Hope for Haiti Now –Benefit Tonight

Join Geary’s client MobiTV support the global earthquake relief effort. Watch Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief tonight at 8 pm EST. If you’re a Sprint user you’ll have live access to the program through Sprint TV.

Tonight’s telethon is hosted by George Clooney, and other guest include Madonna, Bill Clinton, Taylor Swift, Sheryl Crow, Kid Rock, Keith Urban, Alicia Keys, Christina Aguilera, Dath Matthews, John Legend, Justin Timberlake, Stevie Wonder, Wyclef Jean, Bono and many, many others.

If you want to get involved, text GIVE to 50555 to help.

Google Chrome Viral Videos

The launch of Google chrome was relatively low-key. It went live, media outlets mentioned it–that was about it. Now, Google is stepping it up a notch. Today the search engine Goliath launches 11 YouTube videos in the hopes that they will become “viral.”

This blog post proves that their move is working.

The videos do not call out Chrome’s competition, namely Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari. Instead, the campaigns encourages users to think about what they really want from a browser. Each video varies drastically from one to the other, but all in all, they tout that Google Chrome improves online efficiency and general snazziness.

To see all of the videos, visit http://www.youtube.com/user/googlechrome. It’s definitely worth the trip.

NBC is Ready for the 2008 Olympic Games

The Games are only a few days away, and I think NBC is ready. The schmorgas board of content options that viewers will be able to tap into is honestly mind blowing. Utilizing on-demand, mobile, interactive, and live streaming technologies–just to name a few–NBC is doing what the rest of the digital industry hasn’t quite figured out yet; they are providing online content to viewers and still expected to draw record numbers of viewers during their TV broadcasts.

As new technologies have been evolving, advertisers have been attempting to monetize these different formats while appeasing users (ie-not annoying them) and adhering to privacy restrictions. For example, mobile marketing is great in theory, but keeping it user-friendly and quantifiable for advertisers has not completely been accomplished to date.

What NBC is doing with their coverage of the Beijing Games is truly making content available to users no matter where they are during the 17 days of the Olympics. Since Olympic events are so time-sensitive, NBC should be able to entice users to subscribe to online feeds, watch live and canned events, so they can stay up to date (and not have to wait for Bob Costas to tell them).

From a ratings side, NBC will still be able to draw a wide TV viewing audience because the crowd pleasing sports like swimming, gymnastics and track are planned to be broadcast live only on TV.

All in all, I must applaud NBC…they have significantly raised the bar from 2006 and for the industry as a whole.

San Diego’s own, Veoh, brings behavioral targeting to online videos

Veoh is known for breaking new ground in the online space, but their new advertising program could revolutionize the way advertisers purchase advertisements online and how consumers are exposed to them.  The program (being release out of beta today) will group viewers into buckets based upon their past searching, tagging, commenting, and viewing activities.

One could ask if a user watches videos online that fit into their true interests or if they primarily watch pieces that are considered viral (have you seen the water skiing chipmunk?!)?  For YouTube this may be true, but Veoh offers the largest library of online TV resulting in more interest based viewership.  Veoh is even claiming that during beta the program’s ads preformed twice as well as the non-targeted versions.

It will be very interesting to see how this technology develops and what it does to Veoh’s position in the industry.

Optimizing Video Content for Search Engines

By Andreas Roell

Are your videos optimized for search engines? Now that search engines crawl for video content, the same rules that apply to optimizing Web site text now apply to video content. Key words, tags, and content are all a part of the equation that search engines will use to rank your video.

The importance of SEO for video can be summed up in one word: revenue. Most online video advertisements don’t generate direct revenue on their own like pay-per-view, pay-to-own, or subscription video services. Their purpose is to be “propagated across as many services and viewers as possible,” and to do that, videos must be search-engine friendly, according to video search engine Blinkx.

Marketers also need to keep close tabs on how and where their videos are posted. When a video is picked up by an aggregator, the file name, descriptions, tags, and titles should be monitored, and possibly changed, to ensure that every site displaying your video content will drive the most traffic and business to your Web site.

MORE

Article published by ClickZ on February 5, 2008

YouTube Meets the Boob Tube

The long fingers of the Web may grab ahold of your TV by year’s end.

YouTube videos can already be seen on cell phones and Apple TV; soon, TiVo users with a broadband Internet connection will be able to search, browse and watch YouTube videos on their TVs. The clips will be streamed to their TV via broadband Internet connection.

It’s inevitable for the lines between TV and Web video to blur. More and more, people want to access their favorite TV shows, news clips, sports highlights, and humorous videos — regardless of whether they’re on a bus with their cell phone, in their living room with their TV, or in the office with the computer.

Still, this TiVo deal will have a limited reach — at least initially. There are only 4 million TiVo users nationwide; most get their set-top box from their cable operator. Nearly two million bought their box directly from TiVo, but only 800,000 have the necessary broadband connection to enjoy YouTube videos over a streaming connection.

Resurrecting Transitional Ads

by Andreas Roell, CEO Geary Interactive

Search engine marketing principles show us that landing page content should be a contextual extension of the ad. The same goes for transitional ads. Otherwise, the ad in between pages will seem overtly abrupt, noticeable, and unwanted. Advertisers could also use this technique to present their message as a sponsorship of sorts. For example, an advertisement could incorporate the headline of upcoming pages, then “proudly present” it to users.

Once users reach their intended page, marketers should display an additional advertisement. This has proven effective for both building brand awareness and driving click-through conversions. The actual transitional video ad should lead into the ad on the linked page. This way, users are more likely to notice the ad on the next page.

Read the whole article

Article published by ClickZ on February 5, 2008

Life after the Strike

The screen writer’s strike is not only altering the usual plethora of programming–it is slowly changing how marketing dollars are being spent.  With the big networks forced to return advertiser’s money in cash when new episodes did not air, is it really any wonder that online advertising has subsequently spiked.  Today’s eMarketer report goes even further:  “Seven out of 10 of those surveyed said they [will] go back to watching their favorite shows after the strike, but more than a quarter said they might not or definitely would not return.”

Could the strike have a permanent effect on marketer’s faith in TV ads altogether?  That answer remains to be seen, but it looks like it’s a definite possibility.  Nielsen reports that online video sites have more than doubled since the strike in late October.  It would be painfully ironic if the Internet receives generous increases in ad revenue because of the strike because the ubiquitous nature of writer’s work online is the very basis for the strike.

The networks and screen writers should want to resolve their qualms in the near future to stall viewer’s switch to online venues and regain some control over their reality-entrenched current programming.

You Tube’s New Video Ad Platform

The rapid growth of online video has created a lot of interest with marketing professionals on how to best utilize video content websites as a marketing platform. While many video websites are looking for an effective means to index and tag videos, You Tube has also been busy revolutionizing the method of distributing advertisements to online video viewers.

Recently, You Tube introduced a new “semi-transparent” advertising overlay that covers the bottom 20 percent of the screen for up to the first 10 seconds of the video being played. According to You Tube, these advertisements are less annoying than the “pre-roll” video ads that are currently being used on other video sites.

The distribution method is based on the same principles of targeting traditional broadcast TV, (age, sex, geography and genre) combined with the measurability of online marketing mediums such as banner ads. Currently, there are about 20 advertisers using the “semi-transparent” advertising including New Line Cinema and BMW.

The $%!# Jar

Every office has it - that emptied fishbowl in the corner office that employees have to throw a dollar in when they misspell a word in a proposal or send an e-mail to the wrong client. This Bud TV ad takes the dollar jar to a whole new level, making fun of agencies and their quirky practices.

Watch it here.