Clients often ask us how much it costs to produce an online video ad. Their initial thought is that, because the media is usually free, the production cost should be lower. Sorry. There's no correlation.
Think about the process of inbound vs. outbound marketing for a moment. Outbound marketing includes traditional advertising. Intrude. Repeat. Intrude. Repeat. You didn't ask to see the ad, but it's going to be pushed in front of you anyway in the hopes that you will like it, remember it, and respond to it. Oh sure, the option is usually there to fast forward past it on TV, push the button on the radio, or flip right past it in print. But, you at least get a glimpse of it before you make that choice. A glimpse you didn't ask for. A glimpse that cost the advertiser a lot of money.
But inbound marketing is different. Inbound marketing puts the exposure responsibility on the consumer. This is why it's often called “viral”. It's based on making something so compelling that people will not only see it and share it, but also search for it. Quite the opposite of traditional m
edia, eh? This viral effort often requires spectacular creative that comes in the form of incredible production, or just a brilliant simple idea.
Does that mean it always has to cost a lot? Not always. Like we said, it's about the idea more than the production (see Levi's successful viral video campaign that cost less than $10,000). But usually the few successes in the online viral world have involved substantial production costs.
Take the Evian Roller Babies ad above. When totaling its US and international versions, it just surpassed 100,000,000 views online, making it the most viewed television ad in online history. In comparison, this year's Super Bowl had 106,000,000 viewers and the average 30-second spot cost was a little over $3,000,000 dollars, and that's before any creative production. Media costs for Evian's 100,000,000 viewers? Zero.
But when you find out the production costs for this spot were well over $1,000,000, you realize the cost of the ad production has nothing to do with the media on which it airs. In fact, in addition to the message needing to be even more impactful online for the viewer to become your media distributor, the beauty and curse of online ads is they're not limited to :30 seconds. And those of us in the production world know, with TV spots, the longer they are the more they cost to produce. Ouch.
Just now, after almost a year of online exposure, Evian is taking this ad to traditional television in markets like New York, LA, London and Paris. Will their traditional media exposure pay off as well as their viral campaign did? Time will only tell. But we, the media world, will all be watching.
“When it comes to business success, it is all about people, people people,” says Richard Branson. Many businesses are using the Internet and social media to become less human: they find any and every way to replace their people with technology and no longer interact with their customers. But as Richard Branson says, for a business to succeed, make it about the people…both your employees and your customers. So while some businesses use technology to make themselves less human, the successful businesses are using technology to make themselves more human. Here are two businesses who’ve excelled at this.
Buying a car is all about people. A consumer walks into a car dealership and is instantly greeted by a salesperson who will guide them through the whole car buying process. Therefore, many consumers choose where to buy a car based on their feelings towards the employees: if they like the salespeople or servicemen, they buy from that car dealership. Perrys, a car dealership in the UK, produced an amazing video to showcase their people:
Not only do they introduce you to their employees, but they also invited their customers to be on the video. The result: a more “human” business that more consumers want to do business with.
For us, Zappos is the king of making a business more “human.” The extremely successful online shoe retailer has centered their entire business on people. Take a look at just one of the videos they produced:
In this short video, you get a feeling for the fun and exciting employees. And more importantly, you see they actually enjoy working for Zappos. All of this translates over to their brand message: Deliver WOW Through Service. In addition, Zappos has an archive of videos giving you a behind the scenes look and invite people to come to their headquarters for tours.
In today’s world, the people are most important when it comes to business. Remember what Richard Branson said, “When it comes to business success, it is all about people, people people.” If you want to attract customers, you need to make your business more human.
Take a look at how we’ve made our business more human. Click here to learn about all the team members who make Brandtailers what it is.
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Some rights reserved by Robert Scoble
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
