soda.tv

The investment in print content in the U.S. fell by nearly 30% last year, in favor of digital media.

Mainly the video content or branded videos have been positioned as the main support or channel content marketing strategies, surpassing other types of media and online publications.

The interest of companies for online content marketing is a growing trend. Last year 52% of U.S. companies used marketing videos for content in different formats such as blogs and corporate websites, digital media, specialized magazines and online newsletters.

The success of digital content can be explained by several reasons. Its distribution is more economical, but also its production. The audiovisual production design on the Internet is much cheaper it offers rational budgets that current marketing needs with respect to traditional audiovisual production. Besides the increase in Internet usage time, also affects the success of digital content.

Based on these data it is estimated that 35% of companies plan to continue and increase their investment in their online content this year, focusing on video and closely following market developments of mobile devices continues to boom, thanks the convenience it offers.

Source: Puro Marketing

Adigital organized for the first time yesterday Conversion Day, a session focused exclusively on techniques and tools to improve conversion of sites and maximize the effectiveness of online marketing strategies. Among the speakers participated Gorka Muñecas, CEO and cofounder of Soda.tv, who gave a speech on the current Video marketing where he highlighted the following points:

• Video marketing on increasing the click to buy
• Video marketing has just begun, has evolved in parallel with the rise of social networks.
• Television remains the king of TV culture we have. The average is 4 hours a day watching TV.
• Before, the brands paid the networks by audiences of their programs, and offering consumer advertising while interrupting the program they chose to see. Now we have many more possibilities with Internet yet we are still interrupting. (pre-roll video).
• The Internet offers the possibility to give your message directly where your target is.
• The video format has proven to be the most effective way to reach the audience.
• What is important is how we get people to see the content we are offering, and have them seek for the brand and this is achieved through the Branded Content.
• From Branded Content brands can start creating your own audience.
• Internet allows you to create a strategy where you offer your content in formats, at times and specific means and arrive to the different targets that seek us.
• Content can inform, educate (e-learning) and entertain but to achieve success you should follow at strategy in each case.
• The strategy, Transmedia tells a story in different format, times and means.
• Transmedia, production and technology bring us closer to Branded Content. Therefore, production must count with realistic budgets and understand the strategy.
• Internet is interactive. We need interactions to approach the content to the purchase process.
• 80% of online videos are on YouTube, in other places too, but on YouTube you can generate interactions.
• In Soda.tv we are pioneers with a new strategy of audiovisual production.
• Now we have to control and know the technology to make interactive videos and new ways of narrating audiovisual content.

As an example of interactive videos, Gorka shared the case study of Interactive Fashion by El Corte Inglés made by Soda.tv

Soda.tv made for Beaz a video to show its new headquarters. (more…)

Marketers and agencies from around the country have recently been exposed to some new findings in the world of video, thanks largely to Nielsen.

First, let me share a few of the stats, for those who haven’t seen the latest: It’s pretty common knowledge that we Americans spend a ton of time watching video across our various screens — 33 hours per week, in fact. And the number of users viewing video on the Internet is up 21.7%, from Q3 2008 to Q3 2011. Not all that surprising and this might even seem low, if anything. Meanwhile, the number of people who used time-shifting for watching videos at the times most convenient for them increased by 65.9% during that same period. But here’s the shocker: The number of users watching video on mobile devices increased by a whopping 205.7%.

Surprisingly, the time spent on computers watching video is actually on the decrease (Nielsen reported a 7.5% decrease in time spent, year-over-year from Q3 2010 to Q3 2011), as people are preferring to do their video surfing on mobile devices, or on growing tablet devices.

Bigger picture, a significant takeaway for those of us in the video business is that streaming video is now the second most popular and common activity, trailing only social networking. Overall, about 14% of Internet usage time is dedicated to streaming video (October 2011 census data). To put it in some perspective, social networks comprised 21% of all minutes spent in this category. The streaming videos most people are watching, by a large majority, are TV programming and movies. Entertainment sites are driving the viewing.

The inevitable question for marketers and agencies alike: “Are all video gross rating points equal?” Nielsen would argue that they are and is studying this issue with leaders in the industry. A few key insights here:

- Online video performed better than TV across every brand metric and for every vertical.
- A campaign combining online video and TV ads improved recall and likeability for all verticals.
Through a panel comprised of Facebook members (via Facebook’s registry of 150 million+ persons), Nielsen concluded that online video GRPs are consistent with Nielsen TV ratings.

Moving forward, we need to keep an eye on the projected meteoric growth of online video viewership, particularly on mobile devices. Clearly we are getting close to a better understanding of the complexity of rating video performance online, and how it can be compared to the illustrious GRP that has dominated TV understanding and evaluation for years.

This is an exciting and fluid time for all of us in the world of video, so it’s sometimes worthwhile to take a step back to review some third-party data and assess what it could mean to us all.

Source: MediaPost

Content marketing is the best way to let your target audience know who you are, how your products and services can benefit them, and to encourage them to buy from you. So content marketing is essential to online success – just like the heart is essential to the functioning of the body.

Content is king – or rather, quality content is king – as it drives all online interaction. Much like your heart powers your body, engaging content is the cornerstone of everything that happens online. Let’s take a closer look.

Heart → Brain = Content serves thought leadership

Every business wants to be seen as the leader in its industry and one of the best ways to differentiate your SME from competitors is through content-driven thought leadership. Depending on your business and sector, you can use blogs, whitepapers, case studies, guides, infographics and ebooks, to name but a few, to offer valuable content to your audience and showcase your expertise.

Heart → Eyes = Content improves visibility

Publishing quality content will get you noticed. HubSpot research shows companies that blog typically get 55% more visitors than non-blogging competitors. This might have something to do with the fact that such sites get 97% more inbound links than others, which is also beneficial for their performance in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Heart → Mouth = Content boosts word-of-mouth recommendations

A growing proportion of consumers are heading online to spread the word about brands they have dealings with. This is a significant development for small businesses, considering McKinsey Quarterly found up to half of all buying decisions are driven by a word-of-mouth recommendation.

Heart → Arms = Content gives you a wider (and stronger) reach

Sites that feature regular blog posts have on average 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links than other websites. This means such sites are likely to rank higher in SERPs and appear more credible as a result, but it also means they offer their audience more resources and more convincing reasons for choosing them over a competitor.

Heart → Hands = More work leads to more money

Marketers cite search engine optimised custom content as the top source of leads and successful social media campaigns with quality content at its core are cited by three-quarters of marketers as a factor in closing sales.

The logic is simple: The more leads that are converted, the more work there is to do and the more money a business will make. And it doesn’t stop there – Roper research found the majority of existing customers are persuaded to purchase another product from the same company if they are provided with custom content.

Heart → Legs = Content does the marketing legwork for you

Anyone who suggests online marketing is easy because “anyone can publish stuff on the internet”, is probably doing it wrong. Because even though joining social networks is generally free, keeping all the channels updated requires an investment of time, resources and effort. It’s not easy constantly coming up with ideas for quality content that will engage readers and compel them to buy or share information, but publishing such content regularly is an investment worth making.

Nearly two-thirds of companies who use social media to promote their products and services said doing so has increased the effectiveness of their marketing activities.

Heart → Feet – Content gives your online marketing a solid footing

Billions of pieces of content are shared online every day. In order to compete successfully online, you’re going to have to do something that is more than just run of the mill.

Publishing unique content that is tailored to your intended audience is the best way of doing this. The majority of consumers say they’d much rather get to know a brand through reading articles they publish than checking out advertisements about them. And 60% of consumers said they felt more positive about a brand after reading custom content on their site.

Source: ContentPlus

comScore’s recently published statistics for online video viewing and video ad exposure in the Europe reveals the biggest growth lies in video ad consumption in the UK – 80% of online Brits saw an online video in January 2012: and of these 64 percent were exposed to video ads, twice as many as the previous January.

Online Video Advertising Statistics Rise in Europe (UK & France)

• 21.9 million UK internet users were exposed to a video ad stream and 33.3 million UK internet users watched a content video in January.
• Males were far more engaged with content videos, accounting for 74.7 percent compared to just females who only accounted for 25.3 percent.
• 56.4 percent of males exposed to ad videos compared to 43.6 percent for females.
• 4.6 million 15-24 year olds were exposed to video ads – accounting for more than a quarter of time spent overall”. (comScore Inc)

Video Ad Networks: USA Moving Rapidly into European Market

US marketers have not been slow to take advantage of this burgeoning market for online video advertising: Denver based SpotXchange is the largest global marketplace of video ad inventory, reaching 80 million unique visitors each month in more than 15 countries. It entered the UK market late 2011 and are already number one in the UK according to comScore’s VideoMetrix service

Source: Reelseo

YouTube is rolling out a new advertising model looking for new ways to monetize the vast amounts of content hosted on the video sharing site, AdWeek reports.

Google is offering channel sponsorships – consisting of display, overlay and pre-roll ads – giving advertisers looking for targeted marketing 96 original content channels in various categories to reach their preferred viewership.

Last June, Google revealed that 30% of YouTube’s viewers actually do watch the pre-roll ads, but more importantly than that, a study showed that the viewers who do choose to watch the ads are 75% more engaged on average than users who are subjected to standard ads. With these kinds of figures, it’s not surprising to find that YouTube’s asking price is more in-line with TV advertising prices. This once again proves the success in pre-roll campaigns (get to know the campaign Soda.tv developed for Arsys)

According to AdWeek, the new model could bring in anywhere beween $4 to $6 million per year, per sponsorship of a single channel. Its pre-roll rate comes in higher than the industry average, at $20 CPM.

YouTube is offering a shared-revenue model, meaning that after it recoups its initial production investment in channels, profits from sales are split down the middle with channel creators.

YouTube has been in talks with ad agencies since November to get the ball rolling on its new sponsorship model, but advertisers will be paying for a lot more than just targeted ads on YouTube channels. The $62 million price tag for exclusivity is also said to come with the condition that an investment is made across the rest of YouTube – meaning that 20% of the ads appear in the new channels, while the rest run across YouTube.

Social media examiner offers an interview the author of “6 pixels of separation: Everyone is connected, connect your business to everyone“, Mitch Joel.
Joel shares the key points of how the content has changed the way we do business, emphasizing the importance of developing the right marketing strategy for each business.

Among the key points that highlights the author, are:

• The old marketing model where information was shared progressively from one to another is obsolete. Now we are intrinsically connected.
• Social strategies for business: The right question is not “what to publish” on each channel but “why.” Why makes you look at the business model you want to achieve, what is the ROI, which is the true measure of business growth.
• Blogs should come from the passion to explain and share something, the failure of many companies is that they perceive them as a campaign, brands that are doing surprisingly well are those that face the blog strategy with a journalistic framework vs. a marketing initiative.
• The connection between social media and sales is direct if you’re really social. Understanding sociable as the ability to be findable and shareable.
• Video is at a boom currently because it has finally reached a point where digital technology and digital platforms are good, before it was not stable. Now you can create content in a very professional and high quality with a couple of cameras and basic technologies. Previously it was impossible to achieve the result you get today with the same gear. But the real challenge is to be excellent video marketing video.

Here is the interview from Social Media Examiner

Mitch Joel from Michael A. Stelzner on Vimeo.

A study prepared by the market firm Interrogate in conjunction with Madvertise shows the pre-roll video is now established among most efficient advertising formats.
This format appears before viewing content on mobile and is used currently by 60% advertisers to launch their campaigns. The boom continued through the emergence of the market of smartphones and tablets.
The video pre-roll was first used on the Internet a few years ago, now accounts for nearly 90% of the online video advertising , primarily for its ability to generate a brand recall of up to 69%.

Soda.tv

In the campaign Soda.tv made to Arsys with the aim of promoting its new service WebMaker, a video campaign was created composed of two parts, pre-roll videos and video tutorials.
The pre-roll videos were shown before the start of the videos from YouTube in two versions: 15 “and 30″. Nine days after posting the video on YouTube, without starting the campaign of pre-roll, the video had reached more than 438,000 views.