I’m the guy that catches the latest episodes of my favorite TV series’ online, frequent YouTube to watch some videos for entertainment, and if I am trying to figure out how to do something, the best find is a video tutorial. I, like most Americans, am visually stimulated. Catch my eyes and ears at the same time, and ya got me.
A while back, I discovered hulu, which has it right when it comes to marketing to their video viewers. Their slogan is “Watch your favorites. Anytime. For free.”. Wanna see the latest episode of The Office? Check. What about House? Got it. Prison Break? Yup. So…how do they market to the viewers? They insert ~15 second ad spots throughout a video. For a 45 minute episode, there will be an ad spot before the video plays, then 5 or so more scattered throughout the duration of the video.
I have already seen quite a few sites adopting this method of getting ads in front of us oh-so-wary web users; and I think it is the perfect solution for sites that focus on the video medium (at least, for now). But is this the “brilliant new form of internet advertising” that everyone says it is? (ok , I exaggerated like a million percent there…) I think it is a very smart and effective way to advertise, but it is nothing new. It is just being introduced online.
Think about the last time you went to the movies. Once the lights went out, what composed the next 15 minutes of your life? You were being marketed to! The other night when my wife and I were watching an animated Disney movie (Pixar animations are our favorites), I swear for a second I thought the Disney logo had actually burned my retina. Oh crap, are my eyes going to be like my mother-in-law’s TV screen that has the QVC number permanently burned into the screen?!
The point I want to make is that there is nothing new under the sun. Let’s always be looking to adapt historically effective techniques to new mediums. Billboards became banner ads, and that era is ending. We are now in the era of video flooding every website, and advertisers jumping on board with these forerunning advertisements. What’s next?
By the way, if you do the numbers, 15 minutes of marketing before a 1.5 hour movie is 14% of the time you spend in the theater. Six 15 second ad spots scattered throughout a 45 minute episode on previously mentioned hulu, is only 3%. Interesting.