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Smart video-based online advertising examples

We are starting to see some really well implemented entirely video-based online advertising campaigns that cleverly combine the advantages of video as a storytelling tool and video as effective web 2.0 content. That is a real progress in the sense that advertisers and their agencies finally realize the great potential of video based content to address demographic specific issues, something that is rare and difficult to archive in mass market TV advertising.

The first great example is from the UK and it’s a video-based micro-site by the auto brand Smart. It’s called “Truth of Smart” and the overall communication objective of the video-based micro-site is to do away with the 4 existing main prejudices against the smallest (non-electrical) car on the market: 1. it’s not safe because it has no protective zone; 2. it’s uncomfortable because it’s small, 3. it doesn’t have storage space in the back and 4. it’s not fuel-efficient.

All these issues are addressed through a interactive video-based interface that allow users to discover the “Truth about Smart” by themselves.

This is an effective example of how to use video based content (or call it rich media content) to give concrete answers to concrete questions about the product or service you try to sell based a segmentation that aims to respond to the main prejudice about the product.

The second example for smart online video use is the current global campaign of the beer brand Heineken focused on the important issue of responsible drinking, called “Know the Signs”.

Through a series of characters - defined during an extensive phase of interview-based qualitative market research - the user witnesses different embarrassing moments, when somebody has one too many drinks. There are tragically funny video episodes about how your friends can tranform into the “typical” drunk crier, groper, sleeper, flirter, etc., all representing realistic characters we know from real night life.

Again, a great work of content segmentation to reach different demographics and make them aware of the sometimes devastating and always embarrassing side effects of that last drink you shouldn’t have had.

Howcast.com Rocks The iPhone

Howcast.com, a well funded Silicon Valley startup founded by YouTube and Google veterans, has done an amazing job bringing how-to videos to the iPhone. The application is well scripted, interactive and useful. A true gem.

We’ve know Howcast.com for quite some time now. The site was launched in February of 2008 and joins the relatively crowded space of how-to videos with 5min and ExpertVillage. Since its launch, the site has been doing relatively well in its niche according to the Alexa stats, although the numbers have stagnated in recent months. Being a media company making money on ads, Howcast needs to grow it viewership from its current levels to become a viable company.

But traffic stats, especially Alexa.com’s, aren’t that significant especially that Howcast has content distribution deals with major outlets such as Verizon and MySpace. In other words, it is likely that Howcast gets more traffic and views outside of howcast.com. This brings us to their iPhone app, which is featured in one of the latest Apple commercials, which is quite an accomplishment.

The app is easy to install as it is directly available from the Apple Store and iTunes. Currently rated “3 stars” with about 4000 ratings, Howcast for the iPhone ties with other popular apps such as Skype in terms of user ratings.

The app itself shines by its simplicity: content cleanly featured, a good search with auto-complete of queries and definite “Apple feel” - the app is a success. Now actually playing the videos is a little more challenging even on a wifi connection as the videos pauses frequently to allow buffering, but that’s a minor detail.

Notice on the screenshot above how some of the key points are highlighted in plain text on the video. No animation of any kind of clickable links is possible on the iPhone yet, but Howcast does a nice job making sure some key overlays make it to the iPhone (as opposed to just having a plain video stream with no annotations).

Now what does this all mean for eCommerce? First, this example should serve as a model for iPhone integration for any company aspiring to build a presence on mobile devices. Howcast is arguably the best how-to iPhone application currently available. Second, we are seeing yet another clever video distribution strategy which does not rely on generating views on just one site - rather, the idea is to leverage good video content to gain exposure on various distribution channels. I believe this approach to video distribution - decentralized - is one of the most promising opportunities for video commerce because it allows to reach and acquire new customers at virtually no cost.

Extra: Watch the Howcast video presentation

Enough Bandwidth for Video Commerce? Yes, but.

As savvy Internet Marketers, are we shooting ourselves in the foot with rich media applications running on our key pages? Is there enough bandwidth out there to support our vision of Video becoming an essential ingredient of ecommerce?

A few weeks back I got a visit from a couple of friends from Uruguay. As dedicated engineers (some would say “geeks”), they connected to their laptops to my local WiFi network to check up on a few things back home. As they were doing this, I was seeing their amazed faces staring at the ping times to Google or Yahoo. 20-25 milliseconds. Sometimes less. Far less than the 200-250ms back there in Montevideo, a fairly Hi-Tech city.

If you’re reading this blog, you are probably part of this American or European Marketing Elite that’s on broadband at home and super-broadband at work. Like you, my YouTube videos play fine without interruption and I don’t mind the extra JavaScript glitz because it comes out instantly for me. But as smart marketers, is it safe to assume that the vast majority of our users are on broadband? Certainly not. Consider this Gartner study, dated July 2008, which estimated the broadband penetration at 55% in the US this year, leaping to only 78% by 2012. Yes, only 78% by 2012.

That’s got to be surprising. I personally never really challenged the assumption that there would be enough broadband for video. In the context of MySpace, and of course YouTube, who would think that so few people had access to fast Internet connections. Looking at the various Video Ad Spend stats (source: eMarketer) we still see a healthy user-base for video viewers (120M+ in the US alone), and solid growth moving forward.

Fine. Then what? Enough broadband for video commerce or not? The answer to this simple question depends on three independent factors: target audience, shopping habits and video delivery process.

1. Target audience. If your commerce site targets an affluent segment of the population, it is safe to assume your user population will be on broadband at home. After all, broadband is almost always sold at a premium over modem connections, and we can therefore expect to find a correlation between household income and Internet connection speed. If you are targeting the college crowd, you probably don’t need to worry about download speed either. This correlation of course isn’t perfect and you should dig out more into your target audience.

2. Online Shopping Habits. In the past recent years a number of very serious studies have concluded that a majority of purchases online were done from the work place, during lunch hours. If you work for a larger company, you may be the victim of drastic anti-YouTube, file-sharing or even shopping policies at work - and you know exactly what I’m talking about when I say that the work place is where most people get their shopping and social networking activities done. A gross generalization of my point here would be to say that it doesn’t matter if people have DSL or not at home, as long as they have a job.

3. Video Delivery Process. Finally we’re getting to the most important point in this entire discussion - one that I’m adamant about: how you deliver video. I will share more thoughts on future posts about this, but in the context of this post, how you present video content to your users is going to be hugely important. Let me explain: if I’m on a bad day or simply in a rush to buy something online, and I go to the right product page on the right site, but with a video that’s autoplaying and slowing down the transaction, I’m probably not going to be happy. Video players these days are true bandwidth hogs, they take all the bandwidth that’s available for streaming the content. This competes with the bandwidth that’s required for other page components like navigation, banners, product images, etc.

Instead, I would prefer to be given the choice to play or not play the video, and as long as you don’t slow down the page too much loading a Flash player, I really won’t be that affected by it if I’m on a modem connection or not.

Conclusion. Unless your site sells to a target demographic that has no real options for broadband access, I would not consider bandwidth to be a real issue for deciding to go video or not. Rather, I would pay attention to delivering the video in a way that’s non-intrusive to the user. A delivery method that puts her/him in control of the experience with your site.

You Can Be The Expert

Many of the marketers I talk to on a regular basis view video as an opportunity to position themselves as experts in their category. At a time when price competition is biting off margins, it’s important to find ways to differentiate, and video provides the perfect medium for conveying a message since it’s uniquely engaging and persuasive.

Unlike pictures or even audio files, video creates a unique connection between the anchor and the viewer. How you look is almost as important as what you say and what you sell. All of us have had positive and negative experiences buying product in the real world. The most memorable ones almost always involve a sales person we did or didn’t like. Why would this be different in the online world? Since video now enables that connection between buyers and sellers, it’s logical to think some of the basic rules of “offline salesmanship” apply to the internet.

People buy from credible experts. Experts need to be credible, engaging and they should persuade the user to buy the product they are featuring. Of all the qualities I have seen behind the camera, I came up with a short list –

1. Credible experts need to be “real experts”

Few people can act, and for most product managers and merchandizers, shooting videos for the site is not a full-time occupation. My experience working with Jimmy Healey from OnlineShoes.com has taught me the importance of being a real expert when pitching a product. He’s credible as an athlete, he projects confidence and sounds very passionate about running shoes. In other words, a self-proclamed yet credible expert in his category.

2. Credible experts talk plain English

Doctors are known for adapting their communication style and content with each patient. Likewise, video retailers need to think about the masses of people of all skills who will listen and watch — and therefore, adopt a soft and easy tone when talking. Using simple words and simple concepts make experts credible because they are able articulate better than anyone the key characteristics and benefits of what they’re selling.

3. Credible experts focus on the benefits

It’s easy to get lost in the technical specifications of a product, and while it may be necessary to outline these out for specific product categories, this isn’t exactly what video is about. Video is about establishing a human dialog between an expert, and a prospective buyer. A credible expert, someone who has lots of experience using the product he’s selling, will quickly skip the tech talk to get to the tangible benefits of what he’s selling “If you’re an overpronator, this shoe will reduce the risk of knee injury for you…”.

4. Credible experts are impartial, even to their own site

This one is quite obvious, but important nevertheless. Experts should to push specific products or brands in order to maintain the trust with their audiences.

Do you have more tips or ideas? Feel free to leave a comment below and share your thoughts with the rest.

Video Hotspotting

Video hotspotting is a technique marketers can use to highlight certain areas of a video and make them clickable. This is useful for monetizing video content, particularly if it was generated by users, because you can now “tag” the items and directly connect them to eCommerce actions such as “View product”, “Add to the cart” or “Buy”.

So far, the technique has been used by advertisers, which makes a lot of sense. Innovid is one of those companies with plans to automate the hotspotting process. In fact, tagging videos for hotspots is extremely cumbersome and takes a fair amount of post-production time, since every frame in the video needs to be viewed and manually tagged.  If this technology were to be used on a large scale for advertising purposes, the process would need to be automated with clever techniques for following objects in the video, therefore eliminating the need to tag every frame.

There are a number of research projects on automating the hotspotting process, like at the University of California, Berkeley. There, researchers like my friend Pierre Garrigues are tweaking smart algorithms to “follow” objects in a video in partnership with the Hollywood Movie Industry.

While there is enormous potential for inserting contextual information in videos, it remains to be seen if this particular technology gets user acceptance. Pre-roll, pop-roll and pop-up links have demonstrated their ability to drive ad clicks because the marketing message is displayed without user intervention. Relying on the user to mouse-over the right part of the video seems a little risky and will inevitably generate low click-through rates.