The end result for the YouTube marketer are:

• Valuable Views
• Engaged Viewers
• Instant Feedback
• Quantifiable results

It is a hard game to play, but companies are already paying the few YouTube Web celebrities so much to market their products; these costs are seriously soaring – no longer allowing this channel to be a cost effective marketing choice. It is unfortunate, but this has made it possible for only companies with very deep pockets to afford YouTube Weblebrities in their videos, and as a worthwhile online marketing option. Businesses which don’t have such very deep pockets may find it out of their budget.

But wait . . . it is not all bad news, there is the option of introducing a product to tens of thousands of targeted eyes, as apposed to merely millions of general eyes.

In a recent Celebrity Marketing Case Study, which is also a one-of-a-kind YouTube success story . . . the independent film “Satin” was marketed on this channel. Being an independent film, they did not have a blockbuster budget, and this is where Duncan Rocks came in to save the day. Duncan Rocks is a character created by Andrew Santino – the actor who portrays Duncan, and Dan Dobi – the owner of the YouTube channel.

He is Weblebrity in the character of a red-headed, mustached reporter with simple-minded views. He is quirky, engaging and fun – which immediately attracts an audience, and the way in which he attracts his audience is with news stories, interviews and so on. For the purposes of “Satin”, he was to all intents and purposes on a press junket with the star of the film – Hamilton Von Watts. The video/press junket was filmed in the purported basement of Duncan Rocks’ Montana home.

While this marketing material only amassed 20,000 views, these were views which formed a very unique potential viewership. Therefore the beloved character of Duncan Rocks (as a weblebrity), with his established YouTube audience, introduced “Satin” to 20,000 pairs of eyes which might not normally have been reached by any other marketing drive. This took place within a month, did not take any creative control away from the director, because of its ‘press junket’ theme, and was almost immediately quantifiable.

As well as a 20,000 views, comments went up to more than 300, which were in the majority positive. Viewers expressed general excitement over wishing to see the film and a 1,068 – 26 “like to dislike ratio” was only one of the quantifiable results. Immediate feedback such as this allows the advertiser to gauge the success of the advertising venture, and there are very few or no TV commercials or billboards which can provide measurables such as these.

Reality shows and real performers whose most memorable traits are the fact that they are just like most everyone else have engaged the public’s imagination and hence garnered the attention of marketers and advertisers. Many Youtube stars are simply ordinary people with something to say that others feel are worth listening to. These Youtube stars are usually not extraordinarily beautiful, airbrushed or made up and their videos are usually of amateur to mediocre quality but they are real and people connect with them.

Now small businesses with smaller budgets may well find this new marketing medium as attractive as the advertising giants are finding it. Large corporations with well known brands need large markets and they have become increasingly aggressive in their advertising to the dismay and ire of the consumer. Rather than being watched and remembered consumers are becoming ad blind, turn down the volume on the television and deliberately ignore advertisements that don’t engage them.

Youtube has developed a new breed of spokesperson the home grown average or above average personality that others deliberately seek, listen to, and follow. What better spokesperson than a Youtube personality whose followers are devoted, who receive millions of hits a day and whose fans know they will see something they like, hate or entertains them.

Of course this is a new way of branding with a new type of spokesperson and the corporations were mostly the ones to lead the way into Youtube having real stars speak for them. To begin with no one knew how it would work. However, now it seems to work well because the people who listen to those videos are deliberately seeking out that brand, that person and that form of entertainment. If nothing else, these are not ads which are forced upon an audience, watched and then completely forgotten. Nothing works like targeted ads and Youtube star’s fans are self targeting.

The small business may well find these personalities within their budget although hiring a well known TV personality might be beyond the average starter business’ means. On the other hand, a Youtube personality’s endorsement or appearance might be a tenth of that, and the audience is there because they want to hear the message, what better way of spreading the word about a product or brand?

Maybe your brand’s marketing personality could be you?

What the hell is a viral video? Will it infect my computer?

Your computer is safe (from the video content itself). What we are talking about here is a video that rapidly spreads through the internet and email like a virus. Often times we think of funny videos like the laughing baby or Charlie biting his big brother (228 Million views). Videos that get hugely popular by friends sharing the video with friends – the spread, well like a virus.

A little over five years ago, YouTube ushered in a new genre of video advertising, one that succeeded on its ability to rise above a world of pet tricks and backyard stunts, to entertain and to be passed around. Call them “viral” videos, super-sized TV ads, branded videos or just plain commercials, a few of them have crossed a significant psychic milestone: 100 million views and counting (27 Million on YouTube).

Last week, the roller-skating babies of Evian’s “Live Young” campaign reached the mark after a little more than a year on the web. This, without any significant TV exposure in the U.S. and very little overseas. It’s advertising that entertains. And it got us thinking: What are the most-watched viral ads of all time?

Specifically what I am writing about today is those super popular ads. Yes commercials – commercials so good that millions of people will watch them by choice. What I want you to think about as you read this and watch some of the videos is this: How can you create you own viral videos? You don’t need a million views because if you target your video right and direct your niche to it. You want you video to go viral inside your targeted niche. The number 1 video advertiser of all time definitely targeted it’s niche

The No. 1 video advertiser of all time is Blendtec, whose “Will It Blend” series has been around in the same form for four years, accumulating 134.2 million views. The key? The brand found what works and stuck with it. Each of the more than 120 original clips has the same kitschy music, the same tagline, variations on the same stunt and the same host, Blendtec CEO Tom Dickson.

Actually it probably didn’t hurt when he blended the iPhone (and more recently the iPad) – remember my last post about leveraging other people’s content – BlendTec is leveraging the iPhone… Point to ponder isn’t it?

What’s remarkable about the top 10 is that viewers would voluntarily watch an ad 100 million times, let alone 23 million times. Not surprisingly, given the recent growth of web video, most of the entrants are recent campaigns, launched within the last year or two. All but one, Pepsi’s “Gladiator,” came after the launch of YouTube in 2005. (The ad, starring Britney, Beyonce and Pink, appeared on TV in 2004.)

In addition to Blendtec, Evian and Pepsi, the list includes two Old Spice campaigns (including the newly famous “Your Man” Isaiah Mustafa), Microsoft’s Xbox Project Natal, Dove’s “Evolution,” DC Shoes’ “Gymhana Two,” and “T-Mobile Dance.”

Here is the full international version of the Evian Dancing Babies video for your viewing pleasure.

The top 10 of all time, you ask? As of 9/6/2010 – here you go!

Already have your own videos online? Post the links below. Also, please add your comments and ideas below.

Source: AdvertisingAge Magazine

Adding a YouTube movie to your website is super easy – we all know that… But what if you want to customize the size of your movie so that it fits elegantly within the parameters and style of your site, then what?

I have a nice little formula for you that will help you resize any movie for you.

You see, it isn’t enough to just change the width of your movie – you must adjust the height too. But in order to keep the aspect ratio of the movie  intact (we don’t want to stretch, squish it or have a huge black border) we must reduce the height the same percentage as the width – but how?

Let’s take a look at a YouTube embed code:

<object width=”640″ height=”385″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/hbnUbXX-8L0&hl=en&fs=1&”></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/hbnUbXX-8L0&hl=en&fs=1&” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”640″ height=”385″></embed></object>

I have highlighted (in BOLD PINK) two places where you  will have to change the height and width information.

Say our center (content) column is 529 pixels wide, we can easily change the width from width=”640″ height=”385″ to width=”529” height=”385″ pixels. That’s the easy part – now how do we figure out the correct height?

If we only change the width, the movie looks like this:

Not elegant, big ugly black border… (FYI – I was the 1st Assistant Director on this Music Video).

We need to do a little math – wait don’t be scared, don’t even think of it as math – it is simply a system that will work every time. When you put your key in the ignition and turn it and your car starts, you don’t (I am guessing) ask why – you are simply happy that it works – do the same here.

Here’s what we do. First we find out what we know. We know (in this example) that the YouTube movie is  640 pixels wide and we also know that our center column is 529 – our movie must be only 529 pixels to properly fit on our page.

Here’s the math: We divide 640 by 529 to get a ratio of the difference. 640 divided by 529 equals 1.21. So to figure out the correct height we simply divide the current height by 1.21 to get our new height. 385 divided by 1.21 equals  318.

Easy right? The correct height of our movie is: 318. Now let’s take a look at the new code:

<object width=”529″ height=”318″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/hbnUbXX-8L0&hl=en&fs=1&”></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/hbnUbXX-8L0&hl=en&fs=1&” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”529″ height=”318″></embed></object>

This will work every time. To summarize:

1. Always start with an embed code that has the width of the movie wider than you need
2. Divide the original movie width by the width of your page.
3. Divide the original height by the answer in number 2.
4. Replace the width and height in both place in your embed code.

When we do the math, the video looks like this:

If you found this post helpful, please leave a comment or tweet about it. Thanks,

Lennie

]]> http://www.freemarketmediagroup.com/internet-marketing/video/you-tube/resizing-your-youtube-movies/feed/ 3 http://www.freemarketmediagroup.com/internet-marketing/wordpress/marketing-like-a-rock-star-take-two/ http://www.freemarketmediagroup.com/internet-marketing/wordpress/marketing-like-a-rock-star-take-two/#comments Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:34:49 +0000 Lennie Appelquist http://www.freemarketmediagroup.com/internet-marketing/?p=281 Marketing Lessons From Christina Aguilera

While “cruising” around YouTube, I stumbled across this video of Christina Aguilera performing live in Sydney Australia. Watching this video (not my normal fare, but damn can she perform), I noticed how she uses so many sales and trainer techniques. I touched on this before in the post: How to Market Like a Rock Star!

What are these, you ask? Good question. So, I’ll provide the answer…

As any good trainer understands, when you are presenting from the stage, you want to enroll and engage your audience, not talk “at” them. How do you do this?

1. Enrolling questions. This engages your audience and makes them feel like they are part of the training, not merely a listener. Christina asks, “Are we having fun tonight, so far, Australia?” Loud roar of applause – the crowd is engaged, step 1. Next question: “Are there any sexy males in the audience?” Enrolling the guys first since she’s talking to them, and secondly, the women who are responding to the call for sexy guys. Pretty clever, huh?
2. Audience participation. This keeps the audience active and engaged. You sit and listen to a symphony, but you participate at a rock show! First she introduces her male dancers and then (with subtlety) demands a response (in the form of applause) from the audience. Next she asks for a volunteer and sends her dancers into the crowd in search of a male volunteer. Like I said, audience participation. One additional benefit of the volunteer aspect is that it personalizes it. Everyone in the crowd (in this case, the men, for sure), live a bit vicariously through the volunteer.
3. Including the whole audience. When presenting to a group, it is extremely important to make everyone feel included. Christina does this by using the whole stage.

In this video it is also obvious that, yes, sex sells, but beyond that, Christina uses a lot of other presenter and selling techniques. How many examples can you catch? Would love to read your “catches” in the comments.

And these methods are… Drum roll please…

1. Article Marketing

Article marketing works great! First off, it’s free. Second, you can attract targeted traffic when your articles get ranked in Google for the specific targeted keywords that you know your potential clients and/or customers are searching for. Getting a top spot on the left side (organic search results) of Google is as (or more) valuable as getting a top spot on the right (sponsored listings via Adwords). But the difference is it is free!

Using an article directory like EzineArticles, you can target specific, low competition keywords (aka long tail keywords) and rank within days, sometimes hours. Research shows that people searching 2 or less words tend to be browsers, while those searching phrases of 3 or more words tend to know what they want and are more likely to be buyers!

2. Forum Marketing

Forum marketing is another powerful free traffic driving technique. The key lies in using a catchy signature like “List building secrets of the masters”, or “5 killer secrets to an obedient dog!” But make sure the claims are legit. Remember, it’s all about the signature!

Participate daily in a handful of forums forums within your niche. Always go where your potential customers/clients are.  Not only will you get traffic, you will also get some quality backlinks to your website.

3. Social Networking Sites

This refers to the new Web 2.0 social marketing communities like FaceBook, MySpace and Twitter. Even YouTube and other video sites count as part of this category. The best part of these Social Networking Communities is the huge audience.

Millions of people participate in these sites. And these are real-life audience! A good YouTube video can get lots of viewers. If you remember “Chocolate Rain” by Tay Zonday, that now has over 32,460,229 views. This video even landed Tay a Dr. Pepper spot and a knockoff/spoof, “Chocolate Rain by Chad Vader” has over 3 million views! See the

The potential for huge amounts of free targeted traffic is great!

As I have been saying online video is so important. We’ve all heard of  YouTube. Most of us have watched movies online. Video is quickly becoming the most important marketing weapon in your arsenal!

While video is important, guess what will happen when everyone is using video… Only the great, well produced videos will get noticed.

Hollywood, CA. — July 1 – Online video is becoming an important part of Internet marketing and is driving word of mouth. A recent study by eMarketer revealed that ‘recommendations from other consumers’ is the most trusted form of advertising online and according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 57% of internet users have watched videos online – and most of them share what they find with others.

The most recent figures for US internet users is just over 150 million, so some 85 million Americans are watching online videos and sharing them with their friends and connections. These findings show that video on your website is no longer just something nice to have – it’s a must.

Although one might think that the audience for online video is very young, and they are watching silly videos made by their friends, in fact content such as product information and travel destinations are much more popular with every age group.

And 62% of online video viewers prefer professionally produced content.

“Companies are beginning to realize that one of the best ways to reach people today is with a well-made video distributed online. It’s no longer just something nice to have – it has become a must.” says AC Christiansen, Executive Producer of Seven Pictures Film & Video Production, an award-winning video production house that has made high-end corporate videos, commercials and PSAs for more than twenty years.

“Your video needs to have excellent content that people would want to share. And although it has become possible for anyone and everyone to make a video and upload it to YouTube, these surveys show that for best results online video should be shot and edited by a professional.”

To meet this new demand for online video Seven Pictures has added a new line of professional video products. “Technically speaking, these short online videos require fewer resources, making a professional digital video very affordable – and very effective,” says Christiansen.

For maximum online exposure and search engine visibility, videos should be syndicated and distributed to social media sites, such as Google, YouTube and Revver.

Part of this new product line is content development, script writing, RSS Feed syndication (so the video gets found by the search engines and is automatically included on sites like iTunes) and video submission and distribution to the top 30 video sharing sites.

To get a pro to do this for you, go here: http://www.SevenPictures.com

Here’s the alternative: Make professional looking video yourself by learning tips from the  pros. Film School by Phone

In it’s ongoing legal battle Viacom over copyright, a judge has ordered that Google must do the unthinkable…

Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users’ names and IP addresses, to Viacom, which is suing Google for allowing clips of its copyright videos to appear on YouTube, a judge ruled Wednesday.

Viacom wants the data to prove that infringing material is more popular than user-created videos, which could be used to increase Google’s liability if it is found guilty of contributory infringement.

This according to an article in Wired Magazine.

Although Google argued that turning over the data would invade its users’ privacy, the judge’s ruling described that argument as “speculative” and ordered Google to turn over the logs on a set of four tera-byte hard drives.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has already reacted, calling the order a violation of the Video Privacy Protection act that “threatens to expose deeply private information.”

The Court’s erroneous ruling is a set-back to privacy rights, and will allow Viacom to see what you are watching on YouTube.

So let’s just breathe and see what happens…

But how do we launch our own Viral Video Marketing Campaign? Now that’s a good question…

Watch this video and learn. Great stuff!