There’s a vocal majority (or is it a minority?) up in arms about the addition of advertising to certain YouTube channels. In many ways, the community-at-large is upset for good reason – and in other ways, they’re shortsighted.

Lower-third “pop up” advertising doesn’t impress me at all – the model is intrusive and overtly unintuitive. Why would I want to interrupt the playback of one video to watch yet another video that I know full well is an advertisement? It’s a poor way to integrate sponsorship!

I also don’t like pre-roll or post-roll placements (which is the primary reason I don’t have an intro or outtro in most of my recordings). However, if there is an evil to be chosen – this is likely to be the advertising model that most people would accept (though not necessarily appreciate). Why didn’t YouTube go this route to begin with? I bet most viewers wouldn’t have noticed this change at all – since MANY of them have some kind of intro / outtro integrated into their videos already.

My videos are obviously sponsored – and through YouTube, the community is growing every day. Of course, my advertising model isn’t as scalable as the one YouTube is trying to seed – but that’s what makes my approach work well for sponsors. We’re able to tailor integration so that people who are active with our efforts aren’t necessarily turned off by the presence of outside brands. I’ve written about this at length, and have compiled quite a nice “call to action” for potential sponsors.

This can be a win-win-win-win – but only if it’s done in a more proper fashion for all. I wish YouTube would have consulted members of their own community before deciding what would be best for them (or for advertisers, for that matter). I bet they’d have just as many people complaining about a logo change, let alone a strategy to help offset costs for the service that has been free from the very beginning.

And those naïve enough to believe that other video networks would never put them in such a position will wake up to reality soon enough. Fleeing YouTube is done at your own peril – if, as expected, those complaining about any kind of change are in a vocal minority.

YouTube Advertising Problems

Okay, so I’m not as crazy as you may have previously believed – with my various live and recorded video efforts (on YouTube and the like). I was thrilled to read that Neilsen has validated these new business strategies:

Nielsen // NetRatings, a global leader in Internet media and market research, announced today that it added both “Total Minutes” and “Total Sessions” metrics to NetView, its syndicated Internet audience measurement service. While NetView has always reported average time per person and average number of sessions, the new metrics deliver greater perspective on total engagement across sites.

It gets better:

“’Total Minutes’ is the best engagement metric in this initial stage of Web 2.0 development, not only because it ensures fair measurement of Web sites using RIA and streaming media, but also of Web environments that have never been well-served by the page view, such as online gaming and Internet applications,” said Scott Ross, director, product marketing for the NetView service.

Heh. Awesome. I’m already there. Some of us have been preaching this idea for months now. One of the Internet’s leading video pundits, Jerimiah Owyang, has amended this metric by asserting three specific key indicators. And I quote:

• Interaction = How many messages were in chat room per minute on average.
• Velocity = How fast did the embedded player go, did it get embedded on blogs?
• Tone = What did people say about the show, in the chat room, in the blogs, or whatever. This can be qualitative.

It all boils down to branding, my friends. Video is an amazing platform for advertisers, if they truly understand its power (and few advertisers do).

Video is an Amazing Advertising Platform

Everything old is new again.

The only effective (read: foolproof) way to monetize video is by matching and embedding sponsorship within the video itself – period, end of story. Relying on fancy-schmancy JavaScript and Flash overlays for complete monetization of video content is just… reckless. You’re cutting off your iPod / PSP audience, and you’re dropping the eyeball of any user who may happen to be running some kind of ad blocker, or who may discover the video after it’s been ripped from any given video network service.

Why is this approach to video sponsorship the wisest?

1. Viewers can’t block out your logo or URL if it’s always there.
2. Viewers can’t fast forward through your logo if it’s always there.
3. Viewers can’t delete your logo, and likely won’t if they bother to rip and edit the clip.
4. People can use the video on their own sites, effectively running your logo there.
5. Producers can upload the video anywhere to generate traffic without relying on video network advertising capabilities.
6. Obtrusive advertising behaviors upset viewers (which can include pre-roll or mid-roll placements).
7. Value is always in the message – never the medium.
8. Sponsorship is tied to the production forever, wherever, whenever, however (which isn’t as negative as you might have been lead to believe it is in general context).
9. It’s the only model that works with YouTube (which currently has 60% market penetration, with every other video network running a distant second)
10. Branding is priceless – and without a price placed on branding, producers are (quite simply) giving CPC / CPA campaigns a free ride.

Seems that not enough marketers in command of the purse strings are given the freedom to challenge long-held notions that the “almighty” CLICK is the only way to track campaign effectiveness.

With the lack of valid video sponsorship options in the marketplace today, I continue to generate significant revenue (IMHO) through strategic placement of plain ol’ Google AdSense on the periphery of any given video embed throughout my podcast pages. In the grand scheme of things, that is (or should be) icing on the cake. The Revver / Metacafe business models won’t work well for most producers unless they (the video networks themselves) change their distribution strategies.

I mentioned this in a video upload post earlier, but YuMe is the one to watch in this space – and every single video producer out there should be beating a path directly to their door. I’m not getting paid to write that (but I should be, eh). They were the only video-related startup at UTR that had a comprehensive game plan already in place.

Video Ads in Web Video: Success!