Blue Cat Media Group

Online Video Fastest-Growing Medium In The History Of The World!

noreply@blogger.com (Blue Cat Media Group) — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:07:00 +0000

Having gone from zero to mass market globally in three short years, online video is the fastest-growing media platform in history, according to a new report from social media research consultancy Trendstream and research firm Lightspeed.

In one week in January, 97 million Americans viewed a streaming clip online -- as many as are tuning into any major broadcast network -- according to a recent survey of 1,000 U.S. active Web users ages 16-65.

What's more, with 72% of U.S. Web users watching clips online, Web video outstrips both blogging and social networking, and is now the leading "social-media platform."

The "broadcast mode is dead," said Tom Smith, managing director of Trendstream. "Now is the time for co-creation, user distribution and a true democratization of video content."

The report also notes the power of interactivity that online video affords. In January 2009, 39% of respondents shared a clip online, and a further 31.5% contributed to the mass of online media by uploading a clip themselves.

Homemade content is by far the most popular content to upload, with 27% of those who uploaded a clip contributing material from this genre.

Content from digital cameras is most likely to make it onto the net, as 48% of contributors used this medium to create their content.

At 26% and 22%, respectively, home PCs and mobiles are the next-most popular choices for creating content.

A full 82% of 16- and 17-year-olds watched video online, compared with 65% of those ages fifty-five to sixty four. Fifty-two percent of 16- and 17-year-olds shared video clips online, compared with 29% of 55- to 64-year-olds, and a further 46% and 21% respectively uploaded a video.

With users from across the age spectrum watching, creating and distributing video content online, the so-called "digital divide" is not as wide as might be expected, according to Trendstream. It is also clear that the online video audience is far more sophisticated and influential than was previously supposed with the heaviest viewers in the 25 to 34 age bracket.

With 49 million active Web users -- 32% -- uploading content in January 2009, users of all ages now generate far more content than traditional broadcasters and collectively contribute the majority of video content to the Web.

According to Trendstream, broadcasters who wish to engage with this highly influential and affluent group need to develop highly compelling, multi-platform content that can be accessed through multiple gateways including email, music sites, news sites, film sites, blogs and social networks.

Source: Online Media Daily

ADWEEK: Making More Than a Good Impression.

noreply@blogger.com (Blue Cat Media Group) — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:41:00 +0000

NEW YORK As marketers continue to grapple with how to best make use of social media, moves are afoot to change the way success and failure are measured. And as the point of advertising in these venues is to engage users, the current dominant forms of measurement, based on clicks and impressions, fall short.

This has led a coterie of ad sellers and buyers to try new measurement and pricing methods for ads in environments much different than the typical content sites of the first wave of the Internet. Instead of looking at ad impressions, they are putting more weight on time spent with a brand, downloads of applications and their spread, and user-initiated views of videos. The hope is to find a way to prove to brands that advertising in these environments really works, and at a time when marketers are cutting budgets and have little patience for campaigns lacking direct evidence of success.

The moves are part of a larger debate going on in the digital ad world: How can the Internet be made to work for brand advertising? From the start, Internet advertising has largely mirrored its offline media counterparts. Display advertising, the most common model, has followed the adjacency model of print; video ads have mimicked TV commercials. Internet ads have also adopted the pricing of offline: cost-per-thousand impressions.

The sticking point with digital media is how vast it is. Page views -- and impressions -- can be generated easily. Breaking an article into three pages, for instance, will make four banner impressions into a dozen. What's more, the Internet has variations like placement of the ads on the page that make a one-size-fits-all impressions approach imperfect.

"Reach and frequency is a legacy of a one-way medium," said Troy Young, CMO at VideoEgg, an ad network that shifted to cost-per-engagement pricing 13 months ago.

VideoEgg is betting that it can use data to "optimize for engagement" in social media environments for brands like Honda, Warner Bros. and Unilever. It aims to figure out, for instance, what ad messages users are likely to choose to play a game; advertisers pay only when users take action.

Others are trying variations of this approach. Matt Freeman, former CEO of Tribal DDB, joined GoFish -- since renamed Betawave -- as CEO in June 2008 to take its portfolio of virtual world, animation and social-networking sites and create the type of advertising that caters to brands by capturing attention. For instance, Betawave digitized Sears' back-to-school line and introduced it into teen virtual worlds. It eventually wants to structure deals based on how much attention it can deliver, rather than impressions.

"It's like going to a 3-D movie without the glasses," Freeman said. "The Internet is more dimensional, but [for the most part] measurement criteria are the same as a one-way medium. You don't have the glasses so you're not appreciating the dimensions."

Many buyers seem to agree. Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus, said impression measurement misses the real power of many social-media programs that are, at their root, designed for engagement.

"The goals of a lot of these ads is to get people to see content others have created or invite others," he said. "It's not so much about the initial impression, but the lasting impressions created subsequently."

Sean Finnegan, president and chief digital officer at Starcom MediaVest Group, sees these multi-dimensional measurement models as inevitable. The Internet has thrived until now with lower-funnel activities closely related to a sale, he explained, which is why ad networks and search have done so well. But brands particularly focus on the top of the funnel at awareness and consideration.

"It's an opportunity to empower a model that accurately makes every step of the online process accountable, from traditional metrics like reach and time spent to interaction rates," he said. "It's just a fairer assessment."

Yet there are sticking points. Many publishers are uninterested in moving from the current system of impression pricing, even if their ads are specifically meant for engagement. Advertisers, who have the upper hand during a time of tight budgets and excess inventory, are already squeezing them, said Nate Elliott, an analyst with Forrester Research.

"The publishers are being asked to take on more risk," he said. "Smart publishers have the technology and the experience to deal with that and get the greatest yield per page -- no matter what the pricing model."

Facebook, for instance, has a two-tiered ad system. Its self-service ads are mostly cost per click, while it sells "engagement ads" on an impression basis. A Facebook rep said the company has no plans to change that, pointing out that "most of the industry still expects to buy on the standard CPM/CPC models."

While that's true, it's bound to change as media changes, said Chas Edwards, chief revenue officer of FM Publishing. Its campaigns often include social components like building out a blog for American Express and driving traffic there. Its stable of well-known writers not only fuel visits but also elicit conversations on Twitter and elsewhere. "It requires extra work in the marketing department and the agencies to look at proxies that might be better" than impressions, said Edwards.

That's led to reluctance to introduce a more nuanced measurement method to the accepted standards, according to Dave Yovanno, CEO of Gigya, a widget maker that sells content distribution to advertisers based on a cost-per-install model. It has found this to be a problem closing many deals, he said, because media planners will want to compare it to banner ad buys on an effective CPM basis. That misses all the interactivity and viral pass along from the campaigns, he argued.

"There's a lot of desire by advertisers to figure out new measures," he said. "They're so entrenched that it's hard to move them."

By Brian Morrissey

Social Media Marketing Industry Report: How Marketers Are Using Social Media to Grow Their Businesses.

noreply@blogger.com (Blue Cat Media Group) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:09:00 +0000

Very interesting report on how marketers are using social media to grow their business.

Download the report here

Using television is still the most powerful form of advertising!

noreply@blogger.com (Blue Cat Media Group) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:41:00 +0000

According to a recent study by Ball State University on the media consumption habits of average Americans, despite the Internet's steady rise in popularity over the last few years, television remains the dominant medium in most U.S. households. On average, the general population spends over four and a half hours a day in front of the tube, making TV watching one of the most common modern leisure activities. Is it any wonder then that television advertising is also the most powerful form of advertising?

Advertising on television allows you to show and tell a wide audience your business, product, or service. It allows you to actually demonstrate the benefits of ownership. You can show how your product or service works and how it's packaged so prospective customers will know what to look for at the point of sale. In advertising, it often takes multiple touch points to effectively influence consumers' purchasing behavior.

Television advertising has been a popular medium for large retailers ever since the TV first began to appear in living rooms. With the arrival of cable television came lowered production costs and the opportunity to reach smaller, more targeted markets, making it a viable option for small to medium-size businesses as well.

To create an effective television ad, it's first necessary to have a good script that highlights a strong offer. Ads must also be effectively produced, and it's for this reason that it's often better to enlist the services of an advertising agency, which can help you create an entire campaign.

Some of the advantages to advertising your small business on television include the following:

•TV reaches a much larger audience than local newspapers and radio stations, and it does so during a short period of time.
•It reaches viewers when they're the most attentive.
•It allows you to convey your message with sight, sound, and motion, which can give your business, product, or service instant credibility.
•It gives you an opportunity to be creative and attach a personality to your business, which can be particularly effective for small businesses that rely on repeat customers.

Businesses Embracing Online Video Will Fuel The Web's Revolution!

noreply@blogger.com (Blue Cat Media Group) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 14:15:00 +0000

By Dave Dutch , Wednesday, January 21, 2009

IF VIDEO KILLED THE radio star, online video will surely kill the static web.

Video is poised to permeate the Web in a way that goes far beyond YouTube's user-generated clips. The Web's design and flexibility make it a powerful visual medium, with moving images, Flash and animation fast becoming the lingua franca. This presents corporate America -- and private enterprise in general -- with a huge opportunity.

All Video, All the Time.

Previously we took a quick look at some of the ways the video-centric Web is becoming a vital channel for driving user engagement and loyalty, as well as powerful internal tool benefitting employees. This article will demonstrate how some well-known brands are already defining the Web experience of the future. The following are a handful of ways video is impacting corporate Web strategies and business models:

Company news and information.

Web video enables organizations to become their own broadcast networks. For example, rather than being greeted by the customary block of text and images on a company's home page, visitors may find a running video news feed. British Sky Broadcasting posts its top news stories as video. Organizations can populate the corporate news room with video news releases. To satisfy investors and meet compliance requirements, companies can populate on-demand libraries with shareholder meetings, annual reports and RSS videocasts on a host of topics.

Product information and how-to.

Video can be a key enabler of product support and advice. Avery, the office supply company, offers a library of demos that show how to pull off that pesky mail merge, among other office tasks. Another example, Scott's Miracle-Gro Company, has turned its Web site into a consumer-centric source of advice on lawn care, gardening and related topics. Here, video serves as the primary format for "help" articles.

Branded entertainment.

Organizations can deliver original video content directly to customers. Nike.com offers sports-specific channels that, in addition to offering video-based training, feature stories about Nike athletes. A good example is the basketball documentary on Team USA's road to Beijing.

Best practices and knowledge management.

If commercials and entertainment can be viral, so can internal company knowledge. A manufacturing company with plants all over the world could enable far-flung employees to record and share best practices. Along those same lines, investment in education and training can be expanded exponentially by giving distributed offices and facilities access to video-based programs, seminars and workshops. IT consulting firm Bluewolf provides an example of how businesses might accomplish this-the firm shares its case studies and testimonials with external audiences on Bluewolf TV.

Community.

User-generated content (UGC) can turn customers and fans into a network of content creators who communicate through video. Cult footwear favorite Crocs, for instance, has set up a site that invites lovers and haters of the brand to upload videos about how they feel about the product. And look for more companies to build communities with video as the primary form of content.

UGC offers organizations a significant source of original content and can foster a natural community that keeps a pulse of the brand. This is where two of today's most powerful trends -- online video and the social Web -- combine to form a new capability for business: the power to create and sustain new communities, glued together by our most compelling mass medium.

Turning on the Spigot.

So why should corporate America embrace the video-centric Web? Remember the lessons of a certain small appliance maker called Blendtec. This small business came out of nowhere in a crowded and competitive market segment to establish a vibrant business on the back of short, simple video segments. You never know where the best ideas or content will come from. Successful companies will be the ones that engage online communities with video that is compelling and continuous.

Video Use Will Continue To Rise, Per Web Influencers

noreply@blogger.com (Blue Cat Media Group) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:06:00 +0000

by Gavin O'Malley, Monday, Oct 20, 2008 7:00 AM ET

A full 65% of online media sites now use video, according to a new Web Influencers Internet Media Tour Survey conducted by D S Simon Productions. What's more, 77% of online media sites project the use of video to increase over the next year.

The study gathered responses from some 200 "Web influencers" from top media outlets such as USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, network affiliate TV stations in the top 10 media markets, WINS-AM Radio in New York, and top media Web sites as well as one-person "Mommy-blogging" sites.

About 45% of TV stations use outside video for their Web sites, while two-thirds--67%--of radio stations, newspapers, magazines and bloggers use outside video on their Web sites.

"Web Influencers are now the mainstream media," said Douglas Simon, president and CEO of D S Simon Productions. "So we sought to find differences in the use of video among sites affiliated with TV stations, radio stations, newspapers, and magazines, as well as blogs. We need to understand the content needs of these Web Influencers if we hope to communicate successfully in the online world."

Not surprisingly, TV stations were most likely to use video, at 79%. Web sites and bloggers were second at 70%. More than half of all newspapers and magazines are using video on their sites.

"Web Media" is the most open to using outside video, according to the study, while radio stations were next, followed by print outlets and television stations.

Notably, the study found that the politicization of third-party video on television has carried over to station Web sites, "where they overwhelmingly are interested in using B-Roll compared to other content."

The strongest interest in outside video content was from "Web media."

Click to read this article on the MediaPostPublications.com website.

72% of U.S. Adults Have Broadband Access

noreply@blogger.com (Blue Cat Media Group) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:28:00 +0000

Dial-up Internet access is disappearing as barrier to the adoption of podcasting, video podcasting and other Internet media.
Seventy-two percent of U.S. adults now have access to a broadband connection and more than half of American households now subscribe to broadband, according to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). With 20 percent of non-broadband subscribers expecting to adopt this service in the next two years, future growth looks strong, said CEA President and CEO, Gary Shapiro. Yet, competition among broadband service providers must stay robust for this expected growth to prevail.
Consumers must have access to media-rich entertainment content they can use anytime, anywhere at a reasonable price. Unfortunately, the average broadband speed in the US lags significantly behind other countries. This is likely to slow adoption of HD podcasting, Internet-television and hardware devices like the Apple TV.

For online households, it is clear that broadband is the primary connection. 75 percent of households with Internet access subscribe to broadband. For these households, 65 percent decided to upgrade for a faster Internet connection. For non-subscribers, 15 percent say price is the number one reason they don’t have broadband in the home. With more facilities-based competition, price will surely go down and provide incentives for providers to upgrade their service offering. Most importantly, Shapiro continued, increased broadband access brings with it the hope of widely disseminating knowledge and improving healthcare and distance learning services. Broadband access spurs innovation and technology for all Americans.

The research also revealed that while much of the broadband debate has focused on broadband in the home, this is only part of the broadband story. Many Americans are also accessing broadband connections in numerous places outside the home. Today, adults without broadband in their home access the Internet from work, public libraries, and schools as well as even through portable devices like wireless phones. These results highlight how broadband Internet connections outside of the primary residence have become an ever important component of broadband access.