Online VIdeo Star From Tiki Bar TV Saves a Life in NYC Subway

According to Scott Beale of Laughing Squid "Kevin Gamble, who plays Johnny Johnny on Tiki Bar TV, tells the amazing story of how he jumped down onto the subway tracks at the L train station at 3rd Avenue in New York to save a woman’s life after she fell off the platform and hit her head on one of the rails."

Now I want to know what cocktail he fixed himself after it was all over.

Way to go Johnny Johnny! I can't wait for the recipe for the "SUBWAY" drink.

Integrated Advertising that Doesn't Work for Me

Okay here's some Online Integrated Advertising that DOESN'T Work for Me and at the risk of being called mean spirited I'd thought I'd just share. Please feel free to disagree with me.

Forget the over the top acting on Mark Malkoffs part and just ask yourself what emotions are moved by this video?

Anger? Maybe. Disgust? Maybe. Fear? Not really. Joy not so much. Sadness? Nope. Surprise? A little. (I can't believe they talked Lisa Loeb into doing this)

There are no clear winners. At face value nothing really moves the needle.

From a concept standpoint "We're going to get Mark to invite Lisa Loeb into IKEA to sing for his wife." Wow! That's so romantic. Wow! How did you get Lisa Loeb? How cool is that? But the finished video doesn't feel like an emotionally engaging spectacle that would go viral on the internet.

Now this is from my point of view and I may be a little too close to this one. I've shopped at IKEA and I don't like it and I hate putting furniture together, I've worked with Lisa and I didn't enjoy it and I've seen Mark's videos and I feel they have so much potential but they just don't work for me.

On the other hand, if my Aunt Bea was still alive she would think Mark was adorable and she would find it so gosh darn cute that Mark got Lisa to sing for his wife. The only thing that would have made it better for Aunt Bea was if there was a white cat in the video. (Aunt Bea loved white cats)

Some how this video has touched me because I'm blogging about it. Maybe I'm just discussed because I think videos like this hurt the integrated advertising video business but hey, I'm sure people say the same thing about French Maid TV but FMTV has over 26 million downloads so the Maids must be doing something right.

As of this posting the "Lisa Loeb Plays for Mark in IKEA" video has had 434,114 on YouTube - not bad for 7 days. I'm not sure what they spent on getting Lisa and Mark to do this but if I was a local furniture store in Florida I would be very happy with 400,000 views in 7 days. If I was a global furniture brand? Not so much.

From the production side I think this video is fine. With a little editing it would make a great segment on Good Morning America or some cable television network and that's where I think it and Mark belong. Women viewers of The View or Regis and Kelly would eat this video up. This type of integrated advertising belongs in old media where old people would think it's adorable.

What can you do to avoid this pitfall? Plan.

Make a plan of what human emotions you feel you need to touch in order to move the needle and get your target demo to do what you want them to do.

If you are serious about using viral videos to reach your audience I would caution you to make sure your audience is made up of young males. Sure there are millions of women on the Internet but they are not the ones watching viral videos in big numbers - yet. My recommendations for emotions to target young males would be: Lust, Joy and Surprise. Translated: Make it Funny and Sexy.

Next, add the spectacle ingredient. Think about your product or service and come up with some spectacle that will get young guys' attention but still fits the promise of your brand and MAKE SURE YOU HAVE BRAND PERMISSION to do what you are going to do. To my knowledge Houston's restaurant chain does not have drive-thru windows.

The last thing, find people to produce your viral video who understand the viral video space and know the culture and websites that aggregate and reach young males. Believe it or not YouTube is not the only video sharing website out there. Other video sharing websites can be more influential in reaching young male influencers and every good marketer knows the power of infuencer marketing.

Nalts Discloses Fees

In the above video is one of his most popular Revver files where he shares his "Addiction to Blackberry Crackberry" and on his blog Will Video for Food Kevin Nalts has published his rates.

Nalts says, "Let me disclose my own fee structure and hope others will do the same. I initially was happy with $1,000 per video (for Mentos and some of my early work), but soon discovered my hourly rate computed to less than minimal wage. And I was juggling more work than I could handle with a day job. I also didn’t want to junk my YouTube channel with excessive sponsored videos, which alienating my subscribers (especially since many resent YouTube’s InVid ads, which produce far less income for me than sponsored videos).

Now I’m pricing between $3,000 and $10,000, but there are a few reasons I can price this way:

I have a decent track record, and fortunately more demand than time.
I have a steady audience on YouTube so most of my videos will get at least 20-40,000 views.
I have a marketing background, and provide strategy and a creative brief before diving into the video.
I try to produce several videos so a brand can amortize the cost (and generally I get some efficiencies out of a series).
I have gobs of debt (hey, just keeping it real here)."

I think his rates are a little low for the service he's offering.

More Stuff That Super Bowl Ads Are Made Of

Not to be outdone by the Pepsi creative team the Bud Lite Creative team was quick to fire off an email to me with a tease of their Super Bowl spots and I must say they too are playing with the human emotions in brilliant Super Bowl fashion. Looking at all these Super Bowl spots ahead of time feels kind or wrong to me - Kind of like seeing Mickey with his head off but what the heck here's a little tease of what you are going to see:

A-B has made teasers of several of the spots they’ll be running during this year’s game available on YouTube:
Breathe Fire:




X-Ray Vision: (MY FAV)



Wheel:


Team: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPr4ECNzPTk

Language of Love:

But that’s not all. There’s also a mobile execution that ties into the spots. Here are some rough bullets on how that’s working:
Over the next two weeks, visitors to BudBowl.com, BudLight.com and Budweiser.com will be invited to participate in an interactive program during Super Bowl in which they can rate our Super Bowl ads.
Following each of our Super Bowl commercials, registered adults receive a text message to their cell phone prompting them to reply with a rating.
Following the final ad, participants receive a final text message with a code allowing them to unlock the secret 11th spot available via their video enabled cell phone or on BudBowl.com.
Consumers who view the secret spot will be invited to send a customized humorous messages to their friends inviting them to view the secret spot.
All of the ads will be available for download to PDAs, phones and iPods on Budbowl.com.

For the first time, Bud will include a widget that allows users to post their favorite ads on their own MySpace, Facebook, or other personal web site to share with their friends.

What's Up with spending so much time talking about traditional TV Ads? Because the stuff that goes into them affects our pop culture and our internet videos for years to come.

Whatsuuuuuup!

The Stuff Super Bowl Ads Are Made Of

Bob's House is the unique and hilarious Pepsi commercial for the 2008 Super Bowl, illustrating a popular joke in the hearing impaired community. Created and enacted by deaf members of the Pepsico workforce, EnAble.



Beyond the great back story of how this Super Bowl ad came together is that fact that depending on who you are this spot blends two or more human emotions with spectacle. It truly has the stuff that Super Bowl Ads are Made of and looks like it will be one of the most talk about ad campaigns of this Super Bowl Season.

22 Year Old Kid From Maine Has Top Brand Sponsors

According to Ad Age Jake Sasseville's show is on 40 ABC affiliates, following "Jimmy Kimmel Live" in markets across the US, and he counts Ford Motor Co., Overstock.com and Dunkin' Donuts among his sponsors.

Jake once said he wants to see what he can do to change the world and it looks like he's doing it. Now how long till someone does what he's doing on TV on the Internet?

The Real Power of the Upfront Presentation

While network upfronts are on the out this year I feel the "Upfront Presentation" or Upfront "Trailer" is an important tool in explaining to advertisers what your show is and where it is going. These short form marketing tools can be emotionally engaging and aid in closing ad sales. Many shows' advertising have been sold on just an upfront presentation. In fact I created one presentation for a show (that will remain nameless) that hadn't even been filmed yet. We faked the whole thing and made it look like the show was in production when they were still casting it. (That presentation won an award)

Now I did have the pleasure of creating the Upfront Presentation for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and working on that project for Bob Bibb and Lew Goldstein at The WB and that gave me a lot of insight into how TV Networks picked shows and I still think there is a lot to be learned from Network Upfronts.

If you are going after advertisers for your online video and you are just getting started you might want to create a presentation that explains the details about your show and where you see it going in the future. An "Industry Trailer" that's not for consumers but for advertisers and other companies that might want to partner with you.

Networks are still going to go after Upfront money for their shows. They will still meet with Ad Agencies and Media Buyers from large advertisers and ask for their advertising buys before new shows launch. Why wouldn't they? And there's no reason for the online video advertising world not to do the same.

I think we should get together and have online content creators meet with advertisers at a cocktail party and we should show them our Upfront Presentations.

Maybe we could do one in New York, one in Chicago, one in LA and one in San Francisco.

Would any of you be interested?

Diluting Your Feed

Is your RSS feed powerful enough that you need to dilute it?

I didn't think so but lots of people are diluting their feeds by making other feeds available. I'm guilty of this and I'm not sure how to stop it.

Why does this matter you ask? Well I guess it matters only if you want the free promotion that Apple gives you on the iTunes Store in the podcasting directory and if you want to make money by controlling and selling your own advertising inventory.

It stands to reason that if you make your content available in as many formats as you can that more people will be able to choose what feed they want to subscribe to. Right? Okay, sure but when someone subscribes to your Windows Media feed they are not subscribing to your feed that is featured on the iTunes Store and they don't count as a subscription for the day that will bring you up in the iTunes rankings. What good does moving up in the iTunes ranking do me? Well if you have content that is emotionally compelling and can really build a large audience it means a lot. It took me over a month to get listed on the iTunes Store and once French Maid TV was featured as new and notable we shot up to number one in 3 days and pick up 20,000 subscribers overnight. Then we were mentioned in Wired Magazine and picked up another 20,000 subscribers. Your feed is very important because it allows you to reach a lot of viewers quickly and the iTunes Store is a great way to get new subscribers and be noticed by business development people and media buyers who are looking for "hot" properties.

Youtube has offered subscribing to their videos for a while but that's a separate feed from your own feed and now other sites like Revver are offering subscription buttons for feeds as well. That's all well and good but in the long run where does that get you? You don't control those feeds. Sure they are another way to get more viewers paying attention to your videos but if these "Partner Feeds" go away you lose all those subscribers.

The Apple iTunes Store doesn't control your feed, you do. You create your feed and then you tell Apple where it lives. You can tell Apple about multiple feeds that you have, say an iPod/iPhone feed, an audio only feed and an Apple TV feed but if you do that you are just diluting your feed and diluting your brand when it comes to your ranking at the iTunes Store.

Looking at my stats at Feedburner 43% of the French Maid TV RSS feed subscribers come from Windows iTunes, another 43% come from Mac iTunes and the rest are divided up by up by other readers including 3% that is Zune. (I didn't even know that Zune people could watch French Maid TV. I thought I had to deliver an M4V in oder for them to subscribe.) 86% of French Maid TV's subscribers come from iTunes. They bad part about my Feedburner feed is that I don't know who my subscribers are and the only way I can contact them is by dropping something down my feed and asking them to sign up for my mailing list.

Now at YouTube I only have 2434 subscribers but I can see their YouTube user name/profile and what videos they have uploaded and what videos are their favorites. This has the potential to be valuable but I've not really taken advantage of it yet. At Revver I can't tell how many subscribers I have nor can I tell anything about them.

Having as much information you can about your subscribers that you can share with potential advertisers is very important and moving forward I feel I need to figure out a way to get the kind of info that I have about my subscribers at YouTube on all my delivery channels but beyond that I feel the need to figure out how I can have one feed that I control that is viewable everywhere because I don't want to dilute my feed.

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this.

In the above video Brian Chappell offers a simple how to guide on setting up a basic meta refresh to enable tracking of RSS subscribers via google analytics, for sites that use services like feedburner. It is a great method to track where your sub's are coming from.

18-34 Year Old Males Are the Heaviest Users of Online Video

According to Burst Media Young Males are "the heaviest viewers of online video" - I wonder how much they spent on that research and what else they could have done with the money.

On a serious note, if you are looking for some impressive statistics about online video to put into a presentation or media kit about online video you might want to have a looks at Burst Media's report for your research.