The Brand Value of Rich Media and Video Ads

Image above is a chart from:  The Brand Value of Rich Media and Video Ads by DoubleClick, a division of Google and Dynamic Logic. It shows how valuable an impact rich media (like web videos) can have on purchase decisions online.  "On average, rich media with video has been the most successful of the ad formats studied at increasing aided brand awareness."

E-mail me if you would like me to send you the PDF with the entire report.  dave at ifilmprod dot com

iSnap du Jour #2: "Stop. Stop."

The end of the road in Smith Point, Texas.

iSnap du Jour #1

iSnap du Jour. Observations from the iPhone by Dave Henry ...
Number 1: Untitled.

 

ON SOCIAL NETWORKING

 

I got together with a bunch of old buddies last week at a cabin deep in northeast Oklahoma on Grand Lake of the Cherokees.  It was too cold to fish, so we just sat around and swapped stories, face-to-face, like we used to.

Unlike Facebook, we enjoyed the nuances of character and gesture that only proximity allows.  Unlike e-mail, my friends could easily tell when I was being sarcastic.  Unlike Linkedin, no one was wearing their resume on their sleeve.

But guess what?

Social networking made it possible.  The seven of us were always a loose coalition at best.  But over the last couple years, like seemingly everyone on earth, we’ve all been Facebooking with greater and greater frequency (some through significant others).  Eventually, we had the momentum to pull off a far-fetched reunion weekend way out in the middle of nowhere.

Some have opined that the elaborate social networking tools at our disposal will replace much of the actual in-person socialization we do.  Well, it does help with the details.  Think how many phone calls it would have taken to get seven of us together – flights, arrival times, rides, cabins.  But here in the age of social media, it took exactly zero phone calls. 

Never did like the sound of a phone ringing anyway.

We all arrived in Ketchum, OK armed to the teeth with the tools of our social media trade: smart phones, laptops, 3G cards, so we could keep in touch with kids, wives, the office. 

The wonderful irony?  

None of us could get a signal of any kind.  Social media conspired to bring us together.  And then made sure we’d really talk to each other.  Face to face.  Like old times.  And it was good.

On Web Movies

SEO statistics show that online video viewings daily has passed the total number of searches on the “core” engines.  (Core = Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, and Ask.)

And that if you post a video on your website’s front page, up to 80% of visitors will click on it FIRST. 

Eighty percent?  More videos than queries on the big five?  Are you kidding me?

A decade and more ago, everyone talked about “the convergence.”  The biggest challenge would be the battle between the ‘lean forward’ nature of computing and the ‘lean back’ posture for watching movies and TV.  Well the future is here and nobody cares.  We’re screen agnostic, and we watch moving pictures on any device.

(I’m leaning back just now, even as I type, because my tilting laptop table from Ikea nuzzles perfectly against my comfy armchair.)

So, if you build videos into your site, they will come.   Here are four things to think about:

1.  You have 5-10 seconds of initial attention span to work with.   The video needs to be compelling from the start.  Look for a hook – a single graphic or image, engaging music, a unique voice and great copy – that demands they continue to watch.

2.  Give it personality.  In the You-Tube era, surfers expect a certain quirkiness and authenticity.  Try not to be slick and over-produced.  The whiz-bang animations that look so good in the edit suite will be wasted on the small screen.

3.  Tell a story.  Meaning it has a beginning, middle and end.  And get a call-to-action of some kind in there, even if it’s just a web address at the close.

4.  Help the virus spread and watch it grow.  Make your video search-engine friendly with tags and easily shareable with links.  And make sure you use all the cool metric tools on your host site to see who’s viewing.

One great source for ideas is the video mash-up Vidque.  Check out http://vidque.com/business/popular/

For thoughts about your online video needs, remember that iFilm consultations are free, and screen agnosticism is part of the DNA.

Thoughts of Haiti

I was lucky enough to visit Haiti three years ago on a shoot for USAID.   I’ve been to war-torn Angola, the Malian desert, the barren hills of Ethiopia.  The toughest place I’ve seen, by far, is Haiti.

Arriving at the airport brought a crush of beggars, most of them small boys, innocence in tact, thinking this is how life works.  On the way to the posh Hotel Montana, we passed the teaming shantytown of Saline, where every six-foot wide tin hovel had mangoes for sale.

Trash, and pools of foul water filled every gutter and open lot.  And, of course, chock-a-block cinder and tar paper homes built on top of each other in every direction.

 

Further up the hill – the wealthy in Port-au-Prince, as everywhere, seek elevation – I saw a tire shop that had exactly three tires for sale.   Earnest attempts at fanciful English signage provided comic relief.  My favorite: the You You Desinger Baber Shop.  Short back and sides, please!

We finally made it up the hill, and inside heavily guarded gates, to the renowned Hotel Montana, favored by journalists, diplomats and the few visiting corporate types.  I could see why.  It was a rambling, colonial hillside estate, with views of the entire city twinkling below as if not a single beggar was going home hungry.  The restaurant at the hotel had steaks and veal and seafood, with plenty of beer and wine to chase it down.  And ultimately chase the sadness of Haiti away.  It almost worked.

I read today that there were some 300 people in the hotel when the earthquake came, and only 100 are accounted for.  The hotel collapsed completely. 

Earthquakes, like all natural disasters, are indiscriminate.  From the young beggars to the pregnant mothers in Saline to the foreign aid workers at the Hotel Montana, few were spared death, injury or loss, and now a living hell.

Give Haiti your thoughts and prayers, and a little money if you can.

Remembering Brett

In the days right after his shocking murder, it became cliché: “He never said an unkind word about anyone.”  In Brett Elliott’s case, it was true. 

But there was a deeper reason hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds) turned out to mourn the passing of a modest, unassuming ad guy.  Alex Lopez Negrete, his good friend, said it best. “Not only no unkind words,” Alex said, crying without shame and pushing his right index finger into my chest, like my Dad used to, as if this was the most important thing he would ever tell me, “he wouldn’t tolerate it in others!”

So true, I realized.  Anytime the conversation turned to gossip, the unworthy competitor, or the he said/she said, Brett would simply crank up the music – Lou Reed or Patti Smith or hard ska or some crazy-ass psycho-Texas rant.

“I love this part,” he would say.

I probably got close to a thousand e-mails from Brett Elliott over the fifteen years I was privileged to know him.   Every one of them ended “Peace.  Love.  _______.”  

The “peace” was the hippie in Brett, the “love” a constant plea – a true liberal, anti-war voice, maturing on the topic through an adolescence that coincided with the national realization that as Vietnam was a strategic mistake and tactical disaster.

The blank at the end was, or course, never blank.  It was the headline, the punch line, the tag line: the place where the pure and very talented creative copywriter Brett Elliott left his intellectual mark on the missive.  It was always witty, or pointed, or ironic, or just plain silly.  Like “ADDYs.”  Or “Errol Flynn.”  Or “Ad Agencies that Don’t Suck.”

The last words Brett ever gave me were by e-mail, that most modern of copy-writing tools.  We had been arguing about a pop-culture whatever, as we so often did – Beatles to the English Beat, Kubrick to Comedy Central, Brett knew it all. 

But for probably the first time, I was right.  And so in his typically self-effacing way, he wrote back, “you are a pop culture God!”  

Hardly.

But now that justice seems to be moving forward, we all want to get past the pain of a horrible and random murder, and focus on the message of peace, creativity, and love that Brett shared with us every day.

Peace.  Love.  There IS a rock and roll heaven.

And every blog is for you, brettelliott.