Poptent is our new community site where brands and independent video creators connect.
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
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
Last week was a great week in Consumer Generated Advertising. First off, we were quoted in an interesting article on NewTeeVee.com, one of the leading blogs on online video. FTW! Chris Albrecht wrote about life after the big prize; what happens to the people who win big video contests after they win. Do they get more video jobs? Are they enthusiastic about the medium? Head over and check out what the Heinz Top This TV Challenge winner and the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl winner have to say.
Also, (perhaps due to our advice, not!), Apple recruited a young fella, Nick Haley, from England to make the new iPhone commercial. Why such a young kid? Wow! Lucky kid. But it goes to show, even the world’s most respected brands can use consumer-made video advertising.
By the way, we freakin’ love the Brazilian band CSS’s track he grabbed, I can’t imagine he had permission. If I were the band, it goes without saying they’ll be asking for a cut of the Apple love. I’m sure they’ll be handsomly rewarded. It’s a win-win!
Tags: advertising, apple, cga, xlntads, heinz, doritos, video, iphone, css, music
Jackson West at NewTeeVee.com is calling (as bloggers are wont to do) for an early death to the traditional TV ad model. He points out a bunch of trends he’s spotting in the industry. Here are a few nuggets:
…an actor friend of mine recently explained his idea for “commer-serials,” or spots that tell an episodic story from break to break during a program.
“Advertainment,” such as Amanda Congdon’s work for DuPont (DD), is another option — a format that exists somewhere between what used to be called industrials and traditional advertising, wholly sponsored by an agency client and intended to be entertaining enough to draw viewers without the need for a popular program wrapped around it.
Then again, the 30-second spot could live on. But if the promises of super-refined targeting come true, how can one justify putting $1 million into a single commercial spot vs. a hundred spots at $10,000 each that reach a swath of niche audiences?
We’ll see how things transform, but one thing is sure. The landscape is changing. Fast.
Tags: jackson west, newteevee, advertising, trends, video, online
It’s been pretty hectic around XLNTads-land these days, and I’ve neglected to put up my promised weekly post ‘Creative Inspiration‘. Okay, kids, here’s something from waaaaay out there. Check out these awesome vintage commercials made by conceptual American pop artist, Peter Max back in the late 60’s and early 70’s. How’s that for some creative inspiration, huh? Awesome.
[Thanks, ViewersLikeYou!]
Tags: creative, inspiration, advertising, ads, video, peter max, psychedelic, art, pop
The ConsumerGeneratedMedia blog pointed us to a speech Al Gore delivered at the 97th annual conference of the Association of National Advertisers the other day entitled “Consumer-Generated Media: The New Marketing Paradigm”. Of course, we’re interested in what he had to say.
To quote Mr. Gore regarding consumer-generated advertising:
“Nothing can help your brand more, in my opinion, than helping your customers help you brand your products. You keep control of your brand and how your brand is presented. But letting your customers express themselves and join the conversation about your product is empowering of them, respectful of them, and brings new creativity into the process that’s hard to get any other way.”
You can watch the whole speech on video on AdAge. And while not everyone loved what he had to say, we think Al’s right on the money. You can read more about the conference on the New York Times here.
Tags: al gore, xlntads, advertising, vcam, ana2007, cga, cgm, video
There is an ongoing debate about whether video content made for TV can or should be used online. There are compelling arguments on both sides. However, according to this report by AdWeek, video advertising that is created specifically for Internet viewing simply fares much better than repurposed ads retooled for the web.
Despite the rosy results of the repurposed Hyundai spots online, it’s widely assumed that Internet users respond better to original online video. Recently, OgilvyInteractive has put that to the test on behalf of clients including TD Ameritrade, finding that, in fact, consumers prefer Web-specific content.
In one such trial, Ogilvy compared the performance of an existing Ameritrade TV spot against an ad shot exclusively for the Web. The executions, which ran simultaneously on the same finance-related Web sites across two months, were quite different. The Web-only ad (”Mr. Active”) featured a lighthearted testimonial from a busy guy named Phil who uses the company’s automated trading tool to conduct business remotely, freeing him up to play squash, go snorkeling, teach physics and take an aerobics class. The TV spot was a more subdued exposition on how to put trading “on autopilot” in today’s automated society.
The Web-specific spot generated twice the number of replays and outperformed the repurposed TV unit by more than 150 percent in terms of account generation, according to Maria Mandel, the agency’s executive director of digital innovation.
How are marketing departments and agencies going to afford all this expanding content? XLNTads can help, of course! We’re connecting brands and their agencies with quality video producers.
[hat tip to NewTeeVee for the lead!]
Tags: video, online, advertising, news, content, marketing, adweek, strategies
And we’re not surprised!
First, there’s the big news flying around the Interwebs today about Google’s plans to integrate YouTube videos into it’s AdSense program. Lots of people, like marketing guru Jim Kukral think it’s a great idea. So do we!
Then, more good news, according to research sources quoted by Silicon Alley Insider:
- Video ads growing faster than ad execs expected.
- Video ads still account for only a tiny percentage of overall web ads but are expected to be the fastest growing category for the foreseeable future.
- Auto and entertainment categories strongest, with good growth in consumer products, technology, and fast food.
Tags: youtube, advertising, adsense, google, news, video, xlntads
Today, Apple launched three new ads for the iPhone. They’ve been getting some criticism for them, especially from Michael Arrington of TechCrunch. The awesome thing is, Arrington suggests Apple should just go ahead and use user-generated ads! He notes:
My thought is that Apple should mix a woman or two into the ads, and perhaps focus on the wow factor of the phone (like the user created ads) over its simple utilitarian feature list. Because the truth is, while I love my iPhone, the Blackberry is still a better feature-by-feature communication device. Anyway, these days Apple has money to burn testing out these new spots, so let the audiences decide.
Tags: apple, video, advertising, iphone, techcrunch, xlntads, cga
One of our best and beloved creators, Nalts created this slideshow for a presentation at Spunlogic recently. For those of you who don’t know him yet, Nalts is one of the foremost thinkers and tinkerers in the online video world. Our resident weblebrity. Blogger Mike Abundo agrees with what Nalts is getting at and notes on Inside Online Media, “I’ve seen many companies make the mistake of expecting overnight success with their own social media marketing sites, arrogantly thinking themselves above partnering with prosumers, only to get disappointed and swear off all forms of social media.”
We agree. Partnering with great prosumer creators is the future of video advertising, and the core of our value to brands.
Tags: advertising, marketing, online, video, nalts, xlntads, viral, trends, powerpoint
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
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
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
I just came across the WTF? Network - apparently an effort by Whole Foods Market to get some rich media content from engaged consumers to spread around virally (join the club, friends). Unfortunately, they chose one of the most annoying names ever (as Angela Natividad points out on AdRants, “The channel lives up to its acronym, and not in a super-cool way”), and they’ve only garnered 9 videos with 400 views between them all. Perhaps they haven’t put any energy into it.
I was just thinking, Whole Foods should probably just get all their hip employees to make videos about how fun it is to work for them. I’m sure they’d come up with better, funnier and waaaaay cooler concepts than these videos. At least they’d have more focus. Or, better yet, they could contact us and get the XLNTads community to get cracking on producing some really awesome ideas and content.
So far, this is the best the WTF? Network could come up with:
Tags: whole foods market, viral, video, wtf? network, advertising, cga, consumer, video, youtube, xlntads
