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Viral marketing at it's best.

Google VIDEO ads coming soon

I was doing a Google search yesterday when something struck me on the page (or maybe it was there all along and I just was immune to it). Within one of the search results was a link to a YouTube video about my topic as well as a widget that allowed me to either collapse or expand the video in order to watch it directly on the search results page (very slick - so slick that I watched it).

Ah-ha very interesting I thought... Interesting from a lot of different angles, but the one angle that I want to write about is the online advertising one.

What does this mean for online advertising? It appears that Google is only using the videos in an experimental mode. So a search is pulling a direct feed from the YouTube search and then pulling videos associated to that like the one in my picture (to the right). But, what if Google has a separate YouTube database for online advertising videos? For example, let's say you search saving accounts and in the results ING Direct has a paid listing plus a a video on their new 3.4% savings account offer. Ah-ha! could we call this an internet commercial?

It could be a whole new source of online marketing revenue for Google. My thinking then turned to how would Google charge for this type of advertising - would they keep a traditional PPC model or change the structure. I could see a cost structure th at has database storage, viewing amount and PPC on the video type fees. The ROI to the advertiser would be that your video commercial would be targeted (obviously based on search), but also you could find out the effectiveness of your video by how long it was viewed.

All this is speculation - of course (unless someone in blogger-world knows something that I don't). But this comes at an unusually good time right now because more companies are trying to target segmented products and product brands (example: bottled water). Paid search can only do so much and online display ads are good but conveying a brand messages in a banner ad is so out dated if you have video.

Let me know your thoughts out there - in blogger-world!

Catering to the niche through online media

One of the longest running online display ad campaigns is for W Hotels a brand extension of Starwood. The campaign has been going on for the past three years a mammoth amount of time in the online advertising world. With just a few clicks you can see their banner ad placements everywhere from Yahoo Fantasy Sports to the New York Times online edition. The primary audience is the niche consumer and trying to understand a user group of that size and magnitude isn't that simple. The people that stay at W Hotels see themselves as hip, stylish and cool - isn't that just about everyone? So instead of a targeted direction, Starwood went for endurance and has definitely established the brand. So much so that other companies like Marriott are taking notice.

Playing catch-up
Robin Uler, Marriott's senior vice-president for Marketing says - we are behind And now, after watching the rise of Starwood's W hotels, Marriott is deciding whether to launch his own "designer" chain.