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Well, we didn’t think it would take this long, but Internet viral sensation Tay Zonday turned his viral hit song and video “Chocolate Rain” into a pretty… um… well, it’s out there… commercial for Dr. Pepper’s new soda beverage they’re calling Cherry Chocolate, er, Rain. OMG.
Tags: tay zonday, cherry chocolate rain, dr. pepper, viral, video, advertising
Making the mundane details in life a little brighter is a great way to start off a better brand experience. This is the new in-flight video from Virgin Atlantic. It was created by an agency called Anomaly, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but man, it’s pretty entertaining. As Karl Long at ExperienceCurve points out, “The message that they manage to get across here of course is ‘if we tried harder to make this video bearable imagine what we’ll do to improve the rest of the experience’.” Thanks, AdFreak.
In a slightly different vein, I dig this spot pointed out by Steve Hall at AdRants. The folks behind StunMedia were getting a bit bored on the set of a photo shoot for Silver Jeans when they decided to ease their boredom a bit by shooting some video. The end result? A pretty compelling spec spot for the brand.
You could do that!
Tags: creativity, creative inspiration, video, adfreak, anomaly, stun media, silver jeans, boredom
The Wall Street Journal’s Raymund Flandez delves into marketing with online video today in a piece called “Lights! Camera! Sales!: How to Use Video to Expand your Business in a YouTube World“. He highlights a number of successful video series that help market small businesses of all shapes and sizes. A bunch of our favorites made the article (MAKE’s Weekend Projects and Will it Blend?), but it introduced us to some new ones as well (Val’s Art Diary and Free Range Root Beer).
For all the hype this article lends to the viral video trend, Nalts points out that it’s not perfect. He’s up in arms about a few of the specifics they mention, and he’s right on the money in his critique. Make sure to read it. He went ahead and wrote up his own excellent list of pointers to using web video to grow your business. For example:
To get a decent ROI, you need to keep your costs down. Otherwise you’re going to have a tough time capturing measurable value that offsets a $50-$500K pilot. You can dip your toe in the water for just thousands simply by partnering with known “weblebrities” who often promote products and services for a small fee, and already have an established audience. A few grand with a weblebrity gets you a video, their halo effect, and nearly guaranteed views of 10-100K. That same amount will get you an afternoon of a large agency fees.
Nalts is always the great resource for all things viral. Check out his blog for more tips like these:
‘Course, in this day in age, you could always just cheat.
Tags: video, advertising, business, promotion, marketing, guerilla, nalts, wsj
Apple’s getting clever with new rich media banner ads. They’re pretty much videos, but they’re actually banner ads. Very clever. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of this in the coming months. Both from Apple and from others as video advertising becomes more commonplace. Crazy that the YouTube clip showing the banner ad has already gotten over 30,000 views in 24 hours. Wow. Think about that for a second. Talk about viral!
[Thanks, TechCrunch]
Tags: advertising, apple, mac, xlntads, funny, innovation, banner
We’ve got a winner! The top award of $500 for Saved By The Cell goes to:
destertctiy for their piece Cell Phone Magic about how cell phones can keep you out of trouble with the boss. Great stuff. Congratulations, Susan!
Major props to the other amazing videos that we chose out as finalists:
Nature Calls by davelaird
True Story by hollermedia
it’s also a phone by lgabriel
Congratulations, everyone! We love you. Make great ads!
Tags: xlntads, news, video, contest, saved by the cell, winners, announcement
For some time now, you’ve been making all kinds of great commercials with us. Short ones, tall ones, skinny ones, fat ones. And it’s been fun! But we just got this killer opportunity the other day. We’re setting up a private screening for your show ideas (in the form of pilots and trailers) at the iMedia Agency Summit. This is a big deal. Basically, we’re getting the chance to show your best work to the top advertising agencies in the world!
We’d love to see what you’ve got and have you part of this opportunity. These shows can be about anything. Niche-focused or for a broad audience. Funny, serious, whatever. But they’ve got to be good, and they’ve got to have focus.
But we don’t have long! The Summit is being held during the first few days of December, so we need to have your vids by November 30th. These videos don’t have to be brand new (though that would be nice). We’d love to see one of your best shows from the recent past. What we’d like to do is option the video for a short period of time then sell the best ideas for prodcution with one of these agencies. You could get $30,000 to produce six episodes of your show!
Head over to “The Amazing Pitch” to sign up and learn more about this project and submit you brilliant videos (’cuz I know you got ‘em!).
Tags: xlntads, the amazing pitch, ideas, video, show, podcasts
The lovely Irina Slutsky of Geek Entertainment TV interviewed me here at the NewTeeVee Live conference, and I got my 5 seconds of fame. Sa-weet! I gotta hand it to her, though, she could only pick a handful of folks to interview from the 500+ attendees of the conference. I’m glad I was one of them! Thanks, Irina! Hope to be on the show again soon.
Tags: newteevee, newteeveelive, geek entertainment tv, getv, video
[from L to R: Yuri Baranovsky of Break a Leg TV, Irina Slutsky of GeekEntertainmentTV, and Steve Garfield's hand/Nokia N95 of Off on a Tangent]
There are a ton of people here at the NewTeeVee LIVE conference in San Francisco. I’ve had some really great converstations with some cool people, and got filmed on a couple of excellent tech video blogs. I’ll share as soon as they’re up. Stay tuned!
Check out come of the coverage of the speakers and panel discussions over on the NewTeeVee blog.
Tags: newteeveelive, newteevee, video, conference, media, tv, new media
There’s a lot being said about where the commercial form is going. Here’s part of an article from AdAge regarding the how the advertising industry is dealing with the decline of the 30-second spot:
“It’s not about whether TV is coming or going; it’s about where are the best places to put ideas to reach consumers,” said David Lubars, chairman-chief creative officer of BBDO North America, the shop most synonymous with the splashy Super Bowl commercial. “The [30-second spot] is still a viable form; it’s just not the only viable form.”
Indeed, many marketers and their ad agencies are rethinking their approaches. Long gone are the simpler days when agencies used to “fill boxes” — two :60s, five :30’s and so on. That system has been replaced by a more rigorous, focused process. “There is this pull toward video and other media placements,” said Ann Green, senior VP-marketing solutions at market-research firm Millward Brown.
We’re actively addressing these problems with our model at XLNTads. We see the changing landscape and know how to flow with them. We’re tinkering in our workshop on cutting-edge campaigns with ultra-short spots (:05-:10 seconds), hyper-niche sponsorships and product placement deals.
Be a part of our community! Join up here. And don’t forget to subscribe to this blog to stay up on the latest developments!
Tags: xlntads, adage, future, advertising, trends, commercials
TechCrunch recently pointed out an interesting report from IBM talking about the future of advertising. I pulled this quote to share with you:
Traditional advertising players risk major revenue declines as budgets shift rapidly to new, interactive formats, which are expected to grow at nearly five times that of traditional advertising. To survive in this new reality, broadcasters must change their mass audience mind-set to cater to niche consumer segments, and distributors need to deliver targeted, interactive advertising for a range of multimedia devices. Advertising agencies must experiment creatively, become brokers of consumer insights, and guide allocation of advertising dollars amid exploding choices. All players must adapt to a world where advertising inventory is increasingly bought and sold in open exchanges vs. traditional channels…
Download the whole .pdf file here.
Tags: advertising, future, interactive, xlntads, ibm
We’re getting a lot of Nalts Love this week! He mentions us a couple times over on his blog Will Video For Food. First, he calls this very blog as one of the ‘must read‘ blogs about video on the web. Thanks, Nalts!
Then, in a post detailing “The Advertising Agency’s Five Stages of ‘Online Video’ Grief“, he took some time to write up a great summary of the panel discussion he lead with Neil at the ad:tech conference last week. Here’s a list of five simple steps to getting up to speed on viral video advertising:
Of course, we’d emphasize #5!
Tags: nalts, advertising, xlntads, video, viral, blogging, adtech
Web2NewYork caught up with our acting CEO, Neil Perry after a little Q&A about XLNTads. Neil was in New York leading a panel discussion about consumer-generated advertising at the Ad:Tech conference. Have a look:
Tags: xlntads, adtech, video, advertising, neil perry, web2newyork
Liz Gannes over at NewTeeVee has a great write up today about “Mastering Viral Video Advertising in 3 Easy Steps“. That’s a joke headline, though. As we all know, it’s not that simple. There is no proven formula. But what it does is a wrap of of an panel she moderated with three companies - Tubes Networks, GPS Maniac and Personality Hotels - who experimented with ‘going viral’. She writes, “Some of their spots went viral, some of them didn’t — but what did they learn?” Check it out.
But if you’re dead-set on finding the viral success formula, though, you might want to check out our friend Charles Trippy’s new DVD, “Viral Video Fever“. He’s one of YouTube’s more popular stars, and he’s hoping this DVD will help him become the Next Internet Millionaire.
Thanks, Nalts for pointing this out to us!
What’s that? You still don’t understand how to go viral? Well, first you should hook up with Gabe and Max. They know what’s up!
Tags: video, viral, trends, advertising, marketing, gabe and max, liz gannes, charles trippy, nalts
LoveMyPhilly on Vimeo.
Who doesn’t love a little retro commercial action now and again? And look! Philly Cream Cheese has uploaded a bunch of their old commercials to video sharing sites and even has it’s own blog, Love My Philly! Sa-weet. They’ve even got some great recipes for the holidays. Hey guys, maybe you’d like us to make you some new adds? After all, we are based in Philly!
Tags: marketing, kraft, philly cream cheese, love my philly, advertising, retro, commercials, video
Our buddies (and super XLNTads creators) Nalts and Brett Slater of Slater’s Garage got to try out a couple of Google’s new ‘gPhones’. Here’s the awesome vid they made about the experience:
Tags: android, slater’s garage, nalts, gphone, google, phone, video, funny
