Golley Slater Digital
Liz Faber, director of Golley Slater Digital argues that online advertising is all about content and user generated content.
"For the past decade content has been declared ‘king’ of the internet. This year it will finally live up to the title, but not in the way that has been predicted before.
Last year’s rise of the so-called Web 2.0 companies has changed the way we view, consume and engage with content. The tools are readily available for people to create their own content, from personal blogs, networking on MySpace, peer reviews on Amazon, shared knowledge in Wikipedia, images on Flickr, videos on YouTube, to whole worlds in Second Life. Successful brand-led content is no longer just about information and ‘stickiness’; it’s about content that people can interact with, that they seek out and that they create themselves. In 2006 some forward-thinking brands and marketers started to get involved; 2007 will be the year in which brands truly harness this new peer production making search marketing much more effective", says Faber.
Faber says that User Generated Content is going to be the most accurate method of measuring digital and online advertising.
"The biggest story of 2006 was, of course, YouTube, which in little over a year became one of the internet’s most popular destinations, with tens of millions of users and streaming over 100m videos a day, and all without a penny spent on advertising. Bought by Google last year for $1.65billion, the content is mainly user-generated - amateur movie-making, home videos and ‘mash ups’", says Faber.
"Brands, of course, are now clamouring to leverage this huge worldwide audience. Many have sought simply to post their TV ads on YouTube, and YouTube themselves are now offering co-branded channels at around £25,000 a pop but that’s not what the audience respects. Brands have to understand and embrace what the medium is about - content generated by the people for the people and, ironically, being unbranded is the smart way to approach this audience. Kids in their bedrooms mashing up TV ads, film or pop videos, creating their own take on a brand, is the sort of uncontrolled use that would once drive marketers to despair (and their legal departments) but is now recognised as one of the most powerful ways to get people to engage with a brand. Not only are people creating a relationship with a brand by doing this, they are also doing the work for you.
This online video boom is starting to have a serious impact on television viewing time. As traditional broadcasters like ITV watch their viewing figures crumble, more time is spent consuming content online. A recent ICM survey for the BBC has suggested that 43% of people who regularly watch online and mobile video watch less normal TV as a result. Added to this the viewing figures on some websites would make any broadcaster weep and have marketers salivating and you have a real shift in the way brands will be connecting to their audiences", says Faber.
"The digital content revolution has quickly gathered momentum at the start 2007 with Google announcing at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in January that it is to start selling video online, offering a way for people to search for and buy TV shows and more through its site. At the same show Apple launched its converged media player and telephone, iPhone, and Sony its broadband TV player. Media consumption is changing fast, and with the BBC’s long-awaited online media player, iPlayer, set for launch in May 2007, a new era of non-linear media consumption in which people control their viewing and interactivity, opens up a whole new format for entertainment and online measurement".
"For the past decade content has been declared ‘king’ of the internet. This year it will finally live up to the title, but not in the way that has been predicted before.
Last year’s rise of the so-called Web 2.0 companies has changed the way we view, consume and engage with content. The tools are readily available for people to create their own content, from personal blogs, networking on MySpace, peer reviews on Amazon, shared knowledge in Wikipedia, images on Flickr, videos on YouTube, to whole worlds in Second Life. Successful brand-led content is no longer just about information and ‘stickiness’; it’s about content that people can interact with, that they seek out and that they create themselves. In 2006 some forward-thinking brands and marketers started to get involved; 2007 will be the year in which brands truly harness this new peer production making search marketing much more effective", says Faber.
Faber says that User Generated Content is going to be the most accurate method of measuring digital and online advertising.
"The biggest story of 2006 was, of course, YouTube, which in little over a year became one of the internet’s most popular destinations, with tens of millions of users and streaming over 100m videos a day, and all without a penny spent on advertising. Bought by Google last year for $1.65billion, the content is mainly user-generated - amateur movie-making, home videos and ‘mash ups’", says Faber.
"Brands, of course, are now clamouring to leverage this huge worldwide audience. Many have sought simply to post their TV ads on YouTube, and YouTube themselves are now offering co-branded channels at around £25,000 a pop but that’s not what the audience respects. Brands have to understand and embrace what the medium is about - content generated by the people for the people and, ironically, being unbranded is the smart way to approach this audience. Kids in their bedrooms mashing up TV ads, film or pop videos, creating their own take on a brand, is the sort of uncontrolled use that would once drive marketers to despair (and their legal departments) but is now recognised as one of the most powerful ways to get people to engage with a brand. Not only are people creating a relationship with a brand by doing this, they are also doing the work for you.
This online video boom is starting to have a serious impact on television viewing time. As traditional broadcasters like ITV watch their viewing figures crumble, more time is spent consuming content online. A recent ICM survey for the BBC has suggested that 43% of people who regularly watch online and mobile video watch less normal TV as a result. Added to this the viewing figures on some websites would make any broadcaster weep and have marketers salivating and you have a real shift in the way brands will be connecting to their audiences", says Faber.
"The digital content revolution has quickly gathered momentum at the start 2007 with Google announcing at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in January that it is to start selling video online, offering a way for people to search for and buy TV shows and more through its site. At the same show Apple launched its converged media player and telephone, iPhone, and Sony its broadband TV player. Media consumption is changing fast, and with the BBC’s long-awaited online media player, iPlayer, set for launch in May 2007, a new era of non-linear media consumption in which people control their viewing and interactivity, opens up a whole new format for entertainment and online measurement".