Videos. Is it just me or do they really seem to be rising in popularity again these days. After all, no one needs professional video equipment anymore to produce a small vignette for an enterprise ecommerce site or to bake up a quick video tutorial for a service they offer.
So it’s worth noting that YouTube is the proud recipient of roughly 2 billion hits per day. Yes, per day. If you think that’s impressive then consider the fact that Google has actually figured out a way to monetize these page views with display ads or ads imbedded in videos. In fact, according to this infographic put together by the site Mashable, the number of advertisers utilizing display ads on YouTube actually increased ten fold in 2010.
If that weren’t enough already, YouTube now accounts for 22% of all data usage on mobile devices, and streaming video usage on cell phones grew 93% over the first half of the year. Identifying a trend?
There’s no doubt that companies are utilizing the number one video viewing platform in the world to communicate with their audience, reinforce brand messaging and reach potential clients or customers by producing videos and buying ad space in order to try and capture the attention of those billions of viewers.
So with that said, I thought I’d share a couple of video related items I encountered this week. One is an idea that expands videos into the realm of client relations and the other is a comical set of viral videos based on an existing ad campaign by Old Spice.
Monthly Reporting Video
Reporting to clients is a reality that many agencies perform approximately every 30 days, but one company is suggesting that creating a client report doesn’t have to be four pages of strategy overviews and data points (which are important by the way) that people might overlook in their inbox or just skim over lightly when they do see it. In fact, this blog post from SEOmoz suggests testing videos as a way to report and communicate ideas and concepts to clients. The post also provides a list of concepts that back the feasibility if the idea, and although this is clearly not appropriate for every situation and every client, it is another indication that videos may be creeping into more facets of business.
Viral Ad Campaign
One such example of an ongoing video branding effort that I find pretty amusing is the Old Spice challenge between Mustafa and Fabio. Now I know a lot of people who think these ads are tacky and ridiculous, but that’s also the draw. Turning a clever and successful 18 month old ad campaign into a war of preposterous verbal sparring on YouTube aligns nicely with the scripts of the original spots that have been airing on TV for the past year and a half. The core of this video campaign includes both personalities giving video responses to people’s Tweets. In addition, ‘The Old Spice Guys’ are also tapping other social media outlets by asking viewers to vote for their favorite Old Spice guy while encouraging them to share, post, comment, Tweet and Like the YouTube popularity contest. Check these out and have a laugh–or you can disagree with my sense of humor. Either way it’s a clever idea.
So are you using video’s to support your enterprise ecommerce business or enhance your marketing and communication strategies? If not, it might be time to take out that smart phone, set it to record and give it a shot. It is literally that easy. Action!
