Video Snacks As The Main Course, Part II - Jaffer Ali - MediaBizBlogger

Continued from 6/ 8/09:

Myth #5 Advertisers And Site Engagement

When the Internet started to gain popularity as a marketing tool, it was because it enabled advertisers to drive prospects directly to their online showrooms, where the consumer's full attention could be exploited. This was why the click became such a powerful currency. The goal was to bring your audience to you…to engage them…to communicate with them…to interact with them…to convert them from prospects to customers within the exclusive confines of your very own "environment to buy".

And while all clicks were not created equal, you could measure and affect the quality of the traffic in many ways, because the more responsibility advertisers took in fashioning their "environments to buy" the more valuable that traffic became.

But as more and more sites came online and more advertisers entered the fray, click-through rates suffered a precipitous decline - from a high of 5% just a few years ago to less than .2% today (that's a 96% drop for anyone who's counting). Engagement was forced to take a back seat to building traffic; a vicious cycle resulting in a self-fulfilled prophesy of more clutter and chaos.

So now, agencies and advertisers alike have abandoned real audience engagement as a goal (check out Crest.com if you don't believe me). Instead, they're trying to invent new ways to engage audiences on publishers' sites; a solution distinguished by its Alice in Wonderland quality in which what is up is down and what is down is up.

To rescue the online video ecosystem, engagement needs to take place on the advertiser's site. That is where the only real potential to create relationships and value exists. But I fear we're not through with this mythology yet. New ways to engage the audience on publishers' sites will be conceived…and all will fail because they are existentially flawed from the get-go.

Myth #6 Content Licensors Can Create Partnerships With 50%-90% Royalties

Our company touches every point within the online video ecosystem. We have licensed content from 62 licensors. I remember when I personally called the Comedy Central folks to license Jon Stewart video snacks. I was told that the "going rate" was a 90% royalty. I am not making this number up. And it should come as no surprise that there aren't many takers.

When I politely suggested that this was not sustainable for ANYONE, I could actually "hear" a shrug on the other end of the phone. And yet who can deny that there are those who take perverted pride in securing licenses that are not economically sustainable. King Pyrrhes comes to mind who said, "If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined."

The bottom line: content royalties of 50% and more make no economic sense whatsoever.

Myth #7 When In Doubt, Charge The Consumer!

This one might not qualify for major myth status since charging for online video content is more in its infancy than an established reality. Steven Brill is leading the initiative among content owners to charge snackers for their treats. On the face of it, this seems reasonable. But under closer scrutiny, a host of considerations suggests that the public will simply not pay tomorrow for what they get for free today.

Cases in point: Over 18% of the adult population is out of work (yes, much higher than what is spoken on the news because over 8% have stopped looking for jobs and thus are not counted in unemployment figures.)

Consumption of goods and services is down over 25%, meaning that even people with discretionary incomes are scaling back. The age of paying for more and more choices is over as consumers increasingly realize that more choices don't necessarily lead to more happiness.

The consumer is exhausted, economically and spiritually. Overlaying a pay cable model onto the Internet at this point in time is fraught with peril.

The list of myths that masquerade as conventional wisdom goes on and on. Don't even get me started on behavioral targeting. Putting BT folks anywhere near content and creativity is, in Borat's language, like giving a "gun to a monkey". The belief in and reliance on behavioral targeting has produced legions of ersatz marketers who spend more and more time violating privacy and stalking their audience than they do marketing to them.

We'd definitely be better off if the BT pundits abided by Mark Twain's sage advice:

"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let
people think you are a fool than to open it and
remove all doubt."

It is clear that video snacking is the dominant – and growing - online consumer behavior. We don't need to target behavior that speaks so eloquently for itself. We just need to know how to tap it. And that's why the time has come to think of video snacks as the main course.

Listen Up Advertisers!

It's the content that consumers choose which identifies the audience and makes the connection, not the site, so the solution is to engender a process by which your audience views content of their choice on your website.

Think about the above idea for just a second (As Lexus, Just For Men and Coca Cola have been experimenting)…

Let's say, for example, that you're a major pets brand and want to sponsor a series of cute and cuddly video snacks featuring dogs and cats. Wouldn't you prefer to let that content work its magic on your site?

It only stands to reason that when the video snack is consumed on your site, your brand becomes inextricably entwined in the experience. When the snacking takes place inside your online showroom, you get to play the gracious host who satisfies the snacker's cravings. We predict that this is the way forward for brand marketers; a virtual throw back to the early days of sponsored content on radio and television.

Video snacking on your site creates a better "environment to buy" if you forget about the pre-roll and surround the content with your brand. If you place the consumer experience first and foremost and give them entertainment they want, then that halo will be cast upon your brand. And as savvy marketers know, once you win their hearts and minds, their wallets will follow.

At the risk of oversimplifying things, when all is said and done, creating this seemingly elusive "environment to buy" is a simple matter of serving the right snacks to the right snackers in the right place.

About Jaffer Ali Jaffer Ali is CEO of the Vidsense Video Snack Network. With more than 100,000 advertiser-friendly video clips licensed from major film and TV studios, the Vidsense Video Snack Network of tens of thousands of safe-for-work websites delivers millions of qualified visitors directly to advertiser websites on a pure Pay-Per-View (PPV) basis.

Read all Jaffer’s MediaBizBlogger commentaries at Jaffer Ali - MediaBizBlogger.