Branded video is and will continue to be an important part of online marketing campaigns. YouTube listed a few of the biggest branded videos of the past year and Jeremy Scott predicted some major trends from them.
The big theme is interactivity. I think you’re going to see more creative thinking with regards to letting audiences interact with ads in 2011, wrote Scott. Part of the reason is that the brand can get much more free publicity leverage out of it–interactive YouTube ads are still new enough to generate some media attention, which helps with gaining views as well. But interactivity is also a rising trend because audiences are more engaged to a piece of content when they are able to impact it . . . dictate it . . . or control it. Two of YouTube’s six highlighted branded video ads featured interactivity with the viewer or with the video environment, but there were plenty of other great videos that did the same thing in 2010 but didn’t make this list–Google’s Chrome Fastball ad or Stallone’s fake interview for The Expendables, or even Google’s recent Nexus S commercial. And don’t forget that, while Old Spice Guy’s original commercials were widely enjoyed, they didn’t become legendary until the day the Old Spice Guy himself took to the Internet to create personalized videos, many of which were responses to comments, Tweets, and articles people were writing online. It really was the ultimate interactive ad campaign if you think about it.
Almost all of the most successful ads incorporated some form of humor, showing that laughts are a great way to get attention. It seems likely that there will be more experiments and failures, but higher amounts of innovation.
Brands drive the video industry, concludes Scott. They have the money, time, and creative resources to experiment and fail. They blaze the trail for the rest of us, and can help push online video to ridiculously entertaining new heights. What the best brands do with online video in 2011 is likely what we-the-people will be doing in 2012.
Source: Reelseo.com
