In a perhaps-inevitable latest iteration of marketers' use of '60s and '70s culture to woo Baby Boomers to food products with digestive and other health-oriented benefits, General Mills has launched videos featuring Cheech & Chong promoting its new Fiber One 90 Calorie Brownies. The multiple videos are positioned as a trailer and clips from the comedy duo's first (imaginary) "epic" in 28 years: "Cheech & Chong's Magic Brownie Adventure." On their way to deliver a truckful of the magic brownies to "Burning Pole" (a "crazy desert festival"), the two have various adventures, including freaking out a family just trying to see the Grand Canyon. The creative, of course, indirectly alludes to the pair's famous shtick: befuddlement borne of too much fondness for cannabis. The twist/joke is summed up in the tagline: "Now that you're getting older, you need a new kind of magic from your brownie"... namely, fiber (along with low calories and "chewy, chocolately" taste). In one clip, Tommy Chong urges viewers to "Get high on fiber." The campaign, created with Publicis Modem New York, aims to create buzz among media influencers as well as Boomers, Fiber One marketing manager Jim Wilson told ClickZ. The brand is testing the waters via digital-only media elements, but may expand the campaign if it produces enough viral impact, he said. The videos are embedded in the campaign's microsite (fiberone.com/ magicbrownie) and posted on YouTube. The "trailer" version has pulled more than 73,000 views since being posted on Sept. 12. The videos are also being promoted on the brand's main site and Facebook page, and through Twitter and online display ads on General Mills-sponsored Yahoo Boomer site Vitality. Judging from comments on Facebook, not everyone seems to be getting the joke. Examples: "If they really r making a New movie how Awesome..."; "By magic, you really mean pot?"; and "I am scared of magic in my brownies!!!" Also, not all who are getting it find it amusing. One poster noted that the thinly disguised allusions to pot must mean that Fiber one isn't for kids and families. Another wrote: "This is soooooo inappropriate and makes Fiber One, as a brand, look trashy and ghetto." Some are just gripes about how frequently the brand is promoting the product on Facebook. However, most of the feedback about the videos and/or product is positive: "Brilliant;" "Love it"; "It's a damn good brownie, just not so magical"; "I bought a pkg today, plan to try in the morning."
You weren't in a time warp, Bruce Horovitz assures us in USA Today, and pardon you if thinking you were while watching the likes of the late Michael Jackson and Ray Charles pitching Pepsi on the debut of Simon Cowell's "The X Factor" on Fox last night. There were other no-need-for-last names megastars of another generation in the 60-second spot, dubbed "Music Icons," such as Brittany, Mariah, Kanye. But it also features a "Pepsi-exclusive remix" of the song, "Tonight is the Night" by Yonkers-own Outasight. PepsiCo Beverages CMO Simon Lowden says, "'Tonight is the Night'... perfectly captures the spirit of music today" and "that the spot is about re-igniting the timeless connection between Pepsi and iconic pop music and also about celebrating our partnership with 'The X Factor.'" Another spot that rolled out last night stars Kevin McHale, the actor who portrays the wheelchair-bound Artie Abrams on "Glee." He was selected "because of his genuine affinity for the brand," PepsiCo Beverages chief global consumer engagement officer Frank Cooper tells Ad Age's Natalie Zmuda. "He was effusive about it. It wasn't a one-word answer, 'Pepsi is cool.'" In addition to the nods to its heritage, there will be some decidedly contemporary twists to the campaign, and we're not just talking the "X Factor" tab on Pepsi's Facebook page. McHale tells viewers that "with Pepsi, you'll experience the show in ways you have never imagined," but Cooper is cagey when Zmuda presses him on exactly what that means. He does say the brand "will be focused on second-screen activity, as well as aggregating conversations and interacting with viewers" and that "we're making an effort to move beyond the traditional sponsorship and think about how the Pepsi brand can add to the viewer experience." Isn't everybody? Getting back to the nuts and bolts of product placement, Pepsi received more than $6,500,000 in free media exposure through verbal mentions, product consumptions and other forms of screen time including cups on the judges' table and vending machines in the main contestant waiting room last night alone, according to a release from Front Row Analytics. And the Boston Herald reports that a hometown company called Pongr is behind technology that recognizes the "X-Factor" logos on photos of cans of Pepsi that customers send in from their mobile devices. In return, they get back videos featuring behind-the-scenes footage and 56 contestants will eventually win a trip to Los Angeles. "Mobile users are getting very familiar with the concept of the 'check-in,'" says Pongr CEO Jamie Thompson, who claims he's ready to handle hundreds of millions of photos. "But Pongr is all about bringing that concept down to the product level, getting people to check in to a product, and hopefully buy that product." Meanwhile, Age's EJ Schultz reports PepsiCo is forming a Global Snacks Group to coordinate international marketing and innovation, as well as Power of One Americas Council to jointly promote snacks and beverages in stores. Both efforts will be led by John Compton, CEO of PepsiCo Americas Foods. "The group's creation comes as analysts have questioned PepsiCo's ability to market food and beverage together. Some analysts have gone so far as to suggest the company split in two, separating its fast-rising snacks business from its underperforming beverage unit," Schultz writes. Down in Atlanta, Coca-Cola is "backing off supersizing" Mike Esterl reported earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal. In an exclusive, he reported that Coke is launching 12.5-ounce, 89-cent bottles to accompany the 16-ounce, 99-cent bottles it rolled out nationally last year as an alternative to 20-ounce bottles and is also reducing the suggested price its eight-pack of 7.5-ounce Coke "mini'' cans in supermarkets by about 20% to $2.99 to try and lure more customers. In a video interview on Bloomberg, Coke CEO Muhtar Kent takes the long view. "We're generating that growth not because of what we've done in the last quarters, but what's happened in the last three years -- how we've invested in our brands, how we've created an infrastructure, how we're communicating with our consumers and how we're generating and commercializing innovation," he says. And, according to WARC's report on the conversation, Kent is grateful for little things, too: "We're fortunate that we are in a business where we sell, in a way, moments of pleasure at cents at a time. So we're not selling refrigerators and we're not selling big ticket items." Okay, who can we get to say it? Hmmm, how about Robert Thompson, professor of TV and pop culture at Syracuse University? "I suppose we could call this Cola Wars II," he tells Horovitz. "The war to end all cola wars." Right. I'll bet you a case of generic seltzer water the battle will still be raging when we're all in "Rock and Roll Heaven."
Social video analytics firm Visible Measures this morning said it closed on a $13 million round of financing led by DAG Ventures, but also including Advance Publications, the owner of consumer magazine publisher Conde Nast, which publishes titles such as Wired, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Vogue, and related websites as well as Epicurious.com and reddit.com. Other backers in the round included existing investors: General Catalyst Partners, Mohr Davidow Ventures, and Northgate Capital. Visible Measures, which has raised more than $45 million in financing to date, said the new round would be used to "accelerate the growth" of its platform for analyzing social video and advertising on it. "Advance Publications, with their incredible breadth of media properties, will be an excellent partner to help us increase the scope of our offerings," stated Visible Measures CEO Brian Shin. "We believe that the application of data and analytics will be the catalyst to shift billions of TV ad dollars online over time," added Andrew Siegel, senior vice president-strategy & corporate development at Advance Publications. "Visible Measures is uniquely positioned to deliver Google-style ROI measurement across the increasingly sought-after segment known as Earned Media." In addition to expanding its platform, Visible Measures said it is increasing its sales force and support infrastructure to service, including its offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, and London, in addition to its headquarters in Boston. Among the new hires it has made, are Google's previous head of sales and enterprise for Google Analytics, Paul Botto, who has been named general manager of analytics & senior vice president-business development at Visible Measures.
Ford is hoping a new Web site will help people "get" Sync, its multifarious voice-activated, in-vehicle connectivity system. The site is intended both to give owners a resource for the platform and to give people at the lower end of the purchase funnel a nudge toward Ford and Lincoln vehicles. The new site also happens to adhere to a strategic tenet of Ford marketing evinced in a number of social media and traditional ad campaigns: let shoppers and owners do the talking. Ads for Fiesta, Fusion, Focus and Explorer feature real people, often taken by surprise in faux press conferences. One raft of ads for Fusion has a pop-up TV studio that surprises people arriving at gas stations with competitive vehicles. "Like other marketing efforts, we are trying to get real people to talk about Sync and how they are integrating it into their lives," says Scott Kelly, Ford's digital marketing manager, who explains that front and center on the site are a series of videos aimed at people who have put Ford or Lincoln on their shopping list. The videos feature real Ford and Lincoln vehicle owners showing how they use Sync. "Then, on the support side [for owners] we have now made it much easier to get information." Kelly explains that the site -- at www.ford.com/sync, which is actually the first revamp of the Sync Web site since the platform launched over three years ago -- no longer requires owners to log in to get information on specific Sync features. "Sync is cutting-edge, so just like all new technology there is a learning curve; we just wanted to give consumers and owners a simpler way to get to the technology." Ford got a cold shower from J.D. Power & Associates and Consumer Reports earlier this year specifically because survey respondents commenting on some of the upgraded technology for Sync (encompassed within the MyFord Touch platform) said the technology was too confusing. That lowered Ford's scores in benchmark studies like J.D. Power's Initial Quality survey. The videos on the site have owners talking about how they do things like stay in touch, get driver assistance, and get entertainment and peace of mind, with each video section headlined by the first name and last initial of the Ford owner featured. They have titles like "Sync actually helped me plan my husband's surprise" -- Aisha P.; and "If she's in an accident, this 911 voice comes on." -- Eric S. For owners and others who want a tech immersion, the new site has a "Configurations" tab on the home page that delineates the four Sync packages -- Basic SYNC, SYNC with Voice-Activated Navigation, SYNC with MyFord, and SYNC with MyFord Touch -- and how each one works. There is also a "Commands" tab that launches an animated page on which voice commands activate Sync to provide specific information. There is also a "Features" tab on the home page explaining things like Sync AppLink, Sync Services, Voice-Activated Navigation and audible text messaging. Kelly says the site is also more brand specific, "so you will choose the brand first and then learn about Sync. There's a Ford and a Lincoln route." Ford will also do marketing communications to tout the new site. The company is doing a digital campaign for the Sync microsite, with ads to will appear on sites like KBB.com, and edmunds.com, where people are deciding between this or that vehicle. "Sync is a differentiator; it has the capacity to put people over the edge toward the Ford side."
YouTube oversees a huge number of video views, but not without a little help from certain media companies. Giving these outfits their due, August marked the first month of official rankings for comScore YouTube Partner Reporting within its Video Metrix offering -- essentially offering a comparison of viewership across thousands of YouTube partner channels. The data revealed that video music channels Vevo and Warner Music led all channels, with 60.6 million viewers and 30.9 million viewers, respectively. Gaming channel Machinima ranked third with 17.7 million viewers, followed by Maker Studios with 10 million, Demand Media with 8.4 million and Revision3 with 6.6 million. Within the top 10 partners, TheGameStation demonstrated the highest engagement with 76.5 minutes per viewer on average, while Machinima was a close second on average engagement at 72.6 minutes per viewer. Machinima also accounted for the second-most videos viewed -- 289 million -- after Vevo, for which 68.1% of its viewers were male, and 70.3% were under the age of 35. Google sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in August with 162 million unique viewers, while Vevo ranked second with 62.3 million. Facebook.com remained in third with 51.7 million viewers, followed by Viacom Digital with 49.9 million, and Microsoft Sites with 46.4 million. Total viewing sessions reached another all-time high in August at 6.9 billion, with Google sites generating the highest number of viewing sessions -- 3.5 billion. According to comScore, the average viewer watched 18 hours of online video content during the course of the month, with Google Sites -- 5.7 hours -- and Hulu -- 3.2 hours -- demonstrating the highest engagement. Overall, Americans viewed more than 5.6 billion video ads in August, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at 996 million. Tremor Video ranked second overall -- and highest among video ad exchanges and networks -- with 764 million ad views, followed by Adap.tv -- 720 million -- and BrightRoll Video Network -- 603 million.
This week marks the one-year anniversary of AOL's acquisition of 5Min for $65 million. The purchase was a big deal because it marked the first large acquisition in online video since Google's $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube. The divergent purchase figures capture not only the different sizes of the companies but also the frustration that investors have faced in online video despite lofty expectations and frothy forecasts over the past five years. When 5Min launched, it aimed to aggregate user-generated, 5-minute how-to videos to build a destination. Over time, it shied away from UGC and embraced aggregation of "premium" content (that's when my company's relationship with 5Min started.) 5Min not only shied away from UGC, but also never attempted to license "super-premium" content from Hollywood studios and networks. Indeed, when CEO Ran Harnevo praised evergreen videos he was describing not just our type of content but the hundreds of thousands of videos that the company ended up licensing via partnerships with E!, IGN, CNET and many others. Instead of limiting itself to its own 5Min.com own-and-operated destination, the Israeli-based company then focused on syndicating the videos it was licensing to a wide array of targeted publishers; like Roo before it, and Grab and Clip Syndicate concurrently. 5Min then set up an office in New York and began to add both content providers and distribution partners. Before anyone else noticed, by January 2010, "little 5Min" was a comScore top 10 property. At the time, Harnevo described his brainchild as a Google AdSense for videos. As a content provider who kept tabs on 5Min's growth, I could not help but agree that 5Min's approach of surveying a webpage to determine its content to then load a pertinent video was reminiscent of Google's cash cow. By then, rumors started to pop up about an impending 5Min sale, for hundreds of millions of dollars. If 5Min were to become the AdSense of video, then the sky was the limit. But by September 2010, 5Min had accepted an offer from AOL and sold for $65 million after investors including Spark Capital had poured $13 million in the company. I won't share too many details of the process, but I will share two tidbits: First, I always thought 5Min's Harnevo was very much in tune with the limitations of UGC, and seemed like a humble and modest executive. Considering that the other CEOs AOL bought include Arianna Huffington and Michael Arrington, Harnevo has proven to be a class act since the deal. I also recall when I was in AOL's office in the summer of 2010 discussing our own distribution deal with AOL. When our meeting was over, my counterpart at AOL asked me: "What do you think of 5Min?" Without having thought about it much beforehand, I replied: "I love the 5Min guys; I think they have executed really well. If you're looking to partner with them, it might be hard because 5Min uses its own player. So if you wanted to do some kind of deal with them to get access to their content rights and distribution network, you would have to buy them." I honestly didn't think much about it then, and I am in no way suggesting that anything I said had a material impact on AOL's decision to buy 5Min, but when it was said and done, AOL moved ahead a few months later and bought 5Min. Since the Sale to 5Min Within a week or two, things changed. Before the sale, every time 5Min was in the news, I would blog about our partnership and after the deal was announced, before long, our phone wouldn't stop ringing: it was either an "ad network or media company" who was intrigued by the validation of 5Min's exit to AOL and sought to duplicate it. Since then, we have signed a plethora of deals with companies who are seeking to emulate 5Min's model. We have also tightened our partnership with 5Min and AOL and don't see any reason why that would change. However, what is interesting to me is that 5Min sold for $65 million, a far cry from YouTube's $1.65 billion. As a content producer, it would be nice for said "ad networks and media companies" to not content themselves to merely duplicate 5Min's mode,l but to take it to the next level to build the $650 million exit. It's important to state that if any one of our partners among"ad networks and media companies" are reading this and wondering: "Is Ash talking about us?" the answer is "no." I am not talking about any single one company -- but admittedly, the entire litany of players who are out there trying to out-5Min 5Min. The way to build the $650M exit seems blatantly clear to me, and perhaps is something I'll cover in a subsequent article.
Netflix is continuing to lobby to modify a 1988 privacy law that protects the confidentiality of people's movie rental records. The Video Privacy Protection Act prohibits movie rental companies from disclosing information about which films people have seen without their written permission. Lawmakers passed the bill after a Washington newspaper printed the records of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings reiterated yesterday at F8 that the law prevents the company from integrating with Facebook in the U.S. The service rolling out in other countries allows Facebook members to see what their Facebook friends have watched. "This makes it easier and more fun to find new television series and movies to watch," Facebook's Tom Willerer enthuses in the company's blog. Whether the video privacy protection law would really prohibit this integration if users opted in isn't completely clear. Michael Drobac, director of government relations at the company, says only that the law "creates some confusion" about the ability to "to let U.S. members automatically share the television shows and movies they watch with their friends on Facebook." Drobac now urges consumers to support H.R. 2471, which would explicitly allow people to consent online to disclosure of their records on an ongoing basis. He is asking people to email their representatives in favor of the proposed revision. Perhaps some users will do so, but this proposal doesn't seem likely to draw a groundswell of support. After all, people can already post information about movies they have watched to Facebook, and anyone with a Web connection can stream movies without also having a Facebook account. Perhaps for that reason, Netflix isn't just counting on consumer support. It's spent almost $200,000 in Washington this year, the Electronic Privacy Information Center reports.
Providing tips to fellow marketers on using video online is what I love to do, but sometimes, telling marketers what not to do can be just as important. To that end, this article will present four very common mistakes made in using video online. Going long for the sake of it. There's always a temptation to make your online video ad longer than a standard commercial length because with online, there aren't the limitations you have with TV and other media. If you really want people to see you entire message or video, don't do it! In fact, if anything, you should try shorter versions of your message wherever possible. If pure length-of-engagement is your only goal, some studies suggest that a minute to a minute-and-a-half might be viable, but for our purposes today, we'll focus on completion. Online video is still an intrusive element and click-outs are commonplace. Keep it short. In fact, a fellow marketer friend of mine told me that his company's research indicates that you should never let your online video exceed 30 seconds, tops! Having overzealous quality concerns. Many marketers insist on having the highest production values applied to every piece of video they produce, regardless of where it is going to be used. Don't do this, either! If your video is intended for online use only, it is absolutely OK to take some shortcuts. Remember, you're usually talking about a tiny little screen, compared to a 46-inch flat-screen TV. And if your viewer happens to blow it up to full-screen size, it would rarely look great on a computer screen anyway. Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars through traditional production companies makes little sense for a Facebook or other social media site video deployment. With limited exceptions, there can be no worthwhile ROI on big-ticket spending for the still comparatively low viewing numbers generated through social media alone. Banking on viral. I've written about this before, but it bears repeating: Don't bank on any posted video going viral to get you the exposure you seek. It won't happen! If it's a strong enough message, buy some views and get it out there in front of consumers. As Alison Provost noted here on Video Insider back in July, research shows that one in 500 brand-placed videos on YouTube ever reaches 500,000 views. That is, one in 500 videos produced by major brands ever makes it to the nirvana of a free half-million views. Instead of hoping for such nearly impossible luck, consider placing a media buy that will deliver a couple of million views; make it easy to share the video from the point of origin; use a sophisticated blogger and opinion leader outreach program; and then, you can still keep those fingers crossed for a viral miracle. Repurposing a worn-out TV spot for online. Let's be honest. Most of us hate these repurposed spots, don't we? Taking a classic 60-second spot and slicing and dicing it down to a 30-second; or worse yet, taking that 30-second and squeezing it down to a 15-second execution just doesn't work. You've already seen the spot on TV a gazillion times. You know the scene and the punchline by heart already. Remember, if you pulled it off your TV schedule because it's just plain worn out, don't mess it up further by expecting it to have any value whatsoever in online, beyond nostalgia. You may just be asking your loyal customers to "un-friend" you at the next available opportunity. Instead, start anew either in-house or via crowdsourcing, and give your online customers an all-new, interesting online video to watch. It's the least you can do for them and for your brand. These remain heady times for the world of online video. Periodically it's worthwhile to reflect not just on best practices, but also some common mistakes to avoid in the process of engaging your consumers with the combined power of sight, sound and motion.
Remember the 1980s meme about how hard it is to program a VCR? I never really understood that. Setting Thundercats to record when I wasn't going to be home always seemed like a fairly straightforward proposition -- start time, end time, channel, done. But so insidious was this apparent difficulty that a system was developed to abstract out the whole "start, end, channel" business: a "Plus Code" was assigned to each show and published in programming guides. One simply entered the corresponding code into his VCR and boom, done. All that work, just so that consumers could watch what they wanted, when they wanted to. More than two decades later, people still grapple with the same core problem -- is the content I want to watch available? Is it free? How long do I have to wait after it airs on broadcast to watch it online? Right now, the best place to watch content, ranging from UGC to super-premium broadcast shows, is on a computer or mobile device, both of which have well-established monetization models. Video on the web continues to scale at an amazing pace and mobile video is growing strong. But what about on-demand television content? The battle for the living room is still in its earliest stages. Advertisers have begun to express interest in IPTV (aka connected TV) content, but such inventory just isn't available at scale yet. It will probably continue to be a niche offering until we see: • A winning device. Best-case scenario here is for a ubiquitous smartphone or tablet to extend itself into a connected TV device. Several Android phones will plug in to a TV today, and many will stream media to a TV using the DLNA standard. Consumers can use a device they're already familiar with, and which already has a thriving ad ecosystem. • Free content, lots of it, and without offline subscription requirements. What's currently missing is a vast library of premium content that is wholly ad-supported and that doesn't require subscription to the corresponding cable TV service. Lots of content is available today on a pay-per-view basis, and even more is available with a paid subscription, but options for super-premium, ad-supported content on connected TVs are limited. • MSOs open their ecosystems to inventory aggregators. Cable and telco operators own the living room today, and they would benefit from outsourcing their unsold ad spots to networks and exchanges that are expert at monetizing content ranging from niche to broadcast. The efficiencies this would likely create could enable operators to tap into a new revenue stream and even freeze rate increases (or shift some of that spend to their faster broadband options). This would reduce the risk of cable customers "cutting the cord" -- while maybe not a large-scale problem yet, consumers' appetite for a la carte content has persisted since the earliest days of the medium. As an industry, we want to help marketers reach consumers across each of the screens in their home through a single, integrated buy. In order to get there, it will take changes to hardware, monetization models and content windowing. These changes will lead to more diversity, accountability and creativity in video advertising.