Mark Tutssel, worldwide CEO of the ad agency Leo Burnett, told marketers they need to learn to reach consumers on user-generated content sites like YouTube, which the
Financial Times points out
now has greater reach than MTV. Tutssel said TV-like commercials would be effective on a site like YouTube, but savvy marketers would create videos with the intention of having them distributed
virally like the other viral content on the site. Consumer interaction, allowing consumers to create their own commercials and content, and trusting that they want to interact with your brand would
also be key to the future of video advertising. "Once consumers have interacted with brands, they will not go back to being shouted at by marketers," he said. Tutssel, speaking at the annual Cannes
Lions International Advertising Festival, delivered his speech prior to handing out an award to a campaign that was designed to look like a homemade video. Viral video was a hot topic in Cannes this
year,
FT said--not only because of its enormous potential reach, but also because it sometimes doesn't involve any spend on media at all. Last year's Chevy-Tahoe campaign, which invited
consumers to create their own ads using TV commercial footage, is a good example: it drew 5.5 million consumers to a Web site and produced 22,000 entries--just 16 percent were negative.
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