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Archive for the ‘industry news’ Category

• The End of TV Advertisement?

  
  Posted by Mark Schoneveld on October 25th, 2007. Categories: advertising, our news, trends | No Comments »

  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

  Posted in advertising, our news, trends | No Comments »

• Viral Marketing Explained

  
  Posted by Mark Schoneveld on October 23rd, 2007. Categories: trends, viral | No Comments »

  AdPulp points out a great quote from marketing guru Seth Godin today:

  Word of mouth is a decaying function. A marketer does something and a consumer tells five or ten friends. And that’s it. It amplifies the marketing action and then fades, usually quickly. A lousy flight on United Airlines is word of mouth. A great meal at Momofuku is word of mouth.

  Viral marketing is a compounding function. A marketer does something and then a consumer tells five or ten people. Then then they tell five or ten people. And it repeats. And grows and grows. Like a virus spreading through a population. The marketer doesn’t have to actually do anything else. (They can help by making it easier for the word to spread, but in the classic examples, the marketer is out of the loop.) The Mona Lisa is an ideavirus.

  Tags: viral, seth godin, adpulp, advertising, marketing

  Posted in trends, viral | No Comments »

• Marketing Through Online Video

  
  Posted by Mark Schoneveld on October 4th, 2007. Categories: advertising, trends | No Comments »

  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

  Posted in advertising, trends | No Comments »

• Viral Video Success Proven in Sales

  
  Posted by Mark Schoneveld on September 28th, 2007. Categories: advertising, case study, our news, viral | 1 Comment »

  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:

  Posted in advertising, case study, our news, viral | 1 Comment »

• The Rise of ‘Middle Class’ Creators

  
  Posted by Mark Schoneveld on September 26th, 2007. Categories: community, trends, video, xlntads | No Comments »

  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

  Posted in community, trends, video, xlntads | No Comments »

• Creative Inspiration: Adidas’ Rugby Spot

  
  Posted by Mark Schoneveld on September 18th, 2007. Categories: case study, creative inspiration, video | No Comments »

  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

  Posted in case study, creative inspiration, video | No Comments »

• CGA Got a Moment in the Spotlight at The Emmy’s

  
  Posted by Mark Schoneveld on September 18th, 2007. Categories: advertising, case study, our news, video | No Comments »

  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

  Posted in advertising, case study, our news, video | No Comments »

• iCaught Catches Some CGM Buzz

  
  Posted by Mark Schoneveld on September 6th, 2007. Categories: trends, video | No Comments »

  Diggin’ the new ABC show iCaught. Have you see it? They’ve been exploring the different ways in which consumer-generated media is changing the information landscape (I wonder if they’re going to feature XLNTads soon?). In an upcoming episode, they feature the efforts of some people to use video to get some customer satisfaction. With a larger and larger community of people creating and uploading, video now has the power for consumers to have a strong voice in how they interract with companies. XLNTads, of course, hopes to bend that angle towards a positive relationship, but have a look at this piece to see how things can go wrong for a brand with bad communication skills.

  Posted in trends, video | No Comments »

• Whole Foods Ill-Fated CGA Campaign

  
  Posted by Mark Schoneveld on August 22nd, 2007. Categories: advertising, case study, viral | No Comments »

  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

  Posted in advertising, case study, viral | No Comments »

• Case Study: LendingClub’s Successful CGA Contest

  
  Posted by Mark Schoneveld on August 16th, 2007. Categories: case study, our news, video | 3 Comments »

  LendingClub, a web site that facilitates peer-to-peer money lending, just completed a successful consumer-generated advertising video contest. They note a couple of interesting metrics on their blog. For example the contest garnered 18 competitors and 100,000+ views during a four-week run and with an incentive of $8,000 in prizes. It’s important to note, too, the contest received some major blog coverage today, because the valuable PR gave the site an additional ROI in addition to the marketing they used to publicize the contest across Facebook and YouTube.

  Here’s a look at the winning entry. It’s pretty well made. In fact, the professional filmmaker and popular YouTuber Chris Barrett created it and won the contest on a pretty good concept. I think it could have been more tightly edited, but it did get over 17,000 views on YouTube. Slyly, or perhaps smartly, he included the attention-grabbing tag ‘Paris Hilton’. That helped. Here’s an interview with the filmmaker.

  If you’d like to see the other videos that won prizes, you can watch them all here.

  Tags: lendingclub, chris barrett, video, viral, advertising, cga, case study, xlntads, contests

  Posted in case study, our news, video | 3 Comments »

• HowTo: Online Video Advertising

  
  Posted by Mark Schoneveld on August 8th, 2007. Categories: advertising, our news, trends | 1 Comment »

  Online Video Watch pointed us to some great new featured articles on About.com that delve into the emerging rich media advertising market to how to buy video advertising online. Since that’s a big part of what we’re making here at XLNTads.com, I was excited to see the subject being covered in such depth.

  The bottom line?

  The online video ad market is ripe with opportunity, and it is a lot easier to begin than the buzz would have you believe. While there are arguments for and against pre-roll, whether 15-seconds or 30-seconds is the right length, or whether or not using TV assets online is the best way to proceed, one thing is clear. Video advertising is extremely effective. Don’t wait before the landscape is oversaturated to bring your brand into video advertising.

  About.com has also produced a series of seven videos that discuss the market. For example, here is Harry Case, managing partner, director of media analytics and technology, Mindshare (no embeding, click through to view) bringing up some great points about consumer-generated advertising:

  

  Tags: about.com, advertising, online, video, marketing, cga, xlntads, howto

  Posted in advertising, our news, trends | 1 Comment »

• Shift Towards User-Generated Content

  
  Posted by Mark Schoneveld on June 26th, 2007. Categories: industry news, trends | No Comments »

  

  It’s happening and it’s happening fast. eMarketer estimates about 63 million United States-based Internet users are also creating some form of content online. They estimate that 2011, over 95 million people will do so. And of course, those numbers are only expected to continue to rise.

  Posted in industry news, trends | No Comments »

• MySpace is Dead, Long Live MySpace

  
  Posted by Mark Schoneveld on June 20th, 2007. Categories: industry news, trends | No Comments »

  All over the tech blogs today is a rumor that says that Yahoo! is interested in buying MySpace for 25% of its own stock ($10+ billion). Man, what a dumb thought.

  The way I see it, and believe me, I’m an avid user, MySpace is going to die a slow, horrible death. But not before some schmucks throw another few billion down the drain thinking they’re on the ‘cutting edge‘ of marketing.

  MySpace is still the big kid on the block for finding and friending new bands, for example. And a decent way to keep your friends posted on your happenings (although, damn, I wish you could change the size of the bulletin board, or grab a damn RSS feed now and again!).

  The problem arises when MySpace’s marketing potential, slowly but surely, becomes a whore to its own medium and devours itself. I haven’t had a “real person” ask me to be their friend on MySpace in months. Everything I get is a band, a new company, a film, a new non-profit. Sure, I’ll friend up some of the good ones, but more and a couple of my friends are fed up with it. Sick of the ugliness of it all (both in design, but also in the mounting spam). Once MySpace gets completely spammed up, forget it. Once non-humans (read: non-consumers) invade the space, it loses value exponentially.

  Spam will off MySpace for good. But the main reason MySpace will die is despite rampant calls for it to innovate, it does nothing but sluggishly plod along and play copy-cat. Facebook’s new API is the beginning of the end. All my friends are heading to VIRB.com.

  Why a company like Yahoo! would think it’s a good idea to do the proverbial ‘friend up’ with the FOX brand is beyond me.

  Tags: myspace, virb, social networking, marketing, yahoo!, trends

  Posted in industry news, trends | No Comments »

• Not Like We Need to Be Told, But Video is Hot

  
  Posted by Mark Schoneveld on June 20th, 2007. Categories: industry news, trends | No Comments »

  It almost seems like old news already. But like most of us thought, the numbers are in. Jeff Jarvis pointed out some staggering numbers on his blog Buzz Machine:

  Daily usage of online video rose by 56 percent over the last year. In 2006, 9 percent of 12- to 64-year-old Americans who used the Internet reported using online video daily — every day. Today, in 2007, this number has risen to 14 percent of Americans 12 to 64 years old.

  His post, which quotes from a survey by Magrid is heavy on numbers. I have to pull out one more quote:

  Over a third of online Americans 12 to 64 watch online video news stories regularly. Video content described as jokes/bloopers, weather, and movie previews are tied for second most regularly viewed video content. Closely following these are music videos and “videos shot by consumers and uploaded to Web sites like YouTube” — a more consumer- friendly way of saying “user-generated content.”

  So not only is online video popular and gaining on old media, user generated video is high on the list of consumed content. Will this change the more Old Media join the game? I believe we’re going to see a huge rise in the prosumer market. Not quite pro, but much more savvy than your average consumer.

  Posted in industry news, trends | No Comments »