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We’re preparing a campaign of serial videos to promote products online. In doing a little research, I came across some great examples of ads gone viral. Here are a few of them.
1. Blendtec’s “Will it Blend”. Amazingly viral and a brilliant product driven series. This iPhone video has over 5,100,000 Youtube views.
2. Quicksilver’s amazing, low-pro Dynamite Surfing video: 700,000 Youtube views
Jonathan
More and more communities are now publishing podcasts to promote and seek economic growth. Two great examples are the cities of Virginia Beach and Denver.
Virginia Beach’s Department of Economic Development began podcasting in March. Interviews have included a city councilman, the editor of Men’s Fitness magazine and retired NFL icon Emmitt Smith.
“We’re trying to show we’re really in tune with what’s happening,” said Cynthia Whitbred-Spanoulis, the department’s strategy and performance coordinator.
City of Virginia Beach Podcast
Matthew
Podcasting is seen to have a positive effect on radio listening, according to a study relased today in the UK. Rajar (Radio Joint Audience Research Ltd) released findings of its second survey into podcasting and radio listening via the internet. The findings were based on 863 respondents who were asked to complete an online questionnaire.
People were asked if they had ever listened to the radio stations via the internet and the study found that 14.5 million people had done so - up 2.5 million from 12 million in November 2007.
When asked if listening to podcasts effectived their radio listening, three quarters of those listeners said podcasting had no impact on the amount of live radio to which they listened. And almost half said they were listening to radio programs to which they did not listen to previously.
Six million people in the UK have downloaded a podcast, up from 4.3 million in the previous survey. iTunes remained the software of choice, used by almost three-quarters of podcast users to subscribe to podcasts.
Overall the study showed that Podcasting appeared to have a positive effect on live radio listening. Almost 15% of respondents said they listened to more live radio since they began downloading podcasts while 10% stated they listened to less, and 39% said they were listening to radio programs they did not listen to previously.
Podcast listening occurred throughout the day, with an evening peak, when 44% of podcast users pressed the play button. The survey also found that 53% of respondents said they would be interested in downloading podcasts containing advertising if they were free, while only 31% responded positively to the idea of podcasts with advertising that had to be paid for.
This study somewhat contridicts the long thought idea that podcasting is stealing the terrestrial radio listening audience. It appears that the opposite is occuring, and that podcasting is recondioning listeners to listen to audio programs and even introducing them to content that they previsously were unaware of.
I have always loved pairing radio with podcasting. Radio serves as an excellent promotional vehicle and provides an instant audience, where podcasting allows you to manage that audience as they subscsribe to your feed.
Matthew
A great way to deliver your podcast is through a pre-loaded, custom-branded iPod or MP3 device. Ipods are great because of their high perceived value, their ability to carry a great marketing message, and its use for the customer beyond.
Your logo can be imprinted on the iPod carefully loaded with a:
1. “best-of” edit sold as a premium product.
2. a “season 1″ edit. This would be a great giveaway - incentivizing your audience to fill out your ratings and reviews, or fill out your demographic surveys.
If you included a small audio edit educating them about how to subscribe to and download future podcasts, you’ve got a subscriber who will tell all their friends and family about you.
Jonathan
Dan Mason, president and CEO of CBS Radio, and his crew rolled into San Francisco this week to talk about radio in the digital age. Mason told the crowd of mainly media buyers, radio personalities and sales executives that radio is still very much relevant in this new digital age. Mason also pointed out that the prediction of the demise of radio has a long history dating pack to the advent of the launch of TV. More recent forecasters have continued on with this theme, saying that 8-track tapes, cassettes, CD’s, satellite radio and iPod’s would kill radio. However, in this round of innovation, it seems that CBS plans on embracing the change as demonstrated in its launch of the new play.it media player. The objective seems to be to target the 9-5 at work listening audience, who may not be able to receive a radio signal or bring a radio into their work space.
The player which will be marketed jointly with AOL seems to be ahead of the pack in web based media players. Now listeners will be able to listen to radio stations from around the country from a single radio station’s website. So if you are a music fan and you enjoy listening to Alice Radio in San Francisco, and you hear news of Elliott Sptizer, you can click over to CBS’s NYC news station, WCBS to get the low down.
But this is only one interesting feature of the player, which soon will have a Pandora-like feel to it. Listeners will be able to create their own radio station by typing in an artist and getting suggestions of other similar artists. The listener will then be able to easily rank the artists by dragging them closer to the start of the play list. If for instance, you are a big Springsteen fan, but hate the Eagles — you can ban the Eagles from ever playing on your station.
There are multiple benefits to advertisers with this new platform, as banner ads can now be contextually placed in the media player and synced with the content of the audio feed. For instance, if a music station is promoting a concert, a graphic could appear on the player during the ad or even when the talent talks about the concert.
I asked Mason about allowing advertiser generated content to be integrated in the player, and he said it’s open for discussion. I wondered if I could place some of the financial programs that I syndicate into the player, so a listener could create their own business talk radio station. All I can report right now is, stay tuned…
Matthew
Nobody explains it better than a Ninja.
Matthew
Word of mouth is the most powerful and sought after type of marketing. If your people are referring you to to their friends and family, who in turn refer to their friends and family, your likely-hood of closing is much, much higher - and its free!
There have been numerous studies done that found other customer’s testimonials are much more believable than shout advertising. WOM is so powerful there is even a Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) that meets every year.
Why is it so powerful? Its trusted, its self-reinforcing (here it from many personal sources and its got to be true), and its self-perpetuating (the viral effect of others spreading it).
What are some technologies that employ WOM?
Community forums and ratings & reviews. Forums allow the product enthusiasts to discuss with each other your product. Check to see if a forum about your product or service already exists. If not, you can easily start one and kick off the forum which relevant questions. Let your lead customers drive WOM inside the forum to other spectators.
Ratings and reviews are huge. If you saw 30 Five-star ratings for a podcast with 30 positive reviews in iTunes on a topic you’re considering learning about (i.e. the stock market, real estate) and the other podcast had little or no activity, which you would consider downloading and listening to? iTunes’ ratings and review section is a huge initiator of downloads and subscriptions. Utilizing these features can add big-time listenership to your podcast.
Jonathan
1. Listen to what other people are blogging about before you jump in. Explore your industry’s blogs. Use Google Blog and Technorati to search for blogs using your keywords. Find some and read the posts. If they’re relevant, make a comment. The easiest way to get started is by adding to the conversation on someone else’s blog. This also ups your creditibility in the public eye.
2. Determine your outcome for your blog. Is it research tool for getting customer feedback? Is it a tool to drive sales? Do you want to provide support for your clients?
3. Practice first before going live. Write 5-10 posts to get a feel and read posts by others in your space.
4. Create an editorial process. Sometimes compliance needs to approve the text. What happens if you can write on your expected day?
5. Create a plan so that people can find your blog. You could use a press release from prweb.com, or buy some Google Adwords. Let all your existing database know through email blasts or radio spots. A great, free way is to add to the conversation on other’s blogs and leave have your blog URL in your signature. Put links in your posts to other blogs that have your potential audience base.
6. Enable comments. Moderate them by removing off-topic responses or offensive responses and respond to the ones that drive the conservation. Go on to other blogs and comment on them.
Jonathan
Sample Audio Converted to Video for YouTube
Google this weeked added visitor demographic information to its analytics tool on YouTube. This new feature will allow for a combined total view of all the videos uploaded by a person or organization. The feature breaks down viewership by age group, gender, or a combination of the two. The information is based on what users provide Google when they set up a YouTube account.
This first version charts video views on an interactive time line and map, allowing users to drill down into different geographic regions and see the viewing activity in those regions over selected time periods. It also allows users to compare the relative popularity of their videos in a given region to all other videos in that region.
A lot of our clients have either published books or are in the development process of releasing a book. Here’s an idea, what about releasing a couple of the chapters as a podcast? That’s exactly what Seth Harwood did, he writes crime stories. Seth started out the podcast route, eventually released his novel through Amazon with a small publisher, and how has been picked up by Random House. It may seem strange to give away part of something you are creating and hoping to sell but it has several advantages.
I know feedback is a critical component to getting a book project off the ground, or I wouldn’t get so many manuscripts. How about distributing that first chapter through your podcast feed to get feedback from listeners who are already supporters? If you get enought feedback then create an online forum for fans to participate, give you ideas and suggestions on what they are looking for. This type of market research has an added value in building up an audience that is ready to go out and support the book sales once it is released. It obviously works for a crime story writer, can it work for you?
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