There once was a boy who had an idea to get paid to wear a different T-shirt each day. Sounds like an impossible dream, right? Far from it. It’s actually happening right now. And it’s a major insight into how video marketing can help your brand.
You probably haven’t heard of Jason Sadler. A few years ago, he started a business with a simple idea: he would create a new video each day, sponsored by a different business, where he would wear a shirt with that business’s logo. That simple idea has, in only a year, turned into a $200,000 business, with high end clients such as Citrix and Nissan.
You may be wondering to yourself, “Why would any right minded marketer hire him?” Well, here’s where we see the magic. Take a look at the video below, created by Jason’s company, iwearyourshirt.com. They created it for a small retail business that sells tasers and other tactical equipment.
It’s had over 34,000 views. And it’s no wonder why: it’s entertaining and hard to stop watching. This relatively unknown business has now placed itself on the map, for much less than $1,000. That’s the power of online video marketing.
Entrepreneur magazine spoke about Jason’s company and said it best:
“[the] goal is to contribute to the conversation around those products or services — to “pull” rather than “push” out [the] message.”
In our world, consumers are bombarded by thousands of advertisements a day and start blocking them out. But online video marketing is different. Instead of “pushing” information out to consumers, online video marketing “pulls” consumers in, making them a part of the conversation around your brand.
Proven by iwearyourshit.com’s viewer count, consumers WANT to tune in to that conversation. This is why many top businesses are now spending their marketing dollars to create these online videos.
Simply put…it works. What’s your online video marketing strategy?
Image from iwearyourshirt.com
Mashable recently surveyed 2600+ people, asking them how they're watching TV's new fall lineup (TV sets or Computers). Although the top answer was still good old fashioned TV sets (at 28%) the combined answers of the other 72% were some form of the internet. It's no surprise that, for now, Hulu owns a bug chunk of this 72%.
But, just like you can't cut and paste radio ads into TV commercials, you can't expect a typical :30 second TV spot to have much effect online. People expect more these days. Choices, interactivity, and amazing creative. In fact, interactivity and behavioral targeting are already becoming the norm, like Hulu's “Which ad experience would you prefer?” commercial option. New technology like this allows consumers to pick the commercial they prefer to view. They're willing to watch a commercial they can't fast-forward through, but it better be worth it. That means relevant, useful or just darn good fun to watch.
Most Hulu viewers say they don't mind watching good commercials online. A recent buy tadalafil online
t/26301.asp”>study showed they're even willing to view more than the average four-minutes-per-hour of commercials currently being aired. BUT, they'd better be good. Which is where targeted consumer behavior comes in. The Hulu commercial choice in the photo above allows viewers to choose which type of hair product they want to view, so they can watch an ad that is relevant to their specific needs. Soon most video ads online will be behaviorally geared, derived from online viewing preferences like this. It's just like what's happening now with most online banner ads. Video commercials that are always specific to the viewer are the obvious next step in online technology.
While all this can seem a bit creepy, consumers seem to get past their privacy concerns quickly, seeing that the benefits of more targeted and relevant ads are worth allowing some cookies on their site. For advertisers, this means a much higher ability to fine tune target audiences than just gender, age and income brackets. Nielsen has already made great headway into this new genre of ratings with the intent of cutting out wasted airtime to the wrong audience.
The million dollar question remains. Will viewers gain a new level of appreciation for advertising online as the messages become more targeted, relevant and (hopefully) memorable in a good way? So far it seems that answer may be yes. But if and when tasteless, poorly produced ads start popping up one after another to the point that viewers forgot what they tuned in to watch, this new opportunity will die a quick death. It's up to the ad industry, and our clients, to make sure this doesn't happen. (Wish us luck)
