EyeView's Blog

5 Things To Think About For Your Video

I came across this great post from a month or two back that I had to share with you. It’s from Christopher Ming Ryan’s excellent blog entitled The Way We Watch.

When he’s not blogging, Ryan works as a writer, producer and director at Wheelhouse Communications supporting clients like PepsiCo, AT&T and Random House.

The stated purpose of the blog is to talk about producing video in a 2.0 world, but rather than talk philosophically about his subject, Ryan focuses on the pragmatic with post after post delivering usable tips and useful recommendations. 

This post is one of the more lightweight entries, but it covers such great ground that I want to give it another airing.

Using links to one great article and four YouTube videos, Ryan presents a list of five key factors in creating a video for marketing.

1. Make sure it’s memorable – Clear images and language
2. Use sound to hook your viewers and keep them watching
3. Surprise the viewer or at least give him/her a reason to watch to the end
4. Give the viewer a choice – every click means greater engagement
5. Leave them wanting more

Much of this ground has been covered elsewhere, so it’s nice to see it presented in such a succinct way with great links to back it up.

Meaningless Statistics For Viral Video

I love a well presented chart or a neatly laid out table. The guys over at marketingcharts.com, for example, put out a daily newsletter that delivers one good insight per day without trying too hard.

But this report from the usually reliable Millward Brown left me utterly cold. They claim to have developed a metric for determining the viral potential of your video. Their metric includes “Buzz”, “Celebrity” and “Distinctiveness”. As far as I am aware none of these is measured in SI units. Worst of all is that loaded word “potential”. In other words, even if you accept the crazy notion that you can actually measure the celebrity-ness or the buzz-ocity of your video, you will still only arrive at a figure which shows the potential your video has to go viral. Your video may or may not fulfill its viral potential, but at least you will know how likely this was to have happened… potentially.

Based on Millward Brown’s new index and a survey of over 100 ads, a bizarre statistic was reported here and elsewhere stating that only 15% of ads go viral online. Firstly 15% seems shockingly high to me, but when you look at their definition of viral success you start to see all sorts of chicanery in action.

To back up this statistical flim flam, Millward Brown offers eight case studies analyzing, post facto, the main viral drivers behind each. It’s a classic instance of “past posting”, the delicious con tactic that was used in The Sting. Out of the eight videos analyzed, three were ads that were shown during this year’s Super Bowl. The other five were similarly big budget productions backed up with additional TV and print campaigns. The only lesson Millward Brown is teaching here is that if you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars making your video and then millions of dollars buying airtime for it so that tens of millions of people tuned in to the most watched program of the year see it, there is a chance that more people will watch it again online. It’s the daftest, most insignificant piece of research since this study into whether it’s better to be hit over the head by a full or empty beer bottle.

I understand that agencies are still taking millions of dollars from foolish advertisers to make viral videos with no discernible ROI. I get that this outmoded practice will be defended by other agencies paid by the first lot of agencies to try to lend them some integrity. But this latest attempt at selling the Eiffel Tower doesn’t even try to appear credible.

I call on the researchers at Millward Brown to use their metric to identify some viral successes (and failures) before they happen. Furthermore, in order for something to qualify as an online viral success the campaign must garner more eyeballs online than in any other medium. Let’s see you work your magic with that!

Imitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. What they mean is, when someone pays attention to you and respects what you do enough to reproduce one of your original ideas or activities you should be flattered. And we usually are.

Last July, before the release of his New York Times bestseller, Trust Agents, I approached Chris Brogan with an idea for a Twitter giveaway. I proposed that we give away 50 copies of his book on the day of its launch to the first 50 people who tweeted about a brand awareness campaign we were running. The campaign centered on our Video Marketing Quiz which is a fun interactive game that tests your knowledge of video as an effective marketing tool.

We were overwhelmed with the results. As soon as Chris tweeted about the giveaway, everything went nuts with thousands of people taking the quiz and tweeting about it afterwards. It was such a simple idea, yet it worked so well for us and we were tremendously grateful to Chris for his support and proud to be part of the launch for Trust Agents.

We knew it was a successful idea when Chris ran with it and instigated the exact same promotion with his pals at LinkedIn less than a month later. I’m sure it’s not the last time we will see Twitter used in this way.

This week our Video Marketing Quiz saw another form of imitation as Omniture, the web analytics company that was recently bought by Adobe, released an interactive game that tests your knowledge of banner ads as an effective marketing tool. If you disregard the background, the awkward fonts and the clumsy interface that never quite clicks on what you want to click, it’s eerily similar to our own Video Marketing Quiz. All of which goes to prove a few things:

• If something works for someone else, you might be able to make it work for you
• If you want to know who’s listening, check who’s copying
• Great ideas belong to the world (but it’s always nice to know you had them first!)

            

          EyeView's Video Marketing Quiz                                        Omniture's Pick The Winner Quiz

Happy Holidays From EyeView

As we come to the end of an amazing year, it’s great to look back and reflect on the changes we’ve seen. The year 2009 will be remembered as a breakout year for online video as it left the confines of video sharing sites and crossed over into mainstream acceptance. In 2010 every commercial site will include a video presentation at some point in its interaction with potential customers.

The final sign of acceptance will be when video is made accountable not just as a ‘nice to have’ marketing extra, but as a fully functioning tool in the marketer's arsenal with its own ROI and the expectation of revenue generation.

EyeView is proud to be leading the charge towards accountable video with our award-winning optimization program and our fantastic roster of clients.

Thank you to everyone for making 2009 so exciting and let’s see if we can’t do it all again in 2010!

New UK Tax Legislation Means More Interesting Videos

In the past two years, the British government has made changes to the tax legislation that have particularly impacted independent contractors and the agencies that recruit and pay them.

Part of the new legislation exists to counter fraudulent claims of tax exemption and part of it seeks to ease the tax collection burden of small companies employing workers on an ad hoc project basis.

These changes have given rise to a new kind of company known as an “umbrella company” to manage the financial relationship between the contracted employee and his or her employer. The law makes it clear how these companies act and apart from the fees they charge and the level of service they offer there is very little room for any umbrella company to maneuver in terms of paying more or less tax than another similar company.

In a new market such as this it becomes important for the first company to offer a service online to concisely explain the offering and establish itself as the market leader for clarity and professionalism.

This was the brief we received from Excellium Umbrella, an umbrella company that manages salaries, taxes, travel expenses and meal subsistence claims all through a unique online portal.

None of this may be relevant to your situation, but if you take a look at this video, I think you will appreciate how complex ideas can be expressed in an engaging, informative and even entertaining way to build confidence with users and boost conversion over time.

A/B Testing Done Write

I’m really excited about the test we are currently running for our friends at Ginger Software. Ginger Software is a spelling and grammar checker which uses the context of the entire sentence “to facilitate error-free writing”.

It’s a great product that might have been aimed at people for whom English is a second language, but that is also tremendously useful for those of us who remain a little unsure about ‘principal’ and ‘principle’ or ‘affect’ and ‘effect’.

The A/B test running right now on Ginger’s homepage divides incoming traffic into two groups and offers each half one of two situations. Half the visitors will find a video player embedded in the page that autoplays the first time they arrive there. We know video is a persuasive medium for increasing conversion, and we also know that forcing people to watch by using autoplay can sometimes be controversial, so it will be interesting to compare the conversion rates for this half of the visitors with the figures previously achieved by the homepage.

The second group of visitors will be presented with the same homepage, but in place of the embedded video there will be a video initiation trigger. The trigger changes as you roll over it and if you click it the video opens in a lightbox player.

You do not have the Flash Player installed.
Click Here to install it.

Another key difference with this player is that throughout the running time of the video there is a clear call-to-action button that sits on the player and directly reflects the call-to-action button on the site.

So, while the video is the same in each case, the method of delivery is very different. We will be closely tracking the conversion rates for each version and reporting our findings in this forum in the near future.

In the meantime, enjoy the video.

Favorite Headline Of The Week

Sometimes something just tickles you in such a way that you feel you have to share with everyone. I checked my news feeds as normal this morning and stumbled across an article heading which made me stop… look again… and… instantly want to read more.

The headline read: Rossellini Ponders How To Make Online Video Pay

Rossellini is, of course, Isabella Rossellini. Isabella Rossellini – one of the most beautiful women in the world. Isabella Rossellini who was in Blue Velvet. Isabella Rossellini, the daughter of Ingrid Bergman. Isabella Rossellini who was once married to Martin Scorsese and later engaged to David Lynch. Isabella Rossellini who played Sydney’s crazy aunt in Alias, Jack’s ex-wife on 30 Rock and just missed being on Ross’s laminated list on Friends.

That Isabella Rossellini.

Isabella Rosellini is thinking about how to make money out of online video. To give this some context, Ms. Rossellini has written, produced and directed a series of internet shorts called Green Porno all about how animals have sex. Now that she’s into to season three, she’s starting to think of ways to earn back the money she has spent.

Isabella Rossellini is wondering how to get a return on her investment in online video. For perhaps the first and only time ever, Isabella Rossellini and I are thinking about the same thing.

Now, if Isabella Rossellini is thinking about building ROI into your online video spend and I am thinking about how online video should be part of your conversion strategy in order to boost revenue, maybe you should start thinking about it too.

Adobe and Omniture – Visions of the Future?

Today, I'm delighted to host a guest post by the CEO of EyeView, Oren Harnevo. Don't be shy about letting him know what you think. You can also follow him on Twitter @ohnevo. Take it away, Oren:

Last week Adobe declared that it will acquire Omniture for $1.8 billion. While some might not understand this bold move by Adobe, for me it makes a lot of sense. Adobe is entering the online market and is starting to use its elbows against companies like Microsoft, Yahoo and Google. I think the future for OmnAdobe or AdobNiture is bright and here’s why.

It might not be what Adobe wants from Omniture but this is my vision of the future of OmnAdobe!

I see a future in which advertisers turn to agencies no longer for content, but for effective content. What do I mean by “effective content”? Content whose impact can be assessed, measured, optimized and which can deliver ROI. Advertisers want to pay for results, not for mere content, and that is exactly what a company with a range of content-creation products wants with an analytics company – content with results.

Today, the creation of online content is all about experience and aesthetic. The flash application developer and creative designer believe they know what to create and do the best they can. But what if we had a way, to measure how good their work really is? What if we could put a price tag on one designer’s work against another’s? What if we could show that one flash application averages 40 seconds of use and another application maintains its hold on users for more than a minute? We could actually measure which designer was more successful.

This is not so much a vision of the future as a reflection of our normal working day at EyeView - effective content, constantly measured and optimized to provide real ROI.

Imagine this (names are strictly fictitious):

1. Niky, a fictitious online retailer of socks, wants a new flash application that allows its users to see and play with different sock options before purchase. They believe it will boost sales.
2. Niky finds Ogilby, an online, performance-based content creator which does more than just creating content - Ogilby also promises effective content and ties payment to success.
3. Niky loves the Ogilby pitch and decides to sign. Why pay for regular content when someone is offering measurable content?
4. The design team at Ogilby open their Adobe applications, create some killer content and click the “Insert Analytics” button in the toolbar.
5. Niky now log into their OmnAdobe (or AdobNiture) analytics platform and watch how the content performs, how it impacts their traffic, their sales and their users.
6. It turns out that Ogilby improved engagement with the website by 30%. Ogilby earns a bonus for their work.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? It may still take a while for Adobe and Omniture to reach such lofty heights. These companies are different on so many levels that it would another five posts to describe. Adobe is a Software as a Product (SaaP) company while Omniture is a Software as a Service (SaaS) company with subscription-guaranteed revenue. Omniture usually sells to the very high end of the market while Adobe sells to all segments. Omniture is mostly US while Adobe is worldwide. There will be many challenges for them to face together before they provide the end-to-end solution that bundles content and analytics into the perfect package.

When content is measurable and advertisers demand this accountability from their agencies, Adobe may be the only provider in the market to meet that demand. When that happens, people may take another look at this acquisition and reconsider its value.

Online Video Will Not Save Advertising

There is a lot of speculation as to why advertising dollars have failed to follow eyeballs into online video. Tania Yuki over at comScore offered her two cents last week on this thought-provoking conundrum.

Yuki describes online video as a party crasher knocking on the door of Big Advertising with a bunch of unruly (and unsavoury) friends expecting to be welcomed into the fold and recognized as one of the guys. As Yuki describes it -- brand advertisers responded blankly and fairly, “who are you and what are you doing here?”

Yuki goes on to talk about the disconnect between agencies and content producers contributing to the lack of enthusiasm on the agencies’ part for online video.

I would take this even further and suggest that disconnect is between old-fashioned outbound marketing and the strength and importance of inbound marketing. Agencies are still trying to use video outside of a brand’s site to drive interest and build recognition for that brand. It’s the old problem of putting ads for cat food on TV when you know that only one in three households owns a cat. Most of the time you are trying to sell something to someone who will never need it.

The new reality is that everyone currently spending money on video is already spending more money on generating traffic for their property. By using video to attract business they are competing with their existing spend and, most of the time, wasting their energy.

I believe the future for online video is worlds away from the current advertising model. Following the principles of inbound marketing, an effective online video on your landing page will complement rather than cannibalize your SEO spend and be viewed by people who have already chosen to visit your site to learn more.

In other words, rather than trying to sell cat food to dog lovers, you first go out and attract the attention of cat owners and when they find you, you can tell them why your cat food tastes best.

Online Video Up. Ad Revenue... Not So Much.

Recent figures released by comScore show that even in the traditionally slow, summer month of July, audience figures for online video are still outperforming expectations. According to the report, more than 158 million US internet users watched online video during the month. This is the largest figure recorded so it comes as no surprise that the number of videos watched, 21.4 billion, was also an all-time record.

Over 40 percent of videos are watched on what comScore euphemistically calls “Google sites”. While that figure is more than 10 times the size of its nearest competitor, it still means that 60 percent of online video is being watched in places other than YouTube.

With US video viewers watching an average of 135 videos each in the month of July, there is no further proof needed that online video watching is as mainstream for internet users as reading email or checking last night’s sports scores.

Interestingly, the most wide-reaching ad network has a potential reach of only half the online video viewing audience with no ad network actually delivering more than 20 percent of that audience. This implies that the overwhelming majority of online video viewers is watching without the interruption of ads and will probably expect this to continue.

While the world of video as entertainment, which is reliant on ad revenue, may be concerned by this slow-to-improve statistic, companies that are using video for branding, exposure, SEO and conversion have less to be worried about.