now that it’s over, let’s take a look back on 1- of the most popular ads — and a couple of parodies, as well.
Better Results — Ad #13
Featuring the lovely Gisele Bündchen as a Mac home movie and a rather shoddy-looking transvestite as a PC home movie.
Get a Mac, ft. Mr. Bean
This parody video is about 3 times more popular than “Better Results” on YouTube. Yes, Bündchen is gorgeous and famous, but no one can dance like Mr. Bean.
Naughty Step
Speaking of Mr. Bean, there is a land not so far away where gas is “petrol,” fries are “chips” and ads are “adverts.” Apple made a slew of “Get a Mac” commercials featuring UK comedic duo Mitchell and Webb.
Surgery — Ad #21
Apple struck marketing gold with the release of Windows Vista. Many of the “Get a Mac” ads centered on how buggy, crash-y and all-around awful Microsoft’s latest OS was.
Choose a Vista — Ad #27
Wheel of Fortune meets Windows operating systems in this classic YouTube clip.
Sad Song (Long) — Ad #43b
Here’s another ad centering on the woes of Vista. Anyone who can work “Control, alt, delete” into a tune gets my vote.
Novell “Get a Mac” Spoof #2
Ah, the joys of open source software! This parody ad, one of three created by Novell, touts the benefits of Linux distros: They’re free, and you can change them up any time you like.
Security — Ad #23
Anyone who had to suffer through Vista can appreciate the PC/secret service guy dialog in this ad.
Broken Promises — Ad #64
So, after running dozens of ads based on how much Vista sucked, here’s Apple’s response to Windows 7.
Get a Mac: PC Finally Snaps
This student video illustrates a sentiment among PC owners and ad types that the entire “Get a Mac” campaign is misleading and the brand’s position is one of unbearable smugness and schadenfreude.
If you’d like to see more “Get a Mac” ads, check out AdWeek’s retrospective, which features all 66 commercials in the campaign in a conveniently organized timeline.
With today’s website tracking software and services you can find out a lot about the people who visit your website. You can learn where they’re from, what kind of browser they’re using, how long they stayed on your site, and a whole lot more. But what all this high tech intelligence won’t tell you is what kind of people they are, and how likely they are to be transformed by your Web presentation from viewers to customers. Your ability to convert website visitors into clients depends on your ability to find the soft underbelly of their subconscious desire. After all, if someone is happy with what they’ve already got, they don’t need you, but if they were truly one hundred percent happy, they wouldn’t bother coming to your website. Therefore every visitor that comes to your site is a potential client whether they know it or not. The Setup’s The Thing Your website presentation has to find that annoying little subconscious scab just under the surface and pick at it until it becomes a full blown irritation that fosters discontent and a desire for change. That discontent is your opening to make your value statement. We refer to this process as The Setup. Like any good presentation you cannot, or rather should not, just blurt out how great you are, but rather you have to set the scene. Like any good story, the punch line, moral, or payoff only works if it is properly setup. Far too many website presentations suffer from premature pitch climax. The ability to transform viewers into customers requires patience. Entrepreneurial companies tend to view the setup as a waste of time, and they fear losing viewers before they ever get to the so-called “good-stuff.” But without a proper setup, an audience is just not primed to accept what you have to say. You can’t sell anybody anything unless they understand they’ve not been getting everything they need and deserve. That understanding creates dissatisfaction with your competition and opens the audience’s minds to what you have to offer. In short, the setup needs to touch a psychological nerve. The Customer Is Always Right – Not Quite We’ve all heard the expression, “the customer is always right.” The fact is the customer is not always right, and in many cases they don’t really know what they want or what they should have; and sometimes even when they do, they resist it because of a variety of misinformation, misunderstanding, self-doubt, and preconceived notions of conventional wisdom. It’s your website presentation’s job to set visitors on the right path. Being The Expert Inspires Confidence You’re supposed to be the expert in what you do, and if you are, you need to have the ability to dig deeper into what people really want, need, and desire. I am always reminded of friends of mine who hired an interior decorator to furnish their new home. The decorator asked them what kind of furniture they liked. They answered that they were looking for Colonial, to which the decorator answered, “No you aren’t. What you want is Country French.” And after he showed my friends what he was talking about they quickly agreed. The decorator knew his business and understood the clients. Yes the clients liked the idea of the homey Colonial look they’d seen, but not being furniture experts they didn’t understand what the options were, and what kind of furniture best suited their lifestyle and budget, while still providing the homey rustic but comfortable aesthetic they wanted. Customer satisfaction is about providing what the client really wants and not necessarily what they say they want. Learn How To Communicate So Audiences Get It Let’s face it; we all like to read about how the digital revolution has opened up the business world to more audience influence, but the fact is people are influenced and manipulated and desires created through marketing and advertising as much as ever. How many website owners actually benefit in any meaningful way from social networking and search optimization, or do they do it because it’s expected and promoted by proponents as the tactic du jour. If you think a particular song you like is played on a thousand radio stations because it’s good, or even because it has a following then you are living in a fantasy world. If you thing the vast majority of viral videos produced by corporations go viral all by themselves then think again. Audiences are being manipulated and transformed into customers all the time, not because companies responded to what the public says, but rather to how the public reacts to various communication and marketing stimuli. What’s truly amazing is how bad companies are at doing it. With all of the television industries’ research into viewers, they still fail to deliver consistent quality programming that people want to watch. Every Fall new shows are yanked faster than a Nolan Ryan fastball, but the same crappy commercials live-on for what seems an eternity. Television viewers are a captive audience and if they want to watch their favorite show they have to tolerate the commercials (PVRs aside), but the Web is different. If your website presentation stinks, nobody is going to stick around to absorb the smell. Web Television Convergence Has Arrived If you think of your website presentation as nothing more than a digital brochure, you’re already behind the curve. Welcome to the Web on TV. All you need is a laptop computer or one of the new gaming consoles attached to your big screen TV to access the Web on television. And as network programmers scramble to get their acts together more and more people are opting to spend their television time on the Web. Kind of makes you rethink what kind of website presentation you should be offering. It’s time to start thinking of your website as your own business channel and the content on it as programming. It’s the future and it’s here, now. Who Visits Your Website? Before website visitors can be transformed into clients, we have to understand who they are in terms of their mental outlook or frame of mind when they first arrive at your home page. 1. Accidental Tourists Accidental Tourists are website visitors who find their way to your website by serendipity. Your company’s link may have come up in a search for something mentioned on your website, but not something that’s a core element of your business. But just because these people didn’t really intend to visit a site like yours doesn’t mean they’re a waste of time. Perhaps they never thought of using your product or service, or perhaps they never realized how much they really wanted what you have to offer. If your website presentation is exciting, meaningful, and entertaining you at least have the opportunity to plant the seed of desire for your product or service. 2. Brain Pickers Brain Pickers show up at your site with little intention to buy anything, in fact they’re there to pick your brain and find out how to do what you do for themselves. But if you’re truly an expert at what you do, you at least have the opportunity to show these people that what you offer is special, and doing it right requires a company with your skills and resources. 3. Penny Pinchers These guys are looking for a bargain. You are on a list and they are checking out who is offering the cheapest solution to their problem. But not all Penny Pinchers are penny-wise and pound-foolish, some, just need to understand why you’re the best at what you do, and why what you are charging is the real bargain. 4. Tire Kickers The Tire Kickers love to look but rarely buy. They want what you’ve got but they just can’t make the commitment to buy it. They visit your website a hundred times, each time pressing their noses against the virtual storefront window trying to make a decision that rarely comes. It’s up to your website presentation to push them over the edge. If they want what you’ve got, you can sell it to them. All you need to do is find that soft under belly of desire that gets them eager to spend their money. 5. Missourians These guys want what you offer but need the reassurance of some practical input to get them to buy. The desire is there, but it’s frustrated by their mental need to justify the purchase with practical excuses. “But Honey, I know little Johnny is only three, but think of the eye-hand co-ordination he’ll learn playing these video games.” People ultimately buy what they want, and rationalize the purchase with logic and reasoning, but without desire, no amount of statistical evidence will work. 6. The Enemy If you’re any good, you’ll have plenty of competitors hanging around your website looking for ideas they can use. It’s all part of the game. Better to be out there showing people what you’ve got than hiding, afraid someone might take advantage. Besides if you’re really good, you’ll always be at least one step ahead of the competition anyway. That makes you the leader and them the follower. And everybody wants to do business with the leader. 7. The Needy The Needy crave what you’ve got but need a lot of reassurance, handholding, and customer support. These guys have the potential to be good customers but your presentation has to make it clear that you’ll be there to answer questions and concerns and not just leave them in the lurch like so many other Web-based businesses do after they’ve got the sale. In The End If you’re fed-up with social networking self-gratification, frustrated by ever changing site optimization requirements, and ineffective advertising then it’s time to re-evaluate what your website presentation says and how it says it. In the final analysis it’s all about communicating your emotional value proposition using your most important venue, your website; delivered in the most engaging, informative, and memorable manner that compels your audience to pay attention to your marketing message, and act upon it.
by Jerry Bader, Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video.
By all measures, 2008 capped a banner period of growth for Internet video. In the span of a few short years, consumers have done what all the experts said was impossible: radically alter their video-watching behaviors, frequently trading in the “couch potato” experience of watching TV on the sofa to view snippets on the mobile phone or catch a missed show on the computer after the initial broadcast. But despite a tremendous amount of growth in the number of online video views, the global economic turmoil has — and will continue to have — an enormous impact on the digital video market, exacerbating what was always going to be a slow advertising growth curve. Unsold inventory is impacting all corners of the industry, and skeptical TV and advertising executives looking at paltry revenues are telling themselves that the new platforms are to blame, when the sagging economy should in all fairness be shouldering much of the responsibility. As the economy rebounds, there are four ways everyone in the industry can help contribute to the ongoing economic growth of online video advertising: 1. Encourage new advertising models and expanded inventory for alternative platforms now, while consumers continue to modify their TV-watching behavior. Studies are already showing that consumers would readily accept double, if not more, the number of ads currently deployed for mobile and online. As consumers further embrace these alternative ways of watching video content, platforms should codify alternative advertising models such as pause ads, a higher number of advertising breaks, and additional revenue streams such as subscription-based models. 2. Take advance of the digital format by repurposing content across multiple platforms, enabling advertisers to follow suit in complementary ways. As content is digitized, content owners should monetize across multiple platforms: mobile, online, even video gaming platforms. Advertisers should be encouraged to follow suit and make the most of cross-platform campaigns by incorporating geo-targeting, couponing, and other forward-thinking branding techniques that will incentivize consumers and drive measurable results for brands and products. 3. Know your data — and your target audience — inside and out. Consumer behavior around the searching and indexing of your content is measurable and quantifiable. Unlike broadcast, aggregate online video usage can be tracked — and extended — by making desired content easy to find, targeting similar videos to watch next, and serving targeted advertising throughout the experience that will be of interest to the consumer and of higher value to the advertiser. Integrated metadata can further empower multichannel monetization, building a larger audience across cable, broadband and mobile. 4.Encourage patience among peers, clients and business partners. Economic woes aside, online video advertising is a fledgling industry and we all need to encourage patience as the economy grows to support growing consumer behaviors. Forrester reported that more consumers watched Internet video in 2008 than on DVR last year, and DVR has been around since 1999. And DVR advertising is still finding its way. This new model of video watching is on a steep growth trajectory, but it will take time for advertisers to firmly embrace new ad models and the full potential of the industry. Some experts predict the economy could be many months — or years — on the rebound. But as much as the economic turmoil might be beyond our control, we all should take every opportunity we can to help promote the online video advertising industry as it takes its first wobbly steps.
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Love them or hate them, Apple’s iconic