Tag Archives: YouTube

March 25, 2015 · 11:36 am

Get Out Of My Face

I’m sure you’ve had the experience of going to a web page and having a video autoplay. It’s one of the most annoying things publishers do, in my opinion. Putting aside that it can be a bandwidth hog, chew up your mobile data plan and hang a page as it loads, inevitably you’ve forgotten to mute your machine or phone and a blast of unanticipated noise can be startling at best and embarrassing at worst. Yecch.

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It’s in that context that I read something this morning from an AdAge and RBC study on marketing. I’m sure you’re aware the Facebook has rolled out autoplay video ads. Oh joy. Well, according to the study (as reported via eMarketer):

While just 9% of US marketers said they already purchased autoplay video ads on the social network, the majority were somewhat (33%) or very (21%) likely to purchase such placements in the next six months. This put the percentage of respondents who viewed autoplay video ads positively at nearly two-thirds. The strong interest supports RBC research released at the end of August 2014, which estimated that Facebook would sell $700 million worth of autoplay video ads this year alone.

I love that 2/3 of marketers view the ads positively.  Where is the research on how consumers feel about them?  Yes, I’m aware that you can turn off the autoplay (click here to learn how) but the default on both the web and the app is to let them play.  It’s not just Facebook either.  Twitter, YouTube, and others are testing the same thing, albeit just autoplay videos (no ads – yet).

Maybe it’s my New York attitude but to publishers offering autoplay content or ads and to the marketers who buy them I say “get out of my face.”  Make your content interesting and engaging, not intrusive and annoying.  Romance me, don’t assault me.  I’m sure I’m not the only person who longer visits certain sites due to their use of autoplay nor the only one who has disabled the feature wherever I can.  I’m still not sure why I should have to do that in the first place.

What are your thoughts?

 

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April 25, 2013 · 11:11 am

Water Everywhere But…

I know – you were thinking about Coleridge when you woke up this morning.  Hey – me too!  In particular, the line from the Rime Of The Ancient Mariner about “water, water everywhere but nary a drop to drink.”

Image representing YouTube as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

OK, I didn’t wake up thinking that but I was reminded of it when I read some data put out by the folks at Outrigger Media.  They measure how brands use YouTube.  The top 500 brands generate 442 million views every month – a bit less than a million each on average, which is pretty good.  But there are some other data which are a little concerning that I thought you might find interesting.

If you’ve spent any time on YouTube (go ahead, admit it!) you’ve probably noticed that much of the branded material is just repurposed TV ads.  In fact, in some brands’ categories (food & beverage), 15% of the videos are just that.  The technology, automotive, and apparel brands (who seem to do a lot of original content – demos, mini-movies, etc.) on YouTube are attracting the largest audience, more than half of the Top 500 brands’ monthly views.  However, the top brands channels are averaging just 35,000 subscribers, which is way less than their number of Twitter followers (more than 200,000).

Many clients have mentioned “going viral” as a goal with some video content.  I caution them that it’s a lot easier to capture lightning in a bottle.  Basically, there’s research that shows you’ve got about three days to make that happen, and if the content hasn’t been shared a lot by then it’s probably not going to happen (even though it can keep growing for a few months).  That said, the Outrigger data shows that we have a fertile field – YouTube – that’s one of the biggest audience areas on the internet and yet brands can’t seem to make anything grow there on a consistent basis.  If consumers had a strong interest in what the brands were planting, why wouldn’t they be asking to be updated regularly by subscribing?  Apparently, not enough fear of missing out in this case.

YouTube is the ocean – there’s water everywhere in the form of consumers from which thirsty brands are trying to drink.  Look like Coleridge was right.

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April 30, 2012 · 10:41 am

10 Years After

I was thinking over the weekend about what a very different place the world is going to be from a technical and media perspective in just a few years.  Of course, if you take a few minutes to think back and recall how the world was in 2002, just a decade ago, you’d be missing YouTube, iPhones, Facebook, Twitter, and hybrid cars.  Every one of those things is a daily part of my life and probably yours as well.

Image representing iPhone as depicted in Crunc...

Image via CrunchBase

What got me thinking about this was this:

New research from Leichtman Research Group finds that 38% of all U.S. households have at least one television set connected to the internet via a video game system, a Blu-ray player, an Apple TV, a Roku set-top box and/or the TV set itself. This number is up from 30% last year, and 24% from two years ago. Game consoles are the key devices within this category, as 28% of all households have a video game system connected to the web.

I spend some time each week watching Hulu+, Netflix, YouTube, and other services through my Xbox.  That time spent is not incremental to normal TV viewing – it’s content I find more interesting than what’s available.  That behavior ties in with the research:

  • 13% of Netflix subscribers would consider reducing spending on their multichannel video service because of Netflix, down from 21% last year.
  • 16% of all U.S. adults watch full-length TV shows online at least weekly, up from 12% last year.
  • 19% of mobile phone owners watch video on their phones on a weekly basis; while 9% of all U.S. adults watch video on an iPad/tablet.

So I sort of had this flash forward.  If traditional cable boxes become anachronisms, what else goes with them?  I think desktop computers will be history soon, as tablets and other mobile devices access cloud-based services and data.  Even though I have many computers in my home, I spend nearly all my time on a laptop and could very easily transition to a tablet with a keyboard.  Skype and Google Voice could replace my landline and just may shortly.  I’m sure you can add a few legacy technologies/services that need either to pivot or die.

In only 10 years, a lot of our behavior has been changed by a few services and technologies.  In another 10, it will all be different again.  Are you ready?  Is your business?

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