On the fourth Wednesday of the month, Marketing:Green focuses on green media strategies and opportunities within specific media. (October: outdoor; November: print; December: TV,
January: online video, February: radio). Creative, strategic, operational and other media pros are invited to brainstorm and collaborate, with the goal of indelibly cementing "green" into media of all
types: Ideas ranging from "so-crazy-it-just-might-work" to "as long as no one gets hurt." This month we explore how online video pioneers have been quietly saving the planet behind firewalls, while
daring creative producers are pushing the envelope to get their green messages across in front of consumers.
YouTube is synonymous with online video. This is by far the largest video
sharing site in the world. However, aside from what you see on YouTube, there are some large influential companies that were on the green wagon before YouTube was born.
"Virality" is the goal
of a YouTube video campaign, whereby media costs are mitigated or entirely negated because of user sharing. The famous Dove Evolution
commercial was the watershed cause-marketing video, with well over 12 million views in its first year as well as numerous international awards. That was way back in 2006, however. Since then online
video has become a lot more pervasive, a lot noisier and way more competitive.
According to comScore, more than 10 billion views were recorded in August 2009.These numbers were modified by
YouTube shortly thereafter, when Chad Hurley (co-founder and chief executive) stated that YouTube was "well over 1 billion views per day." Given such a massive amount of inventory, getting a green
message (or any message for that matter) across with the platform is extremely challenging today.
In 2010, online video visibility takes an increasing amount of creative
sophistication, along with at least a dash of "shock factor." Case in point is Polar Bear from environmental activist group Plane Stupid, in
which dozens of polar bears drop out of the sky to graphically illustrate the effects of plane emissions on global warming. Equally racy, but more tongue-in-cheek is Xixi no Banho, a Brazilian public service animation encouraging viewers to pee in the shower in order to conserve water.
But, green in
online video is certainly not all about peeing aliens and polar bears dropping from the sky. When we get a peek behind the firewalls into the world of online media management and distribution, there
is a very green tale to tell.
As discussed in December's installment of this column, TV is by far
the king of the media jungle. The good news is that companies within that massive industry were using online video before YouTube was even founded, in order to expedite delivery of creative assets
while reducing major amounts of toxic waste from the atmosphere and from landfills.
DG FastChannel is a publicly traded company (Nasdaq: DGIT) in the media asset management space. According
to a spokesperson, DGF (as well as similar companies) have eliminated millions of videotapes and DVDs from production, distribution and disposal by moving to online video distribution infrastructure.
Aside from the amount of fossil fuel required to produce a single tape ("one gallon of oil" is the closest estimate from any spokesperson), certain toxic substances are also employed in manufacture.
The tapes are often discarded after a single use, due to worries about quality control.
The collaboration process in creating a piece of video collateral is also significant.
"[Digital video] is greener as well as faster, more efficient and, most importantly, cheaper [than tapes or DVD's]" according to Steve Hancock, CEO of adbeast (a video collaboration technology
solutions provider).
"Thousands of files are shared daily on Adbeast, all of which used to be tapes/DVDs," according to Hancock.
So, aside from a marketing strategy, these companies
have realized that green is simply good business: efficiency, lack of waste, faster, and cheaper! These less visible, but influential companies are proving that online video is the future,
while literally dispelling the myth that online video is garbage!