Celebs Make the Jump to Online Video

Adam Corolla for Klondike

Celebrities are more and more appearing in online video. Advertisers who are seeing the success of video campaigns on YouTube and around the Web are turning to known quantities to connect with customers and inspire action.  These celebrities are slowly displacing Web-celebs like iJustine and other paid Web-based pitchmen now that the medium is proven and effective.

While I believe that Web-celebs will continue to get commissioned endorsement work-after all, they create a much different type of brand interaction-celebrities will more and more become a fixture in online video.

via Advertising – Known Faces Displace Amateurs in Online Videos – NYTimes.com:

Online video, in its initial phases, was populated mostly by unknowns because many stars were reluctant to lend their prestige to an untried medium. Now, though, the ability of celebrities to cut through the clutter means that familiar actors, athletes, comedians, models and singers are being cast for webisodes.

Online video: Writing the Future

Nike T90 Spectra

Image by tsechuen26 via Flickr

This new spot by Nike for the upcoming World Cup is brilliant. It also shows us what marketers can do with online video that they can never do with television advertising. You just can’t run this spot on TV, and a watered-down 60-second version wouldn’t be as powerful. Kudos to the team that realize online video is a different animal, and that going long (in comparison to the :30 or :60 spot) can do wonders for your storytelling ability.

Enjoy.

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Who Still Thinks We Want to See More Ads Online?

fireflyvideo logo

Apparently these guys do.  Firefly is a new company specializing in taking existing pre-roll video ad content and serving it in standard banner ads.  When you roll over them they pop-up a takeover window and play the video ad(s). Which begs the question, is there really a demand to see more pre-roll ads? Does anyone like pre-roll advertising? (I mean, besides the advertisers?)  Typically I find myself surfing Facebook for 30 seconds while I wait for the pre-roll to end.

If you want to engage me, give me something worth watching.  I haven’t clicked on a banner ad intentionally in at least a decade. Even with today’s announcement that streak seems likely to stay intact for another 10 years.

What do you think? Will pre-roll ads in banners make you more likely to click? Watch for yourself and let me know in the comments!

Image from NewTeeVee.

*These are my personal views as always, and not those of my company.