Upload video, light fire, add petrol
With more than a billion video views every day, 400 million monthly unique browsers and 24+ hours of video uploaded every minute, you’ve got to believe that YouTube is a major opportunity for advertisers. Certainly the 300 attendees that packed into the Crown Plaza early Tuesday morning for the Marketing Association’s Brainy Breakfast, exclusively sponsored by Jericho, thought so.
Fresh off the plane from Tokyo, Karen Stocks, Google’s head of media solutions, YouTube and display Australia and New Zealand, gave a succinct but highly informative dissertation on the art and business of online video.
The statistics are impressive: 65 percent of those who watch video online, most frequently do so on YouTube; 74 percent don’t mind the advertising, since it allows the site to be free; 30 percent pay more attention to ads they watch on YouTube than ads they see on TV; and 73 percent enjoy watching video ads if they are related and entertaining. But it is the engagement of brands with this medium that the fans came to hear about.
Stocks regaled the audience with example after example of big-spending advertisers who have seen the light and succeeded in engaging with YouTube. Many of the success stories involved using YouTube as a multiplier of the effectiveness of TV advertising, often using YouTube for its halo effect.
Why is it then, as Stocks rhetorically asked the audience, that with 38 percent of media consumed online, only nine percent of ad budgets are spent there? Probably because there are so few in the advertising and marketing world who know how to use the opportunity effectively.
Help is at hand, and in a very short space of time Stocks demonstrated some highly effective best-practice strategies. From homepage takeovers and in-stream integration to promotion videos, brand hubs and videos gone viral, big brands are spending big bucks with YouTube. There are even local examples with Tourism New Zealand and Air New Zealand at the forefront of the new way.
Local car advertisers must have been impressed with Volvo’s 17,000 hours of brand engagement in 24 hours or the Mitsubishi Outlander promotion videos in Search. With 88 percent of new car buyers searching online before buying and 44 percent watching video before purchasing a vehicle it surprising more aren’t using this approach.
As Jules Lloyd, head of the creative shop at Air New Zealand said in her follow-up presentation on the airline’s now famous Nothing to Hide campaign that went viral an broke all records: “Light the fire and add petrol”.
Content creation is the new way to build brands and online video is a critical part of content distribution. But beware, advertisers can’t just create and expect the audience to come. The trick is to collaborate with creative partners, as Air New Zealand did with .99, to find new ways to embrace the new realities.
Too many are still out of sync with how consumers are consuming media.
Blu Steven
April 20, 2010
Great summary Graham, thanks. I believe a big part of the barrier to advertisers using online video in their marketing strategies is concern regarding the cost of creating the content. There will always be a need for big budget, full-noise productions for some campaigns but so ofetn a great idea can be delivered effectively even if it's shot a cell phone. Our online tool, http://www.websitetelly.com is desigend to let anyone make a simple video with professional voiceover and music from just a few photographs.
My observation over years in the television production industry is to not make sure your idea is bigger than your camera. Blu Steven.
Boyd Wason
April 21, 2010
Jarrad's and Jules presentations were informative and insightful. Great to see local speakers of real international quality. I was disappointed by Karen's presentation, most of the information she presented is already widely known. She gave no insights into how You Tube are planning to foster their community, only information on how they are planning to interrupt them with traditional media models. I was left with a feeling that You Tube has its place, but its better to look at other SM channel like Facebook as key engagement platforms.
Boyd Wason
April 21, 2010
I also see quite a few people are also twittering about the question – 38 percent of media consumed online, only nine percent of ad budgets are spent there? Does this 9% include the development cost of the sites behind the media and compare the fragmentation of the channels and the content issues an its easy to understand why. Come on people – may this is why Karen stated as a questions rather than try to explain it!
Weasel
April 21, 2010
Nothing like sucking up to clients, Boyd! I notice Air New Zealand is listed as a client on Tango's website. I assume you're trying for some more business.
I thought Karen's presentation was highly informative. At last someone who can tell marketers "how to do it" instead of the usual "why they should".
Boyd Wason
April 21, 2010
3 things. 1. Before you throw that brick (need to declare that we have clients in the building industry) look at the guy at the top of the comments with his comments ad. 2. Are you disagreeing with me on the quality of jarrad and Jules presentation? Not sure if you’ll find much support there. 3. Glad you found our wedsite http://www.tangocomms.co.NZ so informative. We’ve really been working hard on it (may now need to retract point 1). Agree with you on the amount of people tell the why they should stories. Next time you’re after a free lunch I’ll take you through some of the interesting learning we had.