Harmonic Aftershock

What's so special about Facebook Autoplay Ads?

I was quoted in today's Adweek article about Facebook's autoplay ads.

Here are my full thoughts:

Facebook has become a place where people share content in all kinds of formats. Bandwidth and streaming technology is finally at a place that makes video extremely accessible and easy to consume across devices in various conditions. With its emphasis on native video, Facebook is beginning to contend with YouTube—especially for ad dollars.

However, just because it’s an autoplay video ad, doesn’t mean it’ll perform well. Relevance through targeting is an important factor of success and most of all, the actual creative is key. The power of autoplay is in its potential to break through the clutter and grab people’s attention. The first few seconds of the video is crucial to doing that.

Content matters big time both to draw audiences in and to sustain them long enough to make a brand linkage. Taking a brand’s 15 second TV spot and force fitting into a Facebook autoplay ad isn’t going to cut it. The creative must be tailored to the native format and consumption behaviors of the specific platform it’s running on. Facebook, Snapchat, Vine, etc. are all different in format, storytelling, and audience norms but they all must ladder up to a larger video strategy.

Twitter recently launched their autoplay ad solution and just last month CNN’s getting in on their own autoplay game. Publishers are going to chase the ripest revenue streams and build out their ad tech accordingly. It’ll continue to evolve as tech capabilities advance with consumer behavior. But one thing is absolutely certain: Video has been a central part of people’s lives since the dawn of motion pictures in the early 1900s. How we experience video will continue to evolve. And you can bet that advertisers will find ways to be part of it, as publishers need to monetize.

It’s ironic to think that regular TV commercials have always been inherently “auto play” but in a world of ad skipping, they have to work so much harder to grab viewers’ attention. That’s why brands are now creatively embedding themselves into actual TV programming with less singular reliance on the standard commercial pod.

But the bigger question is what’s “television” today, anyway? The lines between TV and video content have blurred. Gone are the days of TV campaigns. Brands today need a comprehensive video strategy that transcends media channels while creatively respecting their uniquely native opportunities. It’s time we’re all coloring outside of the lines.

You can read the resulting Adweek article.

Online Video: The Power of Choice

This past October I presented at the Inbound Marketing Summit Boston and previously shared the teaser video leading up to that presentation. I was recently sent the link to the video of the actual presentation that I gave and here it is. If you don't want to watch the 30 minute version, you can, instead check out the 3 minute version.

I'm looking forward to doing an updated and adapted version this as the opening keynote at IMS New York City on April 3rd.

See you all in 2013 :-)

The many interpretations of “social TV.”

During Boston’s FutureM week, I was on a social TV panel as part of the Inbound Marketing Summit.

The topic of social TV + business-to-business came up throughout – and I wonder if we’re over using the buzzword of “social TV” to describe things that have nothing to do with television. Or is it that the definition of TV is changing?

Top 5 tips for online video.

I'm looking forward to speaking about online video at this coming Wednesday's Inbound Marketing Summit (part of FutureM week). If you're not able to catch the full 30 minute presentation, here's the Cliffs Notes version in just 1/10 of the time ;-)

I'll also be chatting about Social TV later that day and you can catch the most recent episode of The Pulse on Lost Remote or check out all of them so far.

What makes a video go viral?

The video of 32-year-old Jeremiah McDonald having a conversation with his 12-year-old self is making its rounds within the social web.

While currently at 1.6 million views after just day, the media is hailing it as a “viral video” success. But what’s interesting is as I took a look at Jeremiah’s YouTube channel, I noticed that he a did similar video about a year ago (3000 views)…and also 5 years ago (14,000 views).

11 Months Ago

5 Years Ago

So I wondered why these other two videos with the same exact concept which used the same “12 year old self” source footage didn’t also virally spread like the most recent one. A few observations:

• The most recent video is much more professionally edited.
• YouTube was in its infancy 5 years ago (but not a year ago).
• Mainstream media is, of late, in a love affair with trending videos/topics.
• Many more people are using social media causing content to spread faster.
• Jeremiah specifically asked his 13k YouTube subscribers to "Please share this one."

With that said, it would seem that his past videos could have been re-discovered and re-ignited just the same as doing a new one – and reaffirms the notion that having a video “go viral” is large part content for sure…but also a whole lot of luck and timing with people (and media) having engaged social followings inspired to share interesting content. 

 

Video: Demo of Boxee Box

A month ago I did a video demo of GoogleTV. But long before Google launched its take on Connected TVs, I had my eye squarely on Boxee Box. In fact, it was almost a year ago when I first Tweeted about it and was psyched when it arrived on my doorstep last Wednesday. I already live tweeted my Boxee Box unbundling and setup but here’s my video demo & review of the device & application.

Among the things that differentiate Boxee from its competition is how social media is embedded into its user experience as a means to discover new content. Boxee is not just a convergence of Web + TV but also a convergence of social media + TV -- and this can be very powerful union when done right.

As Avner Ronen (Boxee's CEO) recently stated, “I think social is going to be a big part of TV consumption even more so than search. Often times you don't know what you want to watch and it's about surfacing content that's relevant to you.”

The one gripe I have (which I’m sure Boxee will address) is the painfully slow download speeds of cover art as one browses TV shows and movies.

And once Boxee gets Hulu Plus and Netflix onto their platform later this year, its library of content will be on par with (if not better than) its competition.

SNL Digital Shorts – “A gateway drug”

This past Thursday, NBC aired a special primetime Saturday Night Live which featured a retrospect of the show over the past decade. And in a sign of the times, an entire segment was given to the impact of SNL’s “digital shorts.”

If there is any question as to why portable content and cross-channel media distribution is important, just ask Lorne Michaels (SNL Executive Producer). In an interview during the show, Lorne touted the fact that the massive amounts of views through content sharing of the digital shorts online has brought a whole new audience to the (TV) show. “People who hadn’t seen the show had seen [the web videos] and that then brings them to the show.”

And if cast member Andy Samberg and his two college buddies never took a risk and shot Lettuce, SNL’s first digital short would never have come to be. It wasn’t until their third one, Lazy Sunday, that “blew the roof off the place” and Andy Samberg was recognized on the street for the first time. NOT because of the TV show, but because of YouTube.

One SNL producer mentioned that the reason that many SNL sketches “go viral” is because their show, inherently, is built for [the web] “little 3 minute clips which is about as much as you want to watch online – and we’ve got a lot of them!”

But as we all know, content is key and just because you make a video and upload it to YouTube doesn’t mean people want to watch (and share) it. It takes a certain kind of magic that is hard to reproduce for something to be considered “viral.” Just like bad products won’t sell no matter how much you try to market them, bad content won’t be consumed either.

And when Justin Timberlake sang alongside Andy Samberg in “%&$# in a box” (a hat tip to early 90s cheesy R&B), Jimmy Fallon recounted, “people were crying” (with laughter) and the video spread like wildfire online.

And that is why SNL’s digital shorts are described as "a gateway drug into SNL". They’ve become “a way in” to the TV show for a growing number of people whose first exposure to Saturday Night Live is online, not broadcast TV.