Internet Marketing Blog

Dakota County YouTube Video PSA Contest

I've been helping out on a YouTube video PSA contest project that is sponsored by the Dakota County Public Health Department, called Respect My Ride. The purpose of the campaign was to encourage Dakota County teens to pledge to keep their cars smoke-free.  The video contest encouraged teens to create a 30-second public service announcement promoting the same message.

In addition to YouTube, the campaign made use of Facebook, MySpace, and Flickr in in trying to reach teens. The contest winners were announced yesterday. The remarkable explosion of creativity that social media has unleashed never fails to amaze me. This project was no exception.

The following playlist includes all the entries to the contest (the first three are the winners, in order):

Social Networking Statistics

Morgan Stanley's March Internet trends report shows that social networking sites are quickly becoming major hubs of online activity: Six of the top ten Web sites are social.

| View | Upload your own

Citizen Branding On The Campaign Trail

The viral videos just keep coming for Barack Obama. The most recent is Baracky: The Movie in which Obama and Clinton are injected into the storyline of the movie Rocky, to amusing effect. This is another example of candidate branding by someone other than the campaign iteself.

By inserting Obama into the Rocky roll, he is being portrayed simultaneously as the challenger and the champ. In the movie, Rocky plays an upstart but everyone knows he ends up as champion. It's a nice bit of work:

Making Online Video Advertising Work

It is encouraging, at least, that some advertisers are experimenting with Internet video advertising and not just applying a different form of the traditional interruption advertising model online.

The two current predominant Web video advertising models are the tradition interruption method in the form of either a preroll or an ad in the middle of the video. The other form of video advertising is the overlay ad that Google introduced on their YouTube videos.

But both methods are still forcing commercial messages on an audience that hasn't specifically asked for those messages. Like traditional TV advertising, it's a crap shoot. You're likely to reach people who will be receptive to your message, but the vast majority will either ignore it or be annoyed by it.

Keyword search-based advertising has taught people that, like nearly everything else these days, advertising can be consumed on the audience's terms, not the advertiser's.

If you're going to depend upon third party content to find your audience, you've got a delicate balancing act to do.

The trick to really making video advertising work is to eliminate the actual advertisement entirely and replace it with hyperlinked product placements. Instead of being assaulted by a commercial message you didn't ask for, you would be able to mouse over any video element to discover ads. So, for example, if you really liked the tie a character in the video you are watching was wearing, you could click on that tie and be brought to the merchant's purchase page for that tie.

What we need is a video markup language that allows us to create interactive video. The World Wide Web Consortium's Synchronized Multimedia Integration Langauge (SMIL 3.0) is the most likely vehicle to accomplish this.

Hulu Does Online Video Right

It is with relief, gentle reader, that I report to you that some mainstream media companies have figured out that sharing your content online benefits online fans and media companies alike.

As you faithful readers know, my biggest aggravation is when media companies refuse to allow their content to be shared. Hulu is offering ad-supported video content from more than 50 media companies for free and they are allowing it to be embedded.

They've done it right. So, happily, this time I get to appauld rather than complain. The selection of TV shows and movies is not bad but you'd think there would be a lot more to choose from fifty contributors. The quality is superb and definitely check out the HD gallery (it is stunning how crystal clear the high-def video looks and plays).

This is a segment from C|Net TV's First Look show, featuring a review of Yahoo! Go 3.0 Beta (which, by the way, inexplicably does not work on Windows Mobile PC [David said, bitterly]):

See Also:

• Mainstream Media Inching Toward Embeddable Content
• MTV's Online Music Video Marketing Strategy
• Will Google's Video Ad Network Expand The Embeddable Web?
• AOL News Beta Integrates Social & Conversational Media
• NFL.com Redesign - Web 1.5
• NBC Finally Offers Embedable Video Clips...Sorta
• NBC's Botched Response To Natalie Portman Online Video

Online Branding In The 2008 Presidential Race

The 2008 presidential race has been called the YouTube election and that is certainly hard to dispute. There have been numerous examples of YouTube videos playing a significant role in the race for the White House.

In each instance, the YouTube videos attempted to brand a candidate one way or another and to varying degrees of success.

Pre-YouTube

The first instance of YouTube-like online branding of a politician in Minnesota, and, perhaps, nationally, occurred during Norm Coleman's 2002 campaign against the late Senator Paul Wellstone.

At the outset of Coleman's challenge against Wellstone, a couple of young Minnesotans launched the now defunct BushBoy.com that featured a hilarious Flash animation depicting Coleman as George W. Bush's lapdog and, literally, hand puppet. The animation used actual clips of Coleman speeches and played on Coleman's close relationship with the White House. I cannot, unfortunately, find the actual animation. The site was instantly popular. It worked so well because the piece exploited some essential truths of Coleman the politician: He was handpicked by Karl Rove to run against Wellstone and he had big monied supporters.

BushBoy.com was followed by JibJab during the 2004 presidential election with a Flash animation that lampooned both George W. Bush and John Kerry. Again, the satire was so effective because it absolutely nailed if not essential truths, then perceived truths of both candidates:

YouTube Politics

Prior to YouTube, you had to be pretty motivated and needed not just some technical expertise to create popular online political satire, but enough marketing savvy to build awareness. When YouTube launched in February 2005, it provided an easy way to publish satirical political videos and offered a centralized, ready-made audience for them.

Senator George Allen's Macaca Moment

What's more, YouTube ushered in the era of citizen generated media, offering a platform and an audience for raw video shot by individuals. During this presidential race, that fact played out most prominently when a worker for the James Webb senate campaign caught his opponent, Senator George Allen, using a racial slur when referring to the Webb volunteer.

Allen was considered a front-runner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. The Webb campaign uploaded the video to YouTube and it soon became news, with television reports airing the video itself. The widespread exposure of that video branded Senator Allen as a racist. Subsequent reports of Allen using racial slurs and his awkward attempts at explaining the video simply solidified the perception that he was a racist. Allen lost his re-election bid and, as a result of the video, was no longer a viable presidential candidate.

Rudy Giuliani in Drag

It's an understatement to say that Rudolph Giuliani faced an uphill climb in securing the conservative base of his party during his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. Conservatives saw no difference between him and a liberal Democrat. Though Guiliani failed for a variety of reasons, it certainly didn't help his cause when someone uploaded video of the former Mayor of New York in drag and flirting with Donald Trump. The video reinforced Giuliani's brand as a liberal:

Big Mother Hillary

The Obama campaign's mashup of the 1984 Apple Macintosh commercial was effective because for years Hillary Clinton has been pummeled (and branded) by her right wing critics as cold, distant, and a big government socialist:

This is the original Apple commercial:

Which, coming full circle, is based, of course, on George Orwell's novel about totalitarianism, 1984:

The Clinton's Soprano's Spoof

Riffing off the finale episode of the final season of the immensely popular HBO show The Sopranos, the Clinton campaign spoofed the finale with a lighthearted version of their own. This piece was fascinating because people tended to read into it what they wanted to see. Supporters of the Clintons saw it as a laudable attempt to show people Hillary's lighter side. Clinton critics, on the other hand, thought it entirely appropriate that the Bill and Hillary would compare themselves to a crime family. In this case, branding was in the eye of the beholder:

This is the original ending scene from The Sopranos:

Pretty Boy John

The Edwards campaign had to be mortified when a clip of the candidate appeared on YouTube that showed him obsessing over his hair, reinforcing the perception of John Edwards as a pretty boy:

The negative branding from that video was so successful that the campaign felt obliged to address it with a self-effacing video of their own for the YouTube debates:

Mitt's Many Faces

The rap against Mitt Romney has been that he never met a position he wouldn't change, if it were politically expedient to do so. And if you had any doubts, YouTube was there to remind you that Romney once held the polar opposite positions he now holds:

I Got A Crush On My Candidate

Barack Obama has been the biggest beneficiary to date of online branding through YouTube. When Barely Political launched the Obama Girl video, the branding of Obama as a sexy candidate easily took hold because he is a very charismatic man. The video has only been a positive for the campaign:

With the phenomenal success of I Got A Crush On Obama, Barely Political followed up with Obama Girl vs. Giuliani Girl:

Too Hot For Hillary

The Me Too videos followed shortly after the Obama Girl made such a big splash but not always to the benefit of the candidate. Taryn Southern, for example, released Hott 4 Hill, containing a rather obvious lesbian theme:

Huck Me

The Huckabee Girl video mocks Republican candidate Mike Huckabee's belief in Creationism:

Yes They Can

Finally, Barack Obama again benefits from independent online branding with the Yes We Can music video featuring musicians and Hollywood stars singing along to an Obama speech. The video brands Obama as an inspiring, lyrical, poetic speaker. Again, the branding is effective because it's true:

Who Needs Swift Boats?

Forget 527s, the new Swift Boat Veterans are going to be even more opaque than the shadowy groups of elections past. If you like anonymous, unaccountable attack ads, stay tuned to YouTube. We are entering a new era of political campaigns because now, with the ease of YouTube, digital cameras and editing software, one person with a clever idea and some skill now has the power to affect an election.

Mainstream Media Inching Toward Embeddable Content

However slowly, the traditional media is beginning to make their content embeddable.

I noticed a few days ago MSNBC promoting that the videos on their site were now embeddable--they claim to be the first news network to make the move. Here's a segment on the Millennials' role in t his election cycle:

MSNBC uses the IFRAME tag set to embed the videos; not my preferred implementation, but you can't have everything.

Locally, only the Pioneer Press allows people to use their videos off-site. Here's a recent review by PiPress tech columnist Julio Ojeda-Zapata that demonstrates rather amusingly that the Ford Sync ain't quite multilingual:

The Star Tribune won't let you embed their video.

Twin Cities Public Television does not allow the videos on their site to be embedded and though they have uploaded their content to YouTube and Google Video, they have disabled the embedding feature. At Yahoo! Video, the TPT content is embeddable but it is old. Here is a segment featuring then-candidate Amy Klobuchar:

None of the local networks allow their video to be embedded.

However shuffling it is, I've got to count this as progress.

UPDATE: Add the New York Times to the list. Though you can't get embed code directly from the Times' video page, they've got a YouTube page through which they allow embedding:

Colts.com Internet Marketing

I've been meaning to write about this for a month but since the Super Bowl is today, I figured it's now or never.

Early last month a got a call from Dwight Adams, a reporter for the Indianapolis Star, who wanted my opinion for a story he was working on about the online marketing efforts of the Indianapolis Colts in particular and the NFL in general. He called me because of a two posts I did on the redesign of NFL.com.

When a reporter calls asking me to talk about my two favorite subjects--Internet marketing and football--I'm definitely game.

After taking a look at the Colts' online presence, it became quite clear quite quickly that the team is ahead of the curve compared to a lot of other teams' online marketing efforts.

That didn't really surprise me, though, because Indy's online presence is overseen by the Colts' Executive Director of Digital Business, Pat Coyle. I've been following Pat's excellent Sports Marketing 2.0 blog for a while now; it is the only blog that I know of that gives you a perspective of the Internet marketing issues being faced by professional sports franchise.

The Colt's maintain three web sites: The team's web site at Colts.com and the social networking sites MyColts.net and MyIndianaFootball.com. MyColts.net caters to the team's fans while MyIndianaFootball.com associates the Colts' brand with high school football. (There's even a team page for the high school I attended.)

The Colts are embracing social and embeddable media in a big way. The site features a podcast, a widget you can add to your blog or MySpace or Facebook page:

And embeddable video:

At MyColts.net, fans can discuss any and all things Colts on the site's forums or they can read Head Coach Tony Dungy's blog where he actually does post. Having your head coach maintain a blog is way ahead of the curve. Kudos for the Dungy and the Colts for having the courage and the insight to launch it.

The team does not appear to have a presence at the most popular social media sites like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube & Flickr. That absence, I suspect, has a lot to do with the NFL's attitude toward those sites than anything else: The league routinely asks YouTube, for example, to delete game highlights that users have uploaded.

Nevertheless, the Colt's online presence points the way toward those social networking sites. I'm betting that before too long, the Colts model and outposts at YouTube, Facebook, et. al. will be standard operating procedure.

The Evolution Of A Viral Video

In 2005, Sony ran a television ad campaign for their Bravia LCD television display that used bright colored superballs bouncing through the streets of San Francisco, filmed by director Nicolai Fuglsig, and set to José González's song Heartbeats. It is a sight to behold:

The incredible piece took on a life of it's own online and inspired mashups like this one that uses the Battlefield 2 video game:

And a take-off commercial for Tango Clear:

To, finally, a political protest by an Italian artist (don't artists pride themselves on their originality? Just asking.):

Microsoft's Stay At Home Servers Campaign

It looks like Microsoft is running a viral campaign to sell Windows Home Server; it's a very clever and funny campaign. I found this thanks to my colleague Pat Lilja via Gizmodo.

The overarching idea of the campaign is Stay At Home Servers, playing off the idea of stay at home dads with all the issues and stigmas that come with it. Except, of course, in this case it is the server that is staying at home.

At the web site devoted to the campaign you'll find videos featuring dueling experts, a clash of generations, and an interview with a "progressive family" who have installed a home server. The videos employ a morning news show type format.

The funniest piece on the site by far, though, is the "children's book" excerpt of Mommy, Why is There A Server in the House?

The campaign explains the benefits of home servers in a very funny, clever, and lasting way. Extremely well done.

Roger Clemens Posts Steroids Denial On YouTube

Major League Baseball pitcher Roger Clemens has posted a video to YouTube denying the Mitchell Report allegations that he was a "juicer." This is a fascinating new tactic for online reputation management:

An Ode To Digg (And Its Supporting Online Campaign)

Kina Grannis loves to Digg.

  Two Weeks For Kina 
  Originally uploaded by kasuya

She loves to Digg so much, in fact, that she's written a very clever and catchy song about her Digg love. Clearly, Kina's not alone.

But she's taken it another step by entering her song, Gotta Digg, in the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl music video contest. The grand prize winner gets their music video aired during the Super Bowl and gets a recording contract with Interscope Records.

[UPDATE: Two kind readers have helpfully pointed out (see the comments below) that Grannis entered another song to the contest, not Gotta Digg.

I'm a bit disappointed because I really like Gotta Digg, but the fact that she composed that song for her online campaign only makes the campaign itself all the more brilliant!]

Kina's clearly got some marketing savvy in her corner because she's running a pretty sophisticated online campaign to solicit votes for her video.

In addition to asking for votes at her official web site (which is very professionally done, by the way), she has a separate web site for the contest itself: TwoWeeksForKina.com. It is this site that she promotes from her YouTube account and her MySpace page, where she has 2,820 friends and her Facebook page, where she has 850 friends.

She's hosting her contest campaign photos at her Flickr account , where, as of this writing, her 93 contest campaign photos have been viewed more than 900 times. Her only slip at Flickr is that she's wearing a Michael Vick jersey. Oops.

Naturally, her video has been submitted to Digg five times and, as of this writing, has been Dugg 10,734 times.

As of this writing, since Grannis uploaded her Gotta Digg music video to her YouTube account on December 23, the video has been viewed 124,234 times, boasts four out of five stars from 1,438 raters, has been marked as a favorite video by 729 YouTube users, and received 462 comments.

Those numbers are not surprising because the video is number 3 on YouTube's Top Rated Video this week, is the 11th Most Viewed music video this week, and the 42nd Most Responded to video today.

As of this writing, Google Blog Search lists 267 blog posts citing "gotta digg," most of them posted within the past 24 hours. That's pretty remarkable, considering the time period is Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Technorati, meanwhile, lists only 18 posts within it's universe of registered blogs, but among those are highly influential blogs like TechCrunch,  Neatorama, and Buzz Machine. These posts are likely to inspire many more posts about the video down the long tail.

Kina Grannis is either one Internet savvy kid or she's got some very smart online marketers working on her behalf. Regardless, I would not be surprised at all to see her win the contest.

Oh, yeah; here's the video:

New Word Of Mouth Networks - Teens Talk Online

I haven't fully digested the new Pew Internet & American Life Teens & Social Media report, but the summary makes clear that teens' online behavior is creating new networks that will require online word of mouth marketing to be an increasingly crucial tactic within overall Internet marketing strategies.

The Pew study shows that they are prolific online content creators:

• Of the 93% that are online, 64% of them have created content online.
• 39% of online teens share their creations online.
• 33% create or work on others' blogs or web sites, be it for friends, groups they belong to, or classroom assignments.
• 28% have created their own blog.
• 27% have a personal web site.
• 26% create mashups.
• 55% have created a social networking profile at sites like Facebook and MySpace.
• 47% have uploaded photos.
• 14% have posted video online.

Teens share their online content and that sharing builds the foundation of their word of mouth networks because that content is a virtual conversation starter. The Pew study found:

• 89% of teens who upload photos say that people post comments about those photos at least sometimes.
• 72% of video posters say those videos elicit comments at least sometimes.
• 76% of teens who use social networks say they leave comments on other people's blog posts.

It seems clear that teen marketing for the short term, and, as these kids grow up, overall Internet marketing for the long term, will depend upon tapping into these online word of mouth networks.

Battling Brands: Cable TV vs. The NFL

The issue has been percolating relatively quietly for months but became a topic of media coverage again last Thursday with the NFL Network airing it's first exclusive football game between the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys.

The marquee matchup between two teams who had thus far lost only a game each was the first time an NFL game was the first time an NFL game was broadcast exclusively on the league's own television network, leaving many fans who did not get the NFL Network at the mercy of friends or their local bars that did.

At issue is whether the NFL Network should be a part of the basic cable package just like ESPN is (the NFL's position) or whether the network should be a part of a for-fee sports "tier" of channels offered by cable companies to keep people who don't necessarily want the league's network from paying for it(the cable companies' position).

Both the NFL and the cable companies have been running a blame game advertising campaign hoping to pressure the other side to cry uncle:

This is an interesting case of brand dynamics, if you will, and how they play out online.

Let's start with the strength of the brands themselves.

I don't think there's much of an argument that the NFL has a much stronger brand than cable companies. People who love football almost inherently love the NFL because it provides them with the best of what they love. Cable companies, on the other hand, are rarely loved. For most people, they are a forced buy, the rates keep getting jacked up for no apparent reason, and it's a major hassle to switch providers so you just have to grin and bear it.  For this reason, the NFL starts with a huge advantage.

Now let's look at how people interact with these two brands online.

Football lovers interact with the NFL brand all the time online. By simply reading stories about their local team in their local newspaper or at team blogs, they are interacting with the NFL brand. When they visit the football sections of sports web sites like Yahoo! Sports or SI.com or ESPN.com, they are interacting with the NFL brand. When fans watch football highlights that have been uploaded to YouTube, or photos that have been posted to Flickr, they're interacting with the NFL brand.

And, as much as I've been critical of the site, the recently redesigned NFL.com delivers a ton of great content to football fans, including video highlights of all the games and historical data about former players. It's a playground for NFL fans.

All of these online interactions with the NFL are positive and pleasant experiences for fans.

Consumer interaction with their cable company's brand online is the polar opposite. Remembering that most people already have a negative feeling about their cable company, they come to the online interaction with a bad attitude already.

The interaction with cable company brands are one of three ways 1) when shopping for a cable company, 2) when paying your cable bill or looking at a statement, or 3) through their Internet portal.

One of the primary considerations for most people who are shopping for a cable company is price. And since the cable companies offer tiered pricing rather than a la cart--which is what most people prefer--they see that they'll have to pay for channels they don't want and will never watch. That's a reminder of how expensive cable is.

When they are interacting with a cable company brand through their e-payment process, people have a negative experience as they watch their bank accounts get that much poorer.

People who get Internet access through their cable company often have that cable companies' portal as their home page, so every time they go online, they interact with the cable brand. This is obviously a much more pleasant experience that the previous two, but it is still a reminder of your cable company, which may just make you think about how much you're paying, again.

Interacting with NFL content online carries no such risk.

It remains to be seen who wins as this battle continues to play out for the rest of the season, but my bet will be on the NFL.

And bar owners.

No TV? No Prob - I Live In An On-Demand World

Not long ago I was driving with the radio on, distracted with my thoughts, when something caught my ear and I reflexively reached for the rewind button. Live radio, of course, cannot be rewound.

So much of my media diet is consumed on my terms, when and how I want it. I listen to some radio shows on my iPod and some I stream from web sites. I usually listen to my iPod when I drive, but I'll listen to sports radio live.

I even watch some TV shows on my iPod. The other TV shows are on my DVR. I know my media habits are hardly typical but I don't think they will be that uncommon for very long.

I have, as a result of said habits, been sheltered from the effects of the writer's strike. I don't watch the late night shows and all of my HBO series' seasons ended last week. I've got plenty of movie options on cable, including video on demand. And in January one of my favorite shows, The Wire, returns to HBO for a fifth season.

But what if the strike is a long one?

A lasting strike will certainly effect me if my favorite television shows are delayed or canceled. If I've seen the last of Entourage or Flight of the Conchords or Rome or Deadwood or Reaper, I'll definitely sad. They are all superb shows. But I won't be at a loss for entertainment options.

I'd probably spend more time playing video games but I also have online options that could fill the void just fine. While I think HBO's original series boast the best writing you'll find on television, I'm sure new, young, and ambitious talent would capture the public's imagination in the absence of traditional television.

Marc Andreessen has put forth what I believe is an unassailable argument for Hollywood evolving from a studio-dominated industry to a creator-owners industry due to the economic leveling influence of the Internet.

With production costs dropping drastically and distribution costs near zero, the economic rationality of creators owning and marketing their own content is self-evident.

Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine is convinced current online content and talent can fill the content void created by the strike and TechCrunch's Duncan Riley agrees.

But that's not what I'm thinking about, nor, I think Andreessen.

Andreessen's vision may not look likely today, what with the poor quality of over-compressed YouTube videos, but there's no reason why online video can't be delivered in high definition and viewed on your large-screen, Internet-ready television.

Such a future would provide infinite content choices and, happily, it would all be on demand.

Are You Ready For Internet-Ready TV?

Is RSS TV Coming To A Home Theater Near You?

Joining Microsoft Media Center, Apple TV, and the Wii Browser are an increasing number of products designed to get Internet content to your television. Sony's Bravia HDTV Internet Link TV came out this year:

And HP has their Media Smart TV. The problem with both Sony and HP's approach is that they appear to be taking a "walled garden" approach by using only select content partners or maybe simply burying direct Internet subscription options.

Chumby Hero
Originally uploaded
by drumsnwhistles

On the PSP, for example, you can subscribe directly to RSS feeds and Sony's new Internet-ready TV uses the same Cross Bar interface, but I couldn't determine if the RSS reader is available on their TV. Nevertheless, it's clear that Sony sees the technology as an additional channel for Sony content. That, of course, is only natural but I think consumer's are going to demand the choice to subscribe to their own content channels.

All of this, though, points to what I've been talking about for some time: The Internet will come to television, one way or another.  And it will come through the magic of RSS. There is even a specialized RSS language being developed for Internet TV, called RSS TV.

Ideally, this would allow you to subscribe to any RSS feed you like, so for example, I could subscribe to a video blog like MNStories on my TV or to any YouTube search.

One intriguing device that may point to the future of Internet television is the Chumby. The Chumby is a $200 open source wifi gadget that basically lets you subscribe any Internet content you like. Content providers can create widgets to which Chumby users can subscribe. The Chumby is small, appliance-like device that could easily be at home in the kitchen or living room alongside the coffee machine or on the coffee table.

Chumby Demonstrations

Chumby's Stephen Tomlin talks about the device:

Chumby introduction video:

Chumby playing YouTube videos:

So you can see where this is going. As the Talking Heads might say, same as it ever was; if you provide compelling content, you should be fine. It's a matter of finding out what your target audiences want and giving it to them.   

• New York Times Tech Talk podcast on Internet TV

The Case For Video Biographies For Business

A colleague sent me a blog post (YouTube At Work: Why Your Employees Should Be On There) recently that discussed the virtues of using online video for business. It's a topic I think about a great deal because video marketing is a component of Internet marketing that is growing ever more important.

But because the advantages of video marketing are so vast and varied, the overall topic is too big t