VideoRetailer.org - Exploring the Intersection of Video and e-Commerce.

Why I don’t buy into the YouTube cannibalization theory for product videos

Many retailers hope to significantly boost their product page PageRank by adding video to it - betting on the fact that Google favors pages with video embedded in their search algorithm. I have seen anecdotal evidence that it is indeed true - although no one has published a repeatable formula yet, SEO after all is more art than science.

Another common practice for retailers and manufacturers is to publish their videos to YouTube. If you ask around what is driving these marketers to share on YouTube, you’ll likely hear that a) YouTube is the second most popular search engine, b) It’s potentially a lot of traffic, and c) it doesn’t cost anything (free advertising).

On the flip side I have been hearing more and more recently about “product page SEO concerns” - when a video is published to both the product page, and to YouTube. The argument usually goes like this - “I’ve read somewhere that Google favors video by inflating PageRank, resulting in up to a 50x boost in search engine visibility” (whatever that means). “So if I put my video on YouTube, the risk of the YouTube outranking my own product page is high - bumping my position on the SERP down. That’s why we stopped pushing videos to YouTube”.

The cannibalization story is certainly believable and the explanation makes sense if indeed Google has some bias to artificially inflate the PageRank of pages with video. At the same time, I have observed that the most successful retailers with video usually have a very
aggressive YouTube strategy, where every piece of content is pushed to YouTube, without evidence of SEO cannibalization. In fact, the perception among these successful retailers is that YouTube provided an extra SEO boost - and here is why.

1) YouTube is a massive backlink magnet, because so many sites, blogs, articles point it. Its PageRank is high - but more important, since YouTube appends any outbound link with rel=”nofollow”, the PageRank credit of a YouTube page is only spread across other YouTube pages. It’s like an echo chamber.

2) If a YouTube page is linked from a site with a high PageRank, it’ll benefit not only that page, but any related videos that are linked from it. In other words, the related videos on YouTube get a “free PageRank credit”.

3) As a retailer, if your videos appear as related to popular videos, they might start showing high on a SERP because their PageRank is high.

4) High PageRank means more visibility on Google, which may result in third part sites finding and linking to the retail site, sometimes directly to the product page.

With this hypothesis there isn’t a cannibalization risk, because when the retailer pushes a product video to YouTube it is not at the expense of the product page, rather, it earns free credit from YouTube. Perhaps a more appropriate term to understand what is really happening would be “incremental free SEO” from YouTube.

In essence publishing e-commerce videos to YouTube in addition to the adequate product page is something I would consider a must. Important also would be to properly tag the video in YouTube and append a good description, since the key to success is to appear as often as possible as a related video in YouTube.

How video players could (or should) look like to deliver great user experience.

Video works for e-retailers. In 2010, we already know that landing pages and product sites with video convert better than those without. But the mayority of thoses sites follow a simple presentation formula: product pages including a (more or less sophisticated) video player that reproduces relevant content about the product in question.

In the service sector (banking, education, telecoms, etc.) we are starting to see different techniques of integrating video, with navigation concepts entirely based on and around video content. That means that the core elements of the site’s architecture is audiovisual content and animation (mostly in flash) that cover most part of the page but without using the “standard click-to-play video player” we are used to from video sharing sites or most of the e-retailer product pages.

Let’s see a first good example from the banking sector: Chase Blueprint, a personal financial tracking&tracing service offered to Chase clients.

Kaplan Academy of California also uses video hosts that cover more than 50% of the homepage to help different target users to navigate through the site.

AT&T’s video host explains the advantages of the 3G MicroCell wifi modem right from the living room. The format chosen is a kind of video catalogue that guides the user through the product’s features and advantages.

In my opinion, these sort of video integration makes special sense for home and landing pages. Videos become a “natural” part of the online navigation and it is an effective way to focuses the user’s attention to the main features on the site, simplifying the navigation and reducing the number of clicks to get to key contents.

Nevertheless, there are a few important things to consider using videos that don’t come in standard players.

1) Costs: production costs for these videos are likely to be higher. To look great they need to be shot in a studio, with perfect lightening, a croma key or an infinite white box; it also requires a professional postproduction to combine the human presenters with the rest of the elements and the animation.

2) Autoplay or press to play? Don’t forget that the user needs to be in control of the reproduction; that includes a play, stop and a sound-off option; one option is to autoplay the video when the user first comes to the page and make it “press-to-play” when the user returns.
3) Include triggers. Make sure the user knows how and where to start the video. Be as direct as possible and avoid a simple “play video”; try to reveal what’s behind the content; scroll up to the Kaplan example and you will know what I mean.

4) Don’t forget your Call To Action.
Set up Blueprint (example Chase), Request more information (example Kaplan) , Availability Checker (example AT&T) are effective examples to include Calls For Action. If the goal of the video is to convert, the clip needs persuasive Calls For Action, clearly visible throughout the running time of the clip.

When does branded web.tv make strategic sense?

Video has become part of corporate Internet content strategies and online marketers who don’t pay attention to that, are wholeheartedly ignoring YouTube as the second most important search engine behind Google. “To YouTube” is “to Google” and for brands there is no way to get around that. Having said that, there are many different strategies and ways to use video; a YouTube channel to communicate with your clients is just one of many formulas.

One option - and without any doubt the most challenging in terms of strategy, implementation and maintenance - is to set up a branded web tv. In the last 12 months we have seen how difficult it can be to keep a branded web tv alive. Bud.tv (Budweiser Beer) closed. “Jen and Barb mom life” , originally sponsored by Kraft Food, had to downsize its activities drastically and instead of talking about food and health they now talk about connected living as Kraft Food dropped out and Verizon Wireless came in as a new sponsor.

But let’s look at some branded web TV success stories: take Mercedes Benz TV, a Web TV platform of the German carmaker with films and stories about cars, motorsport, lifestyle and music. The idea is simple: using entertaining contents to present the innovative drive of the brand.

Or enter at Vacacions Canada TV, a great example of how to sell online while entertaining the audience / users. The site is based on video content and they way it’s done seems so natural. All that Canada has to offer as a vacation destination is intelligently packed into short episodes which relate to holiday offers that can be booked online through the site. All video content can be e-mailed, shared, embedded and downloaded.

On the other hand there are example of brands like Nestlé Spain that have launched their idea of web.tv. But unfortunately there is nothing “webby” about the site’s value proposition. But let’s be fair: At least, Nestlé Spain at least calls the thing by its real name: “Nestlé online television”. Take a quick look and you will see what I mean. This is TV content (including Nestlé’s outdated TV spots) made available online without any obvious relation to strategic marketing objectives.

So, when does branded web tv = entertainment that helps to persue a specific online marketing strategy, make sense in the first place? In my opinion, branded web tv can be a powerful marketing tool…

1. … if you are able to produce and offer useful and unique contents that are not available elsewhere. Sometimes it feels that brands think of web tv as a channel to recycle their tv spots.

2. … if the site is part of a bigger online strategy and related to branding, converting and ultimately selling you product or service.

3. … if you can create community around the contents and target it to o users / customers with specific needs and/or interests.

4. … if you provide an interface / player that allows the user to truely interact with the content.

5. … if you are aware of the resources necessary to maintain the site alive and know how to distribute the content on the web. Those are costly projects which need to produce ROI at some stage, through cross-selling with other site of the brand or affiliated sites.

So what is online video marketing in the first place?

Since October last year, when ComScore published that YouTube had surpassed Yahoo!’s search inquiries to become Internet’s second largest search engine, there’s no doubt that any brand, product, services or company will need video content sooner or later to compete online. No matter if they do real business, eCommerce, on the web or “just” branding, marketers will need to think about an effective video marketing strategy now because users search for and consume rich media content more than ever. A “No Video Found” is not an option as people turn away from text search.

Several studies have shown that adding videos to the site has a positive impact on sales, lead-generation, use of the site, and improved customer relation (see 2008 “Marketing with Video Report” by MarketingSherpa, or Internet Retailer Survey on “Website Design, Content and Rich Media”).

But what is video marketing in the first place? Is that putting high production-value TV spots on social media sites and wait for them to turn into 100,000 clicks’ virals overnight? Well, that’s an option but I would definitely not call it a real video marketing strategy.

Down to basics, video marketing is the systematic use of video content as part of the digital marketing- and communication-mix of a brand, product or organization. Having said that,  for me it does exclude the random recycling of expensive, low-impact TV spots on third-party video sharing sites, since the content was not actually created for the web 2.0 environment. Although there are of course,  some good examples of TV commercial that made it into the viral charts, with a positive lateral effect on branding. Just think of Heineken’s “Walking into the Fridge clip with some 3.5 million views and more than 2,600 comments on YouTube.

But there is more to video marketing and in order to get it right, marketers should forget everything they know about TV advertising and start thinking about online videos as a content that allows them to engage with their consumers rather than sending out unidirectional messages.

Online video marketing follows online rules and that’s why eRetailers are pioneering video marketing, rather than the FMCG industry.

So in the next 2 weeks at VideoRetailer, we’ll discuss and analyze the 3 key steps when it comes to creating an effective video marketing strategy, starting off with a chapter on content creation and new formats, followed by one on thumbnails and metadata and  finishing with a chapter on online video distribution and promotion.

NOTE: VideoRetailer.org welcomes Doris Obermair who will be contributing to the site and sharing his knowledge in the areas of video commerce, production and online marketing.

ShopNBC’s Video Commerce Endeavor Is Inspiring

When Justin Foster from the Video Commerce Consortium talked about ShopNBC’s video commerce experiments at Streaming Media West last fall, many of us were impressed by the vision and commitment from a company that’s been competing for years against the Home Shopping Network and QVC, but somewhat trailing behind. True, HSN and QVC still retain the lead in terms for marketshare and brand awareness, but ShopNBC.tv has taken a clear lead in the nascent video commerce space with a site that’s designed as an entirely new channel.

It’s not hard to find ShopNBC.tv. Personally, I’m seeing the ads popping all over the place on the internet, like this prominent and wide banner on WebWorkerDaily, one of my favorite blogs.

The site itself has been carefully built as a new destination site, using Flash as the presentation layer. After landing on it, you are immediately taken into the video experience, since it’s streaming the TV content live, without needing to install or activate anything. Yes my friends, the homepage is boldly featuring live video content, which is sort of a powerful statement: this is video, this is ShopNBC.tv.

The navigation on the site is innovative too. Unlike many ecommerce destinations nowadays, which feature countless links to site sections, departments, brands, etc, ShopNBC.tv is betting on a simplified shopping experience with simple yet intuitive rollover menus that allow you to shop by category, brand or host. The search is also elegantly designed and consistent with other elements on this page. Also impressive the fact that the video never stops playing, all navigational content is overlayed right on the page without any interruption.

Interesting also what happens when the user is ready to buy a product - as the click button is redirecting the user to the ultra-elaborate ShopNBC.com, and the most seamless fashion.

On the critical side, the biggest concern would be the extensive use of Flash, which limits SEO visibility and linking (everything happens under the same URL). Another limitation, which I am sure will be overcome soon, is the lack of social media features which would enable sharing across blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.Nevertheless, what an amazing shopping experience. ShopNBC.tv will no doubt be the benchmark for many video retailers moving forward:

1. ShopNBC.tv was designed as a new destination site, with its own identity and user experience.

2. ShopNBC.tv is a true video shopping site. Video is the center of the shopping experience, and ShopNBC.tv doesn’t make any excuses about it.

3. ShopNBC.tv is the innovator to follow. We are not aware of any similar project in the industry that marries video and commerce so well.

ShopFlick Wants to Be the Next Online QVC

ShopFlick, the LA-based company that just raised $7MM in venture funding, is arguably an interesting approach to video commerce. Positioned as the video store for indie products, ShopFlick offers an end-to-end video commerce solution to independent and small commerce vendors, and more specifically, independent artists. More established commerce sites can also promote their items on ShopFlick, but the checkout is done outside of the site in a model that is very similar to a PriceGrabber or Shopzilla.

From the user experience’s standpoint, there are a few interesting details worth pointing out. The site has that blend of commerce and educational content, that’s just perfect to persuade the potential buyer to take the next step. Each of the stores for example has a feature video where the artist gives sort of an elevator pitch for the brand or just tells a story. On the same pages, you may also find links to product videos which are more sales-oriented, and naturally these pages all have the price of the product, a big obvious buy button and the usual YouTube-ish options to share, comment and embed the video elsewhere.

The checkout itself is fairly simple, an overlay on top of the current page with the traditional payment options. We didn’t go as far as actually buying on the site, but overall we were impressed by the ease of use and the overall clean design.

Whether this site is successful or not remains to be seen - it’s a fairly unique blend of ideas which have worked well for others:

1. Compelling video content, well presented and well connected to call-to-actions.

2. Great search engine visibility: this has been key to the success of comparison engines in the past, and knowing how video-hungry PageRank is, we can expect this site to rank fairly high.

3. Community-enabled: extremely important for building the brand and generating a conversation around the products and the site itself

4. Hybrid business model: they make it easy for independent artists to upload their content, and profit from a direct commission on the sales, PLUS they allow large retailers to publish their video catalog there too under an affiliate model

One of the challenges ShopFlick will have to face is the find its market position between traditional commerce sites, which inevitably are all moving to video, and the established commerce shopping engines (Buzzillions, ShopZilla, etc), which are doing amazingly well in the segment.

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.

Will the iPhone play a role in eCommerce Video

In just a few weeks now, Apple will release their new 3G iPhone to the masses. Here is Silicon Valley, people are rumbling about it. I met two friends this week end who were delaying their phone replacements by a month of two to get an iPhone this time.

The iPhone is an important piece of the puzzle in the nascent eCommerce Video space. In case you haven’t heard already, there are a number of mobile startups who have pre-announced iPhone applications capable of streaming video content from their phones. Qik is one of them, but there are others. And that opens up a world of possibilities. Let’s imagine that:

(1) Site chat applications evolve to accept video streams from a Webcam, or a phone. This would enable retailers to engage in a more powerful and engaging experience with their customers.

(2) Brick and Mortar stores with “people on the ground” can connect live with buyers, show them products, answer their questions right from their desks or shops.

(3) Customer support staffs can ask their clients to show them exactly what their problem is while talking to them on the phone.

Most of these examples are futuristic, but if the bandwidth connection is good, if it is to use these video applications from an iPhone, and if the user experience is positive and profitable, it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine this will soon happen. At least for some retail segments to start.

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.