While online advertising fell overall in 2009, ad spend on online videos grew 41%.

And, with good reason.  Nielsen Research has recently released a report based on 14,000 surveys to measure the impact of video advertising online vs. video advertising on television. 

The patterns they uncovered were consistent:  video ads run during online full-episode TV programs yield deeper brand impact than corresponding on-air TV ads, with the difference most pronounced among younger viewers age 13-34.

"What accounts for this variation in impact between online video and traditional TV? Data shows that web video viewers are more engaged and attentive to the programs they are watching, which is likely a function of the viewing environment and the oft-required active mouse-clicking to initiate and continue content. Online video is also still a relative novelty compared to traditional forms of media.  Further, and most significantly, reduced ad clutter and the inability to easily skip ads are considerable recall-enhancing factors."

Another conclusion - "online video ads help to reinforce and strengthen the impact of a traditional TV campaign."

More data and analysis here.

Here's an interesting summary of a study conducted jointly by Nielsen and Facebook to determine the effectiveness of different strategies in FB ads.

"Study after study has shown that consumers trust their friends and peers more than anyone else when it comes to making a purchase decision. It’s critical that we understand advertising not just in terms of “paid” media, but also in terms of how “earned” media (advertising that is passed along or shared among to friends and beyond) and social advocacy contribute to campaigns. To that end, we took a closer look at 14 Facebook ad campaigns that incorporated the “Become A Fan” engagement unit and sliced the effectiveness results three different ways, by each of the types of ads available on Facebook: 1) Lift from a standard “Homepage Ad”; 2) Lift from an ad that featured social context or “Homepage ads with Social Context”; and 3) Lift from “Organic Ads,” newsfeed stories that are sent to friends of users who engage with advertising on a brand."

If you're interested in keeping abreast of the latest in online advertising and its effectiveness, you should be intrigued by the results.  I wonder if there are any negative implications for a brand if users are offended by unwanted and intrusive ads on social media platforms such as Facebook?

Read the entire summary here.

An interesting marketing/sign-of-the-times article from the Boston Globe, "We, the Target Audience."

"Nothing is off-limits from the dumb hard sell anymore - even things that aren't identifiably for sale. The long-lamented creep of commercialization has now crawled outside the bounds of commerce entirely, till real experiences and events have become promotional versions of themselves.

When public and governmental institutions are the ones doing the marketing, it's especially unsettling."

Read the entire article here.

Short but good article by Wizard Academy founder Roy Williams on The New Branding.

Roy was the first person to help me begin to understand the massive cultural shift we are experiencing today and why it was so predictable, at least in its macro elements.

As we start a new year it's good to remember this quote from a 2006 post -  General Eric Shinseki, former US Army Chief of Staff -

"If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less."

Link for RSS readers.

Couple of sites with some more details about the Future of Online Advertising Conference.

BehindtheBuzz has the most comprehensive coverage I have seen.

Lots of links to other sites with coverage over at Digital Perm.

The conference has been excellent. 

I'm a bit weary of writing about it, so let me summarize (in my own words like Mrs. Johnson told me in sophomore English).

• The rate of growth in online advertising is steep which is creating a lot of opportunities for those who figure it out.
• According to a survey by Marketing Sherpa, the combined spend for paid search and online ads for a recent 12-month period is estimated at 12.2 billion dollars.  This is substantial but to give it perspective consider that the spend for direct (postal) mail alone was $58.7 billion, newspapers $30 billion, and even local radio rang in at $15.5 billion.  But online is growing the fastest and is in fact eating into ad spends for many other mediums including television.
• According to Jay Adelson of Digg and Revision 3 fame, forget trying to build Internet video around the Flash player.  You're going to need something portable and something that will work well with that big flat screen hanging on your living room wall.
• Carla Hendra of Ogilvy had a lot of great points including:

Lunch was "butlered" no less.

This FOOA conference really has a great line up of speakers.  There's almost too much to digest, but I've been busy making mind maps for each of the speakers to help me remember the salient points.  And my MacBook Pro has been performing flawlessly.

Chas Edwards of Federated Media kicked off the afternoon focused on the emergence of conversational media.  For businesses, the key is finding out what your customers are discussing and then try to enter into that conversation.  He noted that Business Week says its blogs are now more influential than its magazine.

Ted Murphy of PayPerPost talked about connecting advertisers to bloggers.  I'm not too big on the idea of bloggers selling ads and I think the number of organizations who can benefit from blog advertising are limited.  But, PayPerPost is a good resource for those interested.

Henry Copeland, founder of BlogAds, was up next.  Blogs could be locations where your customers are carrying on those conversations. 

Blogs Only Promotion for new Budget Campaign.

Budget Car Rental has launched a new campaign with no promotional support other than blogs.  Budget has not even prepared a press release about the campaign. The Up Your Budget promotion features a 16-city treasure hunt with $160,000 in prizes.  Four $10,000 prizes will be hidden each week for a month.  New clues are posted daily at the Up Your Budget site.

A good explanation of the treasure hunt here at adrants.com.

Read more at whatnextblog.com and at gapingvoid.com.

UpYourBudget.com

technorati tags: UpYourBudget, UpYourBudget+Treasure+Hunt,  UpYourBudget+Treasure+Hunt+clues, Budget+Car+Rental, BL+Ochman

Unique Format Used for Longhorns Football Season Coverage

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- A fan-targeted magazine for the University of Texas football team is being held up as a groundbreaking way to market to a niche audience on the Web.

The university, with the help of Host Communications, Lexington, Ky., has produced what is believed to be the first Internet-based video magazine. The Texas V-Mag will chronicle the 2005 Longhorns season.

“It’s reality TV via the Internet,” said Kathleen Hessert, CEO of Charlotte, N.C.-based NewGame Communications, which is producing the magazine.

The technology itself is not unusual, but no one is using video in a magazine format in this particular way, said Don Nicholas, editor and managing director of Mequoda Group, which provides consulting to Internet publishers. “Of the 300 case studies we have [of publishers] using video, not one is doing what the University of Texas is doing,” he said.

Link to complete article at AdAge (free registration)

VMag Promo <= click there.

Narrowcasting is another important trend.  I don't believe TV, Radio and other broadcasting is going away.  At least not completely.  But, the ability to narrowcast through podcasting, VOD, internet radio and video... all of these will gradually but surely eat into the dominance of broadcasting.  The people at UT are aiming at a very narrow audience, supporters of UT athletics, particularly football.  But, because video production costs have dropped greatly with technology advances and since the internet allows the athletic department to talk to its supporters (those who have given permission, many enthusiastically), I think this may have a chance of being very successful.  The cost is $24.95 for four issues delivered over the course of the football season.

How could narrowcasting change your business or ministry model?