Poptent is our new community site where brands and independent video creators connect.
All over the blogosphere today, we’re seeing this report. Blendtec Blenders, the brand behind the now famous viral video campaign “Will it Blend?” have reported that since the making of their videos, online sales of their blenders have gone up five-fold!
Proof. A powerful message doesn’t have to come from a big-budget production!
The famous iPhone blend:
Bob Garfield speaks about advertising as a product and how it will evolve in the digital age. Experience Matters comments:
…by and large, what Garfield is tapping into is the fact that many agencies haven’t re-configured their “Ad factories”. Billing models and structures are still based on producing advertising-like objects and rely heavily on keeping bodies as billable as possible. Media buys have up until recently been a predictable model. Buy spots for Ads. Make a profit. Lather, rinse and repeat.
Be sure to read on. David Armano lays down his rough draft of ‘Digabilities‘ - essential abilities for thriving in the digital age. I love ‘em!
[Hat tip to AdPulp]
[tags]xlntads, bob garfield, advertising, digital, future, digabilities, video[/tags]
There’s a long thread on the Yahoo! Videoblogging Group today about what they are calling the rise of the ‘Middle Class’ of video creators. The discussion arose from this ArsTechnica blog post about independent musicians in the Web 2.0 era. Video blogger Jay Dedman wonders, is it now the time for independent video makers to stake their claim in the middle of the visual media industry?
At XLNTads, we answer with a resounding YES! We believe that the ready access to professional-grade digital media tools allows a very low barrier to entry into the video industry. We’re banking on it. The core principal of our business is that creative people live everywhere and that those people can utilize their skills to make amazing creative advertising for brands while putting money in their pockets. Whether they use the XLNTads community as a launching pad to a career in creative, or they just want to make fun videos and take home some money doing it, this market is big and getting bigger by the day.
XLNTads is guided by our videomakers. We understand how this medium works. That’s why we actively seek great videobloggers and prolific YouTubers to be involved with our community. We know they’ve got production chops, they’ve got built in audiences, they’ve got the power to start viral trends, and they are super self-motivated and creative. We believe the best of these creators will come up with grand slam ideas for our brands and deliver current, relevant and smart video creative. The creators win, the brands win, we win.
[tags]videoblogging, arstechnica, jaydedman, community, xlntads, web2.0, media, prosumer, creative, advertising, making money[/tags]
Inside Online Video just pointed to this great video of clips from inside the office of the early days of YouTube. We’ll be posting some of our ‘remember when’ office videos once we’re a huge success! Do you want to be a part of what we’re doing now before we’re big and famous? Come on, cowboy! Join the club!
[tags]youtube, startup, video, xlntads, inspiration[/tags]
We couldn’t be happier with the awesome turn out for our XLNTads ‘XLNT Brands‘ series of ad contests. We invented eight brands for our community to work on, to come up with creative ideas and videos for, and they did not let us down! Check out the amazing work for each brand (or browse them all here). There are over 120 videos! I’m so proud of all them.
We’ve been absolutely floored by the utter creativity, stellar production quality and fantastic brand concepts. Our community of video creators have all done a fantastic job. We love ‘em all! Now, it’s up to the judging. We’ll be calculating the best of the best over the next week or so. Stay tuned for the big announcements! Up for grabs are 8 First Prizes of $1500 (one for each contest), and 40 Runner-up Prizes of $250 (5 for each contest).
Come on over, sign up and vote for your favorites!
[tags]xlntads, chocobana, branding, video, advertising, cga, marketing, startup, community, viral, xlnt[/tags]
For this week’s edition of Creative Inspiration, I wanted to point out a great ad that AgencySpy wrote about. It’s not CGA, but it captures something special in simple, elegant terms with an on-the-fly production. It’s a great lesson in keeping your eye out for creative opportunities wherever they might arise:
A new Adidas viral ad features All Blacks rugby union star Dan Carter shooting the s**t with his father in his backyard. It’s an unscripted spot viral spot that took the agency 180 Amsterdam about 30 minutes to capture. It was almost an accident, as they were really in New Zealand to shoot a full fledge commercial. We just love the use of opportunity here.
[tags]agency spy, xlntads, creativity, advertising, cga, adidas, video[/tags]
Nanette Marcus at iMedia Connection interviewed advertising critic Bob Garfield about his picks for the five best consumer-generated ads. Wouldn’t you know it? For one of his pick, he chose our buddy and XLNTads Creator Nalts‘ Mentos ad as one of the best! wOOt! Go Nalts!
[tags]bob garfield, xlntads, nalts, mentos, advertising, cga, imedia connection[/tags]
Heinz ran a months-long, highly publicized and rather expensive CGA campaign for it’s new television commercial. The winning video got it’s 30-seconds of fame when it ran primetime during the Emmy Awards. Truthfully, it’s a pretty decent ad, one that beat out 4,000 competing videos promoting the ketchup brand. But, seriously, guys. You should see that awesome ads we got for our much briefer XLNT Brands contests. Our creators are kicking butt. More on that in a moment.
[tags]heinz, ketchup, cga, advertising, marketing, video, xlntads[/tags]
