The new generation of online marketing
With the recent successes of sites like MySpace, Facebook and YouTube the internet marketing space has all but flipped on it’s side for consumer-driven products & services. The old model was a combination of banner ads, text ads, and cross-linking promotions. It worked for a while, but the effectiveness of these campaigns was lost on the core target market: the technology-savvy teenagers that are starting to flood the internet.
These kinds of advertisements are easy to block out through either programatic methods (such as Firefox’s AdBlock extension) or simply through psychological means. Many young people using the internet are immune to large banner ads because they know they’re all scams. So how do big companies push their products to this new generation? The online market is massive and growing by the day — there must be some way to tap into it.
Enter viral marketing
It’s long been known that viral marketing is some of the best marketing you can produce. What’s better than having your very market promote your advertising media? The trick here is coming up with ways to tap this viral market. It’s hard to tell just exactly what’s going to strike a chord with your market, and this is always the case. The second question is how to promote and spread this media.
YouTube anyone?
I’ll admit it: I’ve become a recent fan of YouTube. Everything from the longelygirl15 drama to the countless YouTube “stars.” I freaking love it. It’s great to watch the rich-media web take off in such a fashion and take the blogosphere from pixels on a screen to real faces and real voices interacting with each other at nearly real-time.
I’m sure you’ve all heard of Agency.com’s big Subway movie that circled the internets not too long ago. It was a testament to just how powerful YouTube is as a delivery medium. It’s clear that YouTube has the power to spread videos at a rapid pace — so now companies are faced with the challenge of how to get people to watch these videos.
Forced to watch vs. wanting to watch
A large distinction between this new wave of advertising in comparison to older advertising is the drive to create collateral that people want to watch rather than material that they have to watch. If you take something like a standard 30 second spot during an episode of LOST — the people watching this advertisement are generally forced to watch it (whether through laziness or habit). However, with viral media, the challenge is to create something that people actively want to watch that still promotes the product/brand.
The great thing is that now there is an amazingly popular, easy to use, and free delivery platform for rich media: YouTube. With this potent combination of viral advertising and popular delivery platform, I have a feeling that we’re going to see some of the most inventive advertising we’ve seen in decades. Not only are advertisers going to have more money to spend on collateral (since they’re not paying millions for TV spots), but they are also going to have an audience that pays more attention and converts better.
I personally can’t wait. I’ve always been a fan of advertising and I’ll be sitting on the edge of my seat while this wave passes through.
The video that inspired this post
And now to demonstrate the video that inspired this post. Great work, surefire hit among their audience, and pretty entertaining to boot.
Thumbs up, Maxim.
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This entry was published on October 1, 2006 mid-afternoon.
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