Our CEO and Founder Brad Inman had a byline in MediaPost’s Online Media Daily yesterday. His commentary on the state of online video and the trouble that traditional producers have had with the crossover from broadcast to online video outlines some of the many challenges that companies face as they try to understand and embrace this new advertising format.
The failed attempts of blockbuster online video campaigns by high-profile brands point to the unique challenges that a highly-fragmented, often cynical Internet audience presents to the old-fashioned advertising paradigm.
From Brad's commentary:
The Web is not about "aiming for the middle," a broad branding exercise seeking the lowest common denominator, big advertising themes and irrelevant emotional hooks. The control is no longer in the hands of the broadcasters; it is in the hands of the consumer. This shift in control changes the consumption of video from a "lean back" disengaged experience to a lean-forward, "I-need-relevant-information" experience, where the consumer determines when and how content is consumed. The world of permission-based, demand-driven advertising, prescribed by the ethos of the Web, offers a relevant ad model opportunity.
The Internet is a micro-media world in which millions of niche audiences with thousands of members make up the greater universe. This ultra-fragmented reality forces advertisers to adopt a new paradigm for reaching consumers in order to be relevant and meet the expectations of today's jaded online audience. Overly produced, generic or irrelevant advertisements fall on deaf ears. The new video ad creation needs to align production costs, content and quality to this new paradigm. It needs to connect with the audience and deliver the content that they want to see, where and when they want to see it.
The Internet is ushering out the age of mass media and heralding the new age of meaningful media. It is not campaign-driven, but relevance-driven.
This new paradigm calls for new thinking, new ways of packaging and delivering content. And why shouldn't it be different? The Internet and Television are completely different user-experiences. The "lean forward" interaction of a typical Web experience stands in stark contrast to the "lean back" reality of watching television.
Advertisers that embrace these differences and leverage them will find their campaigns are more relevant, more engaging and more valuable than any attempt to simply cross-purpose video content from broadcast to the Web.
