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Video Ads as Viral YouTube Tool? Brilliant!

Posted by Daniel R | March 7, 2007

Videos Ads for “Reign Over Me”, MyCadillacStory.com and Google’s Gmail

Making Video Ads Viral. But how about Direct to YouTube Viral?
I’ve been noticing that LinkedIn has been very aggressive in displaying video ads for Cadillac, a film called “Reign Over Me” and Google’s Gmail video. Yet, while being all videos advertisements, they share three very different paths when looking at what the ads link to:

  • “Reign Over Me” goes to a horrible Moviefone page with no call to action. What exactly am I supposed to learn or do when I get to this page?
  • Cadillac goes to a very slick looking “My Cadillac Story” minisite, with video profiles of famous people that have been changed by Cadillac, and includes the usual “Send to a Friend” links. This is very similar to the Blackberry Pearl minisite.
  • The Gmail Google Video is a quirky lo-fi video that links straight to the YouTube webpage for that video.

Cadillac and Gmail both wins points for execution, but the Gmail Team has a very interesting link back to YouTube. And here’s why:

  • Familiarity for the Users: This YouTube tie-in brings the user to a website that she/he is very familiar with and most likely has probably played around in, forward clips to friends from, copied and pasted YouTube videos to MySpace, etc.
  • Increased Exposure: Instead of having the video siloed on a standalone minisite – say GmailMuppetTheatre.com – the Gmail Team has positioned the video within YouTube itself, where it maybe found by a search on YouTube or because it made it to one of the top viewed videos this month (yep, it did).

This method is not for every client or advertiser. But for those who feel their video has strong “viralbility” and probably has strong attraction for a young adult audience, a YouTube-based Video Ad like Gmail’s should be considered.

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Posted by Mike on March 7, 2007 at 5:00 am

Yes, videos on YouTube can be an excellent vehicle to drive visitors and sales. We just published another test here:

http://blog.mindvalleylabs.com/marketing/how-i-made-a-dollar-from-everyone-who-watched-my-youtube-video/

Posted by links for 2007-03-08 « Uno se Blog on March 8, 2007 at 5:24 am

[...] Video Ads as Viral YouTube Tool? Brilliant! at Emergence Media (tags: viral video google emarketing) [...]

Posted by kelvin newman on March 8, 2007 at 8:55 am

I imagine it’s more out of having to keep it within the company than a strategic master stroke but that’s a real missed opportunity for reign over me.
People are unlikely to to click an ad unless it’s interesting, the ad producers have to realise the model is changing. Gone are the days when people watched adverts because they couldn’t get away with them. Now people will still view adverts but only when they want to.

Posted by kelvin newman on March 8, 2007 at 8:55 am

away “from” not away “with”

One day i’ll learn to proof read comments!

Posted by Daniel R on March 14, 2007 at 11:16 pm

@Kevin: “I imagine it’s more out of having to keep it within the company than a strategic master stroke ”

That maybe true, but they could of used their Google Video AdWords program, which doesnt look to YouTube.

“Gone are the days when people watched adverts because they couldn’t get away with them. Now people will still view adverts but only when they want to.”

There’s still some of that like pre-roll ads on online videos, but I think it is a good change. If we know what ads people want and can serve it to them, that’s greater relevancy and hopefully more cost-effective and better response rate.

@Mike:
Thanks for the tip. I’ve forwarded your article along to my co-workers in the office.

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