Okay, this is a little heady, but we think it’s a pretty cool thing to share with you because we really feel like you guys (our community, our blog readers, our clients) are part of this revolution. Pardon me for being a bit evangelical about it, but this sort of thing sure gets us excited!

Listen to Clay Shirky - author, teacher, consultant, Internet evangelist:

Tags: clay shirky, web 2.0, internet

Today, one of the biggest and best blogs on Earth (and one of my daily reads) Read/Write Web posted a long piece on YouTube ’stars’ and how they, and others, can parlay their fame and video skills into business. It’s a pretty basic primer on the things we know, but the writer did include a long bit at the end about prosumer video makers doing the commercial thing. They didn’t mention us by name, unfortunately, but I wrote this response:

We’ve built a whole business around the idea that there is a huge (and growing) market of semi-pro and freelance video makers who are more than talented enough to tell brand stories. We’re putting their work in front of our major brand clients like Anheuser-Busch and Nestle to great praise. I definitely believe that this kind of content has great potential because people have a thirst for creation. And they’re only going to get better.

I believe in the future, you will see a creative class of videographers who make money from several revenue streams. They’ll make video ads for their neighbor’s restaurant, commercials for Nestle through sites like ours, video blog segments for their friend’s band and comedy skits for their YouTube Partner channel - making money at all of them.

It’s the rise of the multi-faceted media maker.

What are your thoughts? Can it be done? Are we heading in the right direction?

Tags: video, xlntads, commercials, business

[Note: this is an excerpt from Neil's article in iMedia Connection. Click through to read the whole piece.]

What’s New in UGC

Broader definition of content. Brands are looking at the channel more and more as an alternative method of getting not only TV commercials, but also 15-second online spots, one- to two-minute webisodes and any other kind of online content.

The rise of support structures. Third parties have emerged and can serve as a trusted partner to help connect brands and agencies with talented, qualified pools of creators to best fit the needs of the campaign. This can reduce UGC “waste” — video submissions that are not appropriate to the brand messaging or the constraints of the campaign.

The birth of “prosumer” communities. Consumers like UGC and are getting better and better at creating content. Videography is a vastly growing hobby. Editing and filming equipment and software have vastly improved and enabled many more creative people to participate. Extraordinary talent is emerging in unexpected places across the country. In addition, more sites have come to the scene devoted to ad creation (e.g., vidopp.com), and online video watching continues to grow in popularity.

Increased disenchantment with conventional marketing. Consumers are even more skeptical of traditional advertising and are looking for “authentic” content via word of mouth and UGC. In fact, a recent Nielsen Media Research survey indicates that 78 percent of consumers place the most confidence in recommendations from other consumers over any form of traditional advertising.

Tags: xlntads, video, advertising, ugc, cga, trends, imedia

Armed with a user-made fan video with over a million views on YouTube, McDonald’s enters the wild world of consumer-generated advertising with this brilliant little piece of work promoting the wonders of Chicken McNuggets:

We’re very excited to see one of the world’s top brands using this kind of advertisement. Sure it’s raw, but so cool and funny! This piece is getting airtime on major networks all over the country. If it’s good promotion for McDonald’s, folks, it will be good promotion for your brand, too. CGA, FTW!

Tags: video, viral, advertising, mcdonalds, funny, success, mcnuggets

Everyone wants ‘em, but are they just a fad? Christina Goodman mulls over the prospects for viral video campaigns in the future over at MediaPost. She’s fairly confident the trend will continue in light of the current user-generated video world, but does suggest proceeding with caution.

In this age where consumers have more and more choices, content and advertising are being controlled by what consumers want, how and when they want it, forcing marketers to rethink their old ways of communication. In some respects, viral advertising is a way of reaching consumers that gives them ultimate creation and viewing control — including the media platform they choose to watch it on, whether it is viewed on the Internet, or using their iPod or mobile device. Shifting focus and control to the consumer does not guarantee a promising outcome, particularly where viral videos are concerned, and marketers need to consider both the positives and negatives of launching a viral marketing campaign.

I think she’s got a lot of great points in this piece. However, I also believe that our cultural consumption gravitates increasingly to the current fluidity of media sharing and this fervent hurricane of portable video cultural conversation. The urge to inject brand messages into this chaotic mediasphere is too strong now to resist and will continue getting stronger the more eyeballs are drawn to it. The fact is ‘viral video’ is the way it’s done, and it’s no fad.

Tags: viral, marketing, advertising, video, trends

Our friends at AdPulp wrote today about Tay Zonday’s Dr. Pepper Cherry Chocolate Rain video that echos some of our thoughts on the video and how this is a vision of things to come. To wit, mining for talent on YouTube is fun! And inexpensive! My favorite line from the AdPulp post is: “Strategies are being written by the brand team and execution is being handed off to DIY consumers and culture makers. Isn’t disruption fun?”

Yes. Why yes it is! Learn more about how XLNTads is shaking things up.

Tags: adpulp, advertising, tay zonday, dr. pepper, cherry chocolate rain, xlntads, trends, viral

In one of the more painful exchanges about viral videos, a young student at Stanford and ‘viral video consultant’ began with a lengthy post on TechCrunch about how to game YouTube. People were furious, for various reasons. Next, he posted a reply in which he backpedaled on a few of the claims. Now, after all the noise surrounding these posts, he’s interviewed on CNN. I have never seen a more awkward and lame discussion of ‘viral video‘ in my life (they show Dramatic Chipmunk 3 times in a row!). But here you go, it’s news (sort of):

Tags: viral, video, cnn, techcrunch, youtube, news

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.