• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, September 7, 2010

Repurposing is the perennial scourge of online video advertisers. Sure the overwhelming majority of pre-rolls just slap onto clips a reiteration of a TV ad most viewers likely have already seen scores of times before. And, sure, there is something to be said for echoing TV campaigns online for that surround-sound, in-your-head, coming-out-your-ears campaign strategy. But most marketers continue to wish for more custom creative that leverages the unique screen, timing and use cases of online video. But from San Francisco-based agency Crossover Creative we see the usual TV-to-Web polarity reversed in a series of video banners that moved from the Web to TV spots.

For its client Sun Tropics Premium Nectars, the shop devised a series of clean and eye-grabbing video banners executions that emphasized customer comments that they liked the product's authentic exotic fruit tastes. One leaderboard unit fills a glass with mangoes while another skyscraper unit drops guavas into a shapely tumbler.

A final expandable rich media unit dramatizes the brand with a secluded island beach and pop-up messaging. All nicely done. All simple and striking ways to introduce a brand.

And they make equally interesting TV spots.

In all three cases the online creative is expanded and enhanced nominally, but the core creative element, the basic animated action at its core, remains the heart of the messaging.

The company tells me that the online creative performed better than most rich media campaigns even without a media push. The campaign was staged to appear first online and then on air. The digital piece was geo-targeted to the San Francisco Bay area in which the spots ran. The focus was on moms and they leveraged the Web sites of major TV stations like CBS5.com, and KTVU.com as well as the newspaper sites SFGate.com and MercuryNews and Yahoo content in the food, beverage entertainment and news sections.

Perhaps the key to imagining better online creative is to anticipate it eventually becoming a TV spot.