Music Video as YouTube Ad

Hello, friends. I know it's been a while since I posted. However, I can't help but share this ad I saw on YouTube last week:

I was on YouTube to watch a music video that a friend had shared with me. Before the video started, an ad began to play, per usual. However, this ad was different. This ad was a full 4:18-minute recording of the Brian Evans song "I'm A Traveler". I had never heard of Brian Evans before. But I certainly like his style. He has a smooth, jazzy/big-band sound, and I'm a sucker for swing music. Was his video set to play for users who had previously watched videos by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Tommy Dorsey, Nat King Cole, et. al.? I don't know. But quite possibly.

Regardless, I'd rank Brian Evans' YouTube ad as one of the best examples of content-as-advertising I've seen in a while. If you're an artist who is trying to build a following, one of the biggest struggles is finding opportunities to get people to listen to your music. People can't remember you, can't like you, can't choose to buy your albums and concert tickets, if they haven't heard you. So why not use a YouTube ad - for which, unlike television spots, you pay only based on the number of people who watch the video, not on the length of the spot - to introduce people to your music? And what better way to introduce people to your music than to actually play one of your songs?

And as a viewer, I love it. I would much rather watch an ad that entertains me - whether with great music, great comedy, or a great story - than one that simply promotes a product for which I have no interest. This Brian Evans video happened to match my musical tastes, and Mr. Evans has just converted this total stranger into an fan - one who will likely be purchasing his album in the very near future.

Serving vs. Stalking

An AdAge article yesterday reported on a recent study of the effectiveness of online advertising. The study examined two online ad tactics - targeted* advertising and obtrusive** advertising - to see their impact on consumers' intent to buy.

The results showed that consumers were 0.9% more likely to buy when they saw a targeted ad rather than a non-targeted one, and that they were 0.5% more likely to buy when they saw an obtrusive ad over a non-obtrusive one. However, when an ad was both targeted and obtrusive, consumers were only 0.3% more likely to buy than if the ad were a typical, non-targeted, non-obtrusive ad.

The study suggested that privacy-concerned consumers may find targeted obtrusive ads to be manipulative.

The bottom line is that marketers exist to serve customers, not the other way around. We aren't serving the customer when we use ads that interrupt what the customer is doing. And we aren't serving customers when we interrupt them with an ad that says, "I know you're looking at Product X right now, so you should stop what you're doing and come look at my Product Y to go with your Product X." Even if these interruptions create more "brand awareness," they don't create the brand awareness we want. If it's not serving customers, it's not worth it.

We serve the customer when we make ourselves available for them to choose when they need our services.

As marketers, our attitude should not be one of pushing ourselves, our products, and our messages onto customers, but one of waiting on customers. "Waiting on" customers the way a server "waits" tables. Or the way a servant used to "wait on" his master. Paying the utmost attention, capable and diligent, doing everything in our power to be available, letting them know that you're there for them, waiting for the slightest request, ready to provide what the customer needs.

Marketers, wait on your customers. Don't interrupt their lives.


*Targeted advertising is that in which the advertised product relates to the content of the site, i.e. an ad for camping gear on a site about outdoor recreation.

**Obtrusive advertising was defined by the study to include pop-ups, pop-unders, ads in an audio or video stream, takeover ads, non-user-initiated audio/video, full page banner ads, interactive ads, floating ads, and interstitials (ads displayed before a page loads).

It's Not Just a Bag

Anything that reminds people about your organization is a representative for your brand.

Hence we have logos - visual representations of the corporate identity of a brand. We have advertising campaigns, carefully planned to accurately convey a brand's identity and proposed value to consumers. We have colors, fonts, store designs, soundtracks, and even smells that are strategically chosen for what they say about their respective brands.

But other things speak for your brand as well:

          Your partners (I blogged about that last week).
          Your product packaging (I blogged about that two weeks ago).
          Your facilities (how tidy are they?).
          Your corporate vehicles (how often do you wash them?).

          Your shopping bags.

Shopping bags (and other distribution packaging) have great - and often underused - potential as branding tools. Well-designed and attractively-branded shopping bags provide two marketing tactics in one:

• First, they serve as free advertising - distributing your logo, willingly, through the hands of every customer.
• Second, they serve as social proof - every customer seen with your shopping bag indicates support of your brand to those around them. And as Robert Cialdini would tell us, observing the approval of others towards a brand gives permission to new potential customers to try the brand, too.

Bloomingdales does an outstanding job of using shopping bags as branded items. People notice the cute, clever "Little Brown Bags" with which Bloomingdales customers leave their stores. The more customers shop at Bloomingdales, the more those Little Brown Bags are seen by others, and the more other people see public approval of the Bloomingdales brand.

FedEx also uses their "shopping bags" (aka their boxes) well. Every time you receive a package via FedEx, you see the FedEx logo, and are given another example of a customer who used FedEx for their shipping needs.

Start-up companies can use branded shopping bags to great advantage as they work to build brand recognition. Each time a customer carries out a branded shopping bag, the organization receives another instance of free advertising in the community, and another testimony of a [presumably satisfied] customer.

And to be remarkable, shopping bags need not be simple plastic bags stamped with a logo (although they very well could be). Why not use your shopping bags as another opportunity to exhibit great design? Why stick with a one-color print on plastic? Why not make your shopping bags something that are fun and attractive to carry around? Something that reinforces your brand's personality?

So, how are your shopping bags representing you? Do they speak your name in a clever, fun, innovative, or attractive way? Or do they speak your name at all?

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: P&G

It seems that Procter & Gamble, Walmart, Geico, and others are facing a bit of a dilemma regarding their television commercial placement. According to a recent AdAge article, these companies have been the target of boycotts Left and Right in connection with advertisements during Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck show.

Apparently Beck's "flamin' conservatism" has prompted some liberal activists - including Donny Deutsch of CNBC's The Big Idea - to boycott the companies who advertise during the show. In response, Walmart, Geico, and Men's Wearhouse have specifically pulled their commercials from that time slot. Other targets of the boycott, including P&G, SC Johnson, and Progressive Insurance, protest that they never intended for their spots to run during Beck's show in the first place.

And now the companies who pulled their commercials from Beck's show (whether or not they originally meant for their ads to run during that time) are facing another boycott: this time, from Beck's supporters who resent the pulling of the ads.

What's an advertiser to do? Especially an advertiser whose general primetime ads just happened to fall during Beck's show?

A few options come to mind:

1) Advertisers could choose to run or pull the ads based on who their customers are, and what those customers' political convictions are. If a company serves customers from all parts of the political spectrum, it could base the decision on the Customer Lifetime Value at risk from liberal boycotters versus conservative boycotters.

2) Advertisers could choose to run or pull the ads based on the companies' own political convictions. After all, you can't always waver based on the whims of your customers. Sometimes you have to stand on your own values, don't you?

3) Advertisers could maintain the status quo, leave the spots as originally purchased, and continue to buy ads during broad time slots, leaving the particular show times up to the luck of the draw. These companies are never going to please everyone, the boycotts have to blow over sometime, and, as someone once said, "there's no such thing as bad publicity."

Stay tuned for what happens next....

Adding Scientists to Your Advertising Staff?

Here's an interesting Human Resources experiment: Take an advertising agency. Add 12 people, with or without college degrees or work experience, from around the globe, from very different non-advertising disciplines (the arts, science, technology...). Give them six to nine months to work together on creative problem-solving for selected client accounts. See what happens.

No, it's not a new reality TV show. It's a project called Platform, by Wieden + Kennedy London. W+K is searching for curious, creative, adventuresome, and observant individuals from across disciplines to expand the agency's long-term talent pool. Participants are not guaranteed a job at the end of the program, but potential is there. After his involvement in W+Kside, an earlier, smaller version of Platform, one product designer received a job offer from W+K eighteen months later.

To apply for the project, which launches September 9, interested parties must submit (1) their solution to a problem that bothers them (with implementation documented via Flickr photos), and (2) a video bio, less than three minutes long, posted to YouTube.

I'm impressed with this bold and brave move toward cross-disciplinary integration on the part of Wieden + Kennedy. Collaborating across disciplines is a wise choice in nearly any field, I think. Consider the variety of expertise required to create something as "simple" as a good iPhone application, for example: you need graphic designers, computer programmers, information systems specialists, communications experts, product testers, writers, marketing researchers, marketing communications specialists, sound designers, and perhaps some physicists, depending on what you're creating.

Pulling in all of these people into one advertising agency is something new and different, though. It's risky. As Platform's recruiting website asks, "Are you ready to embrace failure?" But with great risk is the potential for great return. The people who will apply (and whom W+K will select) for the program are people who are creative, innovative, bold, risk-taking, problem-solvers - just the kind of people needed at an ad agency that wants to be excellent in innovation and service to clients and customers.

In the words of Jim Collins from his book Good to Great, W+K is looking to get the right people on the bus. Good for them. Maybe someday soon this will become the standard operating procedure for hiring at the top innovative companies of the world.

Online Video Advertising that Works?

Here's a new approach to online video advertising.

VideoClix.tv is a video sharing site that seems to have found a workable solution to the monetization dilemma plaguing YouTube. While YouTube is experimenting with choose-your-own pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll "promoted video" ads, VideoClix steers away from the "tv commercial" approach altogether.

Instead, VideoClix uses its own Smartrack technology to add dynamic (moving) hotspots to the uploaded video. The hotspots function rather like "tags" on Facebook photos; as the viewer rolls the mouse over images in the streaming video, labels appear. The viewer can click on a labeled hotspot to see a relevant advertisement appear in a sidebar to the right of the video screen. If interested, the viewer can then click on the advertisement to open the advertiser's website in a new browser window.

For example, in a video of Maui honeymoon spots by The Knot wedding planning website, hotspots connect to ads for the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau, The Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea, National Geographic, and The Knot.

Although VideoClix seems to be slow in gaining contributors (due in part, I suspect, to their business model - with their $5,000/year license fee, they are seeking corporate- and network-created content, not customer-created), I think this advertising model is a winner. Viewers are happy, because they see ads only if they are interested in the material, and the ads do not interrupt the video. Advertisers are happy, because their ads are reaching the customers who are actually interested in their products and services. It's a win-win (as any good business deal should be).

I hope that the VideoClix method catches on. Perhaps if waiting for more contributors isn't working, VideoClix should license their technology to YouTube instead.

BMW Redefines "Art"

I am writing from a seat in Terminal A of the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, and I can't resist commenting on an advertisement I passed by as I walked to my gate.

The piece to which I'm referring is an advertisement for the BMW Z4 Roadster, part of BMW's Expression of Joy campaign. The ad features a white background streaked with tire tracks made in brilliant reds, blues, and greens. In the foreground sits a sleek blue Z4. The tagline says, "Not all artists are depressed."

This ad from the same campaign should give you an idea of the ad I'm describing:


I love it. I want to show this ad to my dad, because it fits him perfectly. Male, 45-55 years old, married with some children still at home, from a modest family background in farm country, intelligent, who gained relative affluence through hard work, frugality, and smart financial decisions, and moved to a more cultured life on the Florida beaches. He loves art, architecture, and sports cars, and could potentially convince my mother (his wife) to allow him to purchase a new toy with his "mad money", since he doesn't splurge very often. And he doesn't believe that artists should be starving. Or depressed.

If BMW's market research tells them that the people most likely to buy their Z4 Roadsters are men like my dad, I'd say they did this ad campaign just right.

Trust Comes First

Yesterday I saw I an online ad that read, "Click here to build a custom network for your brand." It had a little graphic and logo and another button that said, "Take 60 Seconds to Build Your Network." I had no interest in hiring a marketing services company, but, being a fellow marketer, I was interested in seeing what these guys were doing with this marketing piece.

I clicked on the ad, which took me to a microsite by a company called Casale Media where I could build a "sample custom network". I was curious; I wondered what Casale Media could do with this "custom network" thing; and I was okay with building a little free sample for fun.

So I picked some random "target demographics" (B2C, Miami area, males, 18-34, interested in fishing) to plug into the form. BUT, in order to submit the demographics and generate my free sample custom network, Casale Media wanted me to submit my Name, Company, Email, and Telephone number. Bad move. I left the site.

See, I knew nothing about Casale Media. Had never heard of them before. Had never seen their work. As a "prospective customer," I wasn't yet interested in Casale Media's services. I was willing take two minutes to check out their product, get a free sample, and learn whether Casale might actually provide a beneficial service to marketers. If they did, and I were a marketing manager at a company, I might have pursued further a relationship with Casale Media.

But, until I could see and learn about what Casale Media actually did, I was in no way interested in giving my contact information to this company about which I knew nothing. They had given me no reason to show them that kind of trust yet. And since I was only curious about the company (and not actively seeking any marketing services), I was happy to leave their site and never give them a second glance, if I could not test their free sample without submitting that information.

They lost me as a prospective customer.

If Casale Media truly wanted to attract new customers (which is ostensibly the purpose of most advertisements), this is model they should have followed:

1. Offer their free, fun little interactive application which generates a sample of Casale Media's "product" (the custom network).


2. DON'T require any personal information to run the app.


3. Let the viewer (who has already taken the first giant step by clicking on the ad) see the results of their very own sample custom network.


4. If the sample custom network shows that Casale Media has a fun and useful product, THEN invite customers to submit their information to learn if Casale Media's services are right for their company, or to visit Casale Media's website to learn more.

Casale Media needs to create some modicum of trust by allowing prospective customers to see a sample of their work. By requiring a yet-unearned level of trust from their prospects, they turn people away and sabotage their marketing efforts.

Trust comes first, Casale Media. Give them something free. Then, if they like it, they will come.

Marketers, just do work.

One month ago, I graduated from college. With a degree in marketing. Wanting to do interactive advertising.

Which means that, over the past few years (and even more over the past few months), I have been digging through job postings, prowling through lists of "The Top ___ Ad Agencies," and trekking through dozens of agency websites. I was quite impressed with the first several ad agency websites I explored - especially those for interactive* agencies. [for those of you not quite sure what "interactive" means, see my definition below]

Beyond the "coolness" factor of the clean or eclectic, minimalist or avant-garde, always esthetically pleasing, full-of-white-space-and-streaming-video, often Flash-driven sites, I especially loved the inspiring "our philosophy" sections that I would discover on these sites. Wow! these agencies "got it" - they understood things that we had been talking about in my marketing classes. They understood that marketing isn't just about shouting messages at consumers and convincing them to buy stuff so that companies can make money. No, it's about building relationships, and creating value, and partnering research with creativity, and having an integrated strategy, and being remarkable, and earning fans, and starting conversations, and developing trust and transparency.

I was so excited to discover that agencies have this fresh and original look at marketing!

Until, a few days ago, after wading through the millionth obligatory "marketing philosophy" page, I reached an exasperated conclusion: ALL of the advertising agencies that are worth their salt "get it" already. ALL of them understand the current approach to marketing, such as I described above. ALL of them have, basically, this same core philosophy. THEY'RE ALL SAYING THE SAME THING. Which means that none of them are really original any more. They don't need to keep saying the same thing that everybody knows already.

So, my fellow marketers and advertising professionals, quit talking and just get back to marketing. Take your lofty philosophies (most of which I agree with, by the way), and use them! Do marketing! And do it with excellence and effectiveness, and be remarkable, and earn fans for your clients, and stop trying to use your philosophy to prove that you're different. Just do great work.

Yesterday I stumbled upon this article on MediaPost.com, describing the website of NC-based agency Boone Oakley. Boone Oakley seems to be saying the same thing I've been thinking (just in slightly different words than I would have chosen). And actually, their "website" isn't a website at all, but rather an interactive (haha) YouTube video. Check it out: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=107402

*definition of interactive advertising (by Haley) - advertising that involves two-way communication between a company and its customers, rather than the traditional one-way communication found in media like tv commercials, radio spots, billboards, magazine ads, etc. To do this, interactive advertising agencies often use tools like public relations events, customizable products, Internet ads, company websites, online contests, customer review sites, microsites, blogs, text-messaging, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, iPhone applications, etc. Hence the website of any agency that does any interactive work at all is typically very creative and...well...interactive.