Social Video Views Grows 37% in 2011 by Daisy Whitney

Who said we don't like ads? In 2011, consumers chose to watch ads more than 2.75 billion times. We're not talking pre-rolls or overlays here, either. These are user-initiated smackeroos on the play button to watch a branded video, according to a Visible Measures report on social video. What's particularly eye-popping about social video is its growth. The 2.75 billion views in 2011 is up from 2 billion in 2010, and up from 830 million views in 2009. ...Read the whole story

  • Arby's Rebounds With Engaging Multiscreen Ad Strategy by Steve McClellan

    Last year Arby's launched a new campaign as the "Good Mood Food" chain, to promote awareness that its comfort food was also wholesome and fresh. Its ads were a viral hit, prompting the company to develop a user-generated "casting call" contest for new ads. The cross-platform campaign, also featuring a social media component, drove the company's highest sales gain in a decade. ...Read the whole story

  • conference ANA Video: Engagement Means Story Sharing by Karl Greenberg

    Speaking at the 2012 ANA TV & Everything Video Forum in New York on Thursday, Adobe's Chris Robinson pointed out that viewers are becoming participants in programming that is driving overlap in media platforms online and off. ...Read the whole story

  • SMG Serves Video With Daily Meal by Gavin O'Malley

    In January 2011, Spanfeller Media Group proudly launched a pretty, new food site, The Daily Meal. Over a year later, SMG is finishing what it started, and adding the platform's missing ingredient: video. The video platform debuted this week with over 300 originally produced segments, including discussions with celebrity chefs. ...Read the whole story

  • Ad Tracking Goes Digital, Could Save $1B by David Goetzl

    The Association of National Advertisers announced an industry transition from the "current analog commercial slate into a digital one," ending a 30-year-old industry practice for tracking commercials within content. ...Read the whole story

Re-Space, Not Replace by Daryl McNutt

Traditional TV advertisers are looking to make online video a more integrated part of their overall media plans, and for good reason. A recent Nielsen/IAB study found that people who saw a video ad across all four screens, (TV+PC+Phone+Tablet) correctly recalled the ad 74% of the time, an increase from 50% ad recall when they saw the video on TV only. ...More

  • Skiver Advertising's Agency Campaign: Funny, but What's the Purpose? by Larry Dobrow

    There's a reason most "funny" videos promoting professional-services firms don't push into the triple-digits in YouTube views, much less go viral: they're all the same. They mine the workplace setting for material, finding comic inspiration in community-fridge banditos and interns with borderline social disorders. They attempt to amuse while strenuously avoiding any topic that could offend a hypersensitive current or future client, which rules out everything except oatmeal-mild jokes at the company's own expense. ...More