Tag Archives: Video

Next to Now: This Week in Reading

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For the Week Ending April 24, 2015

Facebook’s strength in video ads is gaining momentum. #video

How do you define success? It’s important to remember context when thinking about campaign performance. #metrics

What do librarians do after quietly sending patrons on their way for the day and locking up?  Rocking out after hours. #hilarious

A new content platform to compete with Medium, Atavist, et al. This one from MIT’s Media Lab so it bears watching. #content

Social influencer marketing grows in importance, particularly for younger demos (via @PeterMcCarthy). #social

Why live in New York? Steve Earle has a righteous POV on this (as in most things):

“I need to live in New York. It’s the cave of the sleeping sharks: They used to think that sharks didn’t sleep, but it turns out they found a cave off the coast of Mexico where the sharks found a current, and they just turn their heads toward the current and the oxygen comes to them. That’s what New York’s like: The oxygen comes to you. If I get my wings clipped and I can’t travel anymore, this is where I want to be.”

#newyork

A big long piece helps Sheryl Sandberg make a convincing argument that Facebook is poised to eat the advertising dollars of TV and Google. Then it ends on a note not hinted at in their click-bait headline:

“But TV advertising, while still more expensive than other forms of advertising — particularly most forms of digital such as banners and mobile — does still tend to reap rewards for marketers. It’s a longer-tail game: People who see a TV ad don’t usually immediately click to buy the product or pick up the phone to change their insurance provider — but over time it is a branding tool that lifts awareness, affinity, recall, and other metrics. There is also some evidence that TV remains the most effective ad medium…”

#video

Google gets set to compete with Taboola and Outbrain. #discovery

Your opt-in email addresses may be the way to target consumers online. #email

Put Your Video to Work

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In the past few years, book publishers have created a lot of interesting, entertaining and relevant video content that sits un-watched on You Tube and author websites. The “Post-It-and-They-Will-Come” model is clearly not working. Several major publishers are creating dynamic homepages in hopes that they will become reader destinations and communities. While there is a useful role for these sites as resources for reviewers, news gatherers and others in the industry, none has either the mass scale or niche credibility needed to gain traction with the reading public. One exception might prove to be Tor.com which is leveraging their Sci-Fi brand and expertise with a publisher-agnostic site.

Verso Digital encourages all publishers to take their video to the book’s audience where it’s most active and engaged online. Here are some strategies for leveraging that content right now.

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A recent report from DoubleClick, mirrors our own experience with flash and video book ads—showing that video ads have significantly higher levels of engagement than standard flash ads. Recent technology breakthroughs make it easier than ever to use in video in all kinds of places that were formerly off-limits for technological or budgetary reasons. We have run highly successful video ad campaigns on everything from Facebook apps such as Visual Bookshelf to NYTimes.com–and can now run video ads across the entire Verso Reader Channel ad network for a minimal additional cost. All without incurring the additional expense of using a third party server.

As the average time spent online officially passes time spent watching TV, it’s important to remember that viewers don’t necessarily make the same distinction as a professional data company like Bowker does between “TV” and “Online.” With the explosive growth of sites like Hulu, audiences are increasingly accessing TV content online. This creates an opportunity on sites to reach TV audiences in new ways. Hulu’s channels, from News & Information to Sports to Food and Leisure, are a perfect fit for the categories of contemporary publishing. And in the last two months, Verso has had success with campaigns on Hulu’s “Science Fiction” channel for everything from Vampire Romance to an epic Norse poem translated by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The NYTimes R&D Lab has been inspirational in rethinking content and advertising—mixing high-quality reporting with photos, video, audio and Web 2.0-style community-input. There is an ever-increasing array of advertising products associated with this new content, and Verso Digital is taking advantage of them as they come along—not only with the NYTimes iPhone and Blackberry apps, but also with pre-roll and rich-media offerings on the site. It’s important to stay current with what the Times is working on, so Verso teamed up with them for a series of breakfasts that introduce our clients to the latest thinking from R&D. We’ve had two sold-out events so far, featuring such forward-thinking strategists as Martin Nisenholtz and Nick Bilton, and will be scheduling more in the months to come.

While sites like Hulu and NYTimes.com allow us to re-purpose the traditional :15-:30 spots we’ve always created, the Web gives us the chance to reimagine how we can use video assets of all kinds. Whether it’s for author blogs, news sites, broadcast-TV, and social media apps, Verso can create or repurpose existing video for use wherever it’s needed. You know all those book trailers you made that are sitting in your digital basement? Well, it’s time to dust them off and put them to work.