The 'Buzz' About Internet Products!
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Online video ads take center stage, but multichannel campaigns are still the real showstopper.
The new buzz phrase in Internet marketing is clearly “online video,” and this includes the wonderfully entertaining and profitable byproducts of this popular technology: online video downloads, online video sharing and, most importantly at least to the readers of Response, online video advertisements.
Google made a pointed statement to the online marketing industry in October when it purchased amateur video sharing Web site YouTube.com for $1.65 billion. Skeptics question the site’s vitality, but Google remains confident that it will evolve into an increasingly lucrative marketing hub, much like the world witnessed with social networking giant MySpace. However, Google’s expectations are also rooted in the belief that consumers will continue to migrate from the television and use the Internet as their primary source of entertainment. After the big announcement, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in a news conference, “This is the next step in the evolution of the Internet.”
It’s possible. According to eMarketer, an online resource of market research and trend analysis on E-business, online marketers are expected to pump at least $385 million into online video ads by the end of 2006, and that’s paltry when compared to projections of $2.35 billion spent by 2010. In the report, David Hallerman, an eMarketer senior analyst, wrote, “Whether it’s advertising or it’s content, the Internet audience increasingly wants video.”
However, it’s important to remember the buzzword everyone seemed so fond of prior to the Google-YouTube partnership. That was “engagement,” something the television industry pandered to consumers in the form of digital video recorders (DVRs), such as TiVo, personal video recorders (PVRs) and video-on-demand (VOD). These technologies put consumers behind the driving wheel and reaffirmed the good oldfashioned box set (or high-def digital flat screen) as the centerpiece of household entertainment.
From a direct marketer’s perspective, the answer to this debate usually lies somewhere in the middle, but neither traditional advertising media or emerging technologies would be sacrificed when designing a new campaign. It’s interesting, however, to take a look at some of the top DR products marketed on the Web, such as the infamous “Girls Gone Wild” DVD series, the ever-popular Proactiv Solution acne medication or the bareMinerals cosmetics line, and wonder why these ones make it while others don’t. Why do some products work great on TV and then flounder online? And do any of the success stories have something special in common?
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Source: Response Magazine, November 2006, www.responsemagazine.com
