Social media may not be the viral activating platform that some marketers, agencies and certain social networks suggest it may be. Posting a branded video in and of itself, without any other strategy to get people to discover, get excited and pass it along, may not generate much if any interest on a brand marketer's social media page. Speaking on OMMA Video's "Feeding the Beast" panel, Touchstorm CEO Alison Provost characterized it this way: "The posting and praying thing is not working for a lot of people." Panel moderator Shira Lazar, host/exec producer of "What's Trending," put it another way: …

Just so we're clear, the entire ad industry -- or, at least, everyone on the afternoon OMMA panel, "Feeding the Beast: How Advertisers Can Become Prolific Producers of Video" -- is sick of the word "viral," and all its magical connotations. Yeah, "I'm soooo sick of viral," declared Shira Lazar, panel MC and host and executive producer of "What's Trending." (Frankly, we're sick of hearing about how sick everyone is with viral -- but not enough to avoid writing about it, apparently.) But, what should marketers be shooting for, if not the hackneyed V-word? "Evergreen," says Alison Provost, CEO of …

Starting off the "Feeding the Beast" panel at OMMA Video, Alison Provost, CEO of Touchstorm, took a shot at brands in regards to the way they handle web. She said, "If brands are left to their own devices, they just can't help but sell." This mindset is problematic because "the consumer knows [the ad] is an interruption; especially in the digital space."

That's the way Alison Provost, CEO of Touchstorm said on the "Feeding the Beast" panel at OMMA Video. Provost was responding to a discussion about what constitutes a "viral" branded content video. "Only one in 500 videos made by a brand gets more than 500,000 views," Provost said, putting a hard number around the concept of viral. In other words, you have a better chance of catching herpes than you do of catching a viral video (depending on your lifestyle, of course).

Aaaaannd, we're back to AOL's recent decision to offer TV-style guarantees on audience delivery for its video ads. (Employing a new Nielsen ratings stream, AOL said the deals would be based on GRPs with audience demographics, not simply clicks or impressions.) Ran Harnevo, AOL On Network's SVP of Video, admits he's not a huge fan of GRPs, and hopes they're instinct in ten years. BUT, they're a necessary evil if online networks want a bigger share of TV dollars. "We're doing GRPs," Harnevo said -- end of story... for now. First, the Web needs to eat TV's lunch, and only …

Ah, those caveats. They'll get you every time, right? During the OMMA Video afternoon conversation between AOL On Network's Ran Harnevo and MediaPost columnist Cathy Taylor, Harnevo characterized the current TV/video marketplace in a pretty honest way. Unlike a lot of digital chest-beaters, he acknowledged that "TV is not broken," but then, after the appropriate dramatic pause, added, "yet!."

AOL recently launched its "On Network" initiative, which put its entire video cache under one umbrella -- "curated" into 14 channels -- so marketers could more easily reach nearly 60 million viewers across multiple sites and connected TV devices. What was the strategy behind the move? "Taking what people really liked about TV, and applying it to a much more complicated [area], which is online media," explained Ran Harnevo, On Network's SVP of Video, during an afternoon keynote at OMMA Video.

That's what Steve Kerho, senior vice president-analytics, media & marketing organization at Omnicom's Organic unit predicted at the end of the "Nothing But Gross" panel at OMMA Video today.

At today's OMMA Video conference, the panelists have been hesitant to warmly welcome online GRPs. AOL's recent TV-style GRP measurement system was innovative, but hasn't been exactly what these panelists were looking for.

It's confession time at OMMA Video. Kenneth Lagana, SVP of Entertainment and Lifestyle at CBS Interactive, is telling the story of an agency exec who recently told him that the network "really dropped the ball" in recent years. According to said exec, CBS Interactive didn't proactively come up with a way to take advantage of the recent audience shift online, and grab a bigger share of TV dollars. Though not the exec in question (presumably), Chris Whitman, Integrated Investments Manager at Universal McCann/J3, said he "probably" would have told Lagana the same thing. Adding insult to injury, Whitman remarked: "Historically, …