Featured – Head Studios

OneShift – 3 Cool Tips on How to Make a Video Viral

February 19, 2013/1 Comment/in Featured, News, Video Production, Viral Videos /by admin

Video has always been an effective medium, however how has the change to online impacted the creative and script choices that are made by video production and creative companies?

We’ll talk about YouTube since it’s the biggest online video hosting company in the world. As far as advertising goes we’ll talk about pre-roll ads, which are ads that play before your cat video is about to start. Unlike television, with online video you don’t have the benefit of someone watching your ad for even 30 seconds – unlike traditional television which will play your video ad in its entirety, YouTube will only play the first 5 seconds of the ad, and after this the user has the option to skip it (and I’m guessing over 95% do).

There was a video that played recently however… that I didn’t skip. That I watched until the end, and it intrigued me – what was it about this video that made me watch it. Below is the video for you to check out:

This video is exactly what is needed for a pre-roll ad. Here’s why:

Unexpected & Random – the video begins in a boring fashion. An executive is talking about some boring company… straight away your eyes begin to glaze and you place your mouse over the ‘Skip Ad’ button. Then… a ninja jumps out of nowhere and chloroforms this poor little executive lady to sleep. Ok… you have my attention! The whole video is actually unexpected and random. Like when it zooms out to show a woman is working at her desk and making a vase with her feet at the same time. These moments come up again and again, never letting up, catering to the short attention span of 99% of YouTube users (including myself).

Violence – what gets a person’s attention faster than violence? If you were the typical ‘corporate’ company you would think using ‘violence’ in your video PURELY for purposes of entertainment would be ‘simply wrong’. However a company such as the Rail Safety Board in Brisbane used violence (dying on platform tracks) as a purely comedic device. The point is that if you use violence in a funny way you immediately gain attention (a valuable commodity online) and create a conversation. In this particular video a person is not only chluroformed but another is killed with a ninja star. It’s the last thing you would think would be in an HR recruitment company but it gets attention!

Understand the Medium – if you go to the OneShift website you’ll notice that they have a video on there… but it’s totally different from the one on YouTube! Why? Because the producers of the content quite intelligently understood the medium. When showcasing your video on YouTube the most important thing is gaining attention, remember you are basically competing with millions of videos, not to mention full length films. Why should someone watch your video? However once someone lands on your website they all ready have at least some interest in what it is you do and your services, so you don’t need to be as outrageous to capture attention, now you can be more relaxed and explain exactly what you do.

Risk – there are risks taken in the One Shift video from a creative direction… and here’s what I’ve realized, while the video is not THAT funny… it’s interesting. It kept me entertained and for that I actually became interested in checking out their website. Think about this… if you make a commercial that ATTEMPTS to be funny while getting the message across but it doesn’t achieve the ‘funny’ goal is that a big deal? Are you going to be dropped from your prime time slot? No, it’s a commercial, you’re not making a TV series. I can guarantee your commercial will be more interesting than 95% of the generic stuff out there.

Remember, anyone can make a non memorable ad. It’s easy to stay safe, it’s harder to go outside the comfort zone and when you do people take notice and you get the attention and respect you deserve.

What do you think? Do you find this ad funny or way too crazy?

Crucial Conversations and the Decline of the Publishing Industry

February 6, 2013/0 Comments/in Featured, Web Marketing /by admin

It’s a brave new world. The book industry, as we know it – the paperback is dying a slow, agonizing but almost certain death. It seems the only book shop still in operation is the Dymocks in Sydney. When it comes to book publishing, I am sure many authors are still doing things the old way – generating revenues from book sales and it is without a doubt that these writers are seeing their cheques slowly but surely evaporating.

However this blog post is not all doom and gloom, instead I wanted to showcase an author that is doing things right – because let’s face it people still love to read so the demand is still out there – it’s monetizing that demand in the age of digital piracy that is the hard part.

The author(s) that I am referring to is for a book is called Crucial Conversations. The book has sold a million copies and has surely netted the author a considerable chunk of coin… but it’s how the author has turned the book into a physical selling piece for his consulting company VitalSmarts software that’s the real achievement in my book.

Here’s the book cover, in case you see it in the book store it’s a good buy if you find yourself having unproductive/awkward conversations to the people that are important in your life.

You see, once every 10 pagess or so of the book, the author asks the reader to flip to their website. The author’s intent is to get the reader to sign up for the author’s weekly e-newsletter. The author even tracks which page number led you to sign up for the email newsletter! Check out an example of a URL below that was generated when I clicked through to the sign up page (notice the page number):

Screenshot of link from Crucial Conversations ebook (yes you can place links in eBooks and it is very useful!)

http://forms.vitalsmarts.com/?elqPURLPage=133

Considering the book sold around 2 million copies, you can imagine the amount of traffic it generated over to the website and the amount of inquiries it got.

The whole book, while extremely valuable, is just one big lead generation device. But why would someone give over not just their name, but their company, position and a bunch of other important details? Well the exchange in this case happens to be a video.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/a2ufunlnmamcpkd/landing_page.png?m

This is the landing page where you come to when you click the link on the eBook. There’s a definately a whole lot of value for someone not to give their details.

You see for every lesson in the book they link to (a very high quality I must say) video lesson. Who wouldn’t want to get the benefits of audio visual on top of their regular reading? Here’s one example of a video from their vault:

The book is very good (and I recommend it if you get the chance to pick it up) and the authors have monetized themselves well in an industry that is dying.

In the past authors didn’t have to grapple with the issue of digital piracy but they also didn’t have the ability to sign up and become potential clients from one click. Most people these days are writing books as a way to boost their main business practice and establish credibility – rather than as an income tool (not many authors are making good money from book sales I would say).

I guess it’s just one of those paradigm shifts for authors and the lesson from this is – video is a great lead generation device.

To use our expertise and use video for lead generation feel free to pick up the phone (or more likely the mobile) and call 1300 TEN 700 and we’ll see how we can apply these principles to your business.

Why being hated is good business for Anthony Mundine

February 5, 2013/1 Comment/in Blog, Featured, News /by admin

After following the recent news regarding Mundine’s fight leading up to and after his defeat I’ve realized that Anthony Mundine is either very smart or very, very dumb. Let me explain.

Even the most casual boxing fans will know that there is another boxer with a big mouth that says things that tends to get on people’s skins and piss people off. This boxer is hated by a large part of the country with his controversial opinions… and he is the same race as a disadvantaged minority. The boxer that I’m referring to is Floyd Mayweather. One other thing that Floyd Mayweather is known for, besides his big mouth is the fact that he was the highest paid sports person of 2012 (and yes, that includes Tiger Woods).

Mundine showing what it’s all about

Athletes like Floyd Mayweather and Anthony Mundine choose to hold (and express) opinions that simply piss people off and make them unpopular which means that they forego the big bucks that come from sponsorship deals. Nike, for example, would never sponsor Anthony Mundine or Floyd Mayweather because it stands for something, such as sportsmanship. And blowing bubble gum in people’s face during weigh-ins I’m guessing is not an example of the sportsmanship that Nike stands for.

Floyd has a bit more money then Mundine though

However while Anthony Mundine and Floyd Mayweather lack income coming from sponsorship deals, they make it up in the PPV (pay per view) numbers from people who pay to see them get knocked out.

So is this an effective strategy?

Well let’s look at the facts, in the year 2012 Floyd Mayweather only had 2 fights – one against Victor Ortiz and one against Miguel Cotto in order to make up his $85 million income. That’s it. So not counting training we’re talking about less than 1 hour in the ring. Which at $85 million divided by 60 minutes comes at a total of over $1.4 million a minute.

He earns more than I do.

The second highest paid boxer earned $36 million and had 3 fights. Even with all his endorsements he is not earning even half of what Mayweather is pulling in.

[Manny Pacquuiao has a clean image and major endorsement deals backing up his 2012 $36 million income

Anthony Mundine is basically the Australian version of Floyd Mayweather.

People that are on Anthony Mundine’s Facebook page hating on him and really anyone that expresses a negative opinion are just doing what he wants. Let’s be honest, how many people would care about a Geale fight if it wasn’t for Mundine and their need to see him knocked out?

how not to make friends and influence people

So now that we know that being hated is good for business when it comes to boxing, are you really surprised that Mundine made the statement about Advance Australia Fair leading up to the fight? Do you really think Mundine cared that his opponent is not a full Aboriginal and that he’s dating a white woman? Is it a coincidence Mundine is running his mouth leading up to the fight? Mundine is a great marketer, and he knows exactly what to say to pick the sensitive bone of Australians and get them riled up. As this post that has over 100 comments on news.com.au can attest.

Or maybe he’s just dumb.

Video Blocks – Respect

February 1, 2013/0 Comments/in Featured, Tips /by admin

If you want to know how to optimize your business to receive business online it makes sense to look at companies that are successfuly doing this all ready, and what better companies to emulate than online only companies?

I mean, these companies rely 100% on the sales they receive online.

If 100% of your income was tied to one source, you better make sure you do that thing right and do it well.

Not to mention when you’re a business selling digital goods like Video Blocks. You see, selling an intangible product (such as an eBook for example) is great because you can deliver anywhere in the world instantly and there’s very little overhead (as you’re dealing in 0’s and 1’). However you’re competing with everyone else in the world.

With everyone talking about Instagram, Twitter, Facebook etc. I thought it would be ideal to illustrate a company that is doing well that’s a bit closer to home – one that is in my industry – video production. The company is called Video Blocks and they sell stock videos.

Stock videos, for those that have not heard of the term, is basically a video you can get off the rack to put in your video when you don’t have the time or resources to shoot it yourself – let’s say I’m making a documentary about New York, I want to have an overhead shot of the Empire State Building. I can either hire a helicopter to film this for me, or I can find some footage that has all ready been filmed and buy the rights to that, saving a few thousand dollars in the proccess and allowing me to dedicate those resources into my documentary.

Stock video can be purchased online and there is a lot of competition as far as providers go, just to mentiona few – you have Video Hive, Shutterstock, xStockVideo… the list goes and. In amidst all this competition, Video Blocks has carved out a niche for itself and you’re probably wondering how it does that. Well, my friend read on.

The five factors that I want to talk about today that have lead to Video Block’s success as one of the fastest growing online media companies in the world is – an irresistable offer, 3rd party endorsements, big numbers, engagement and cross selling.

Irresistable Offer
What’s interesting is that the landing page for Video Block’s AdWords campaign is different from their standard home page, which is an important point to keep in mind (which I won’t get into here). Anyway here’s the screenshot below.

Landing page from AdWords

Notice the irresistable offer – 7 Days of Free Downloads. Basically they’re letting you use a service that is usually $50 or more a month for FREE for 7 days. Now if you were locking for stock videos and you came across this offer would there be any reason that you wouldn’t sign up?

Of course there is the little caveat that they require your credit card details and it will be automatically charged if you don’t cancel within those 7 days but you’ll remember. I can guarantee many people who thought they would cancel after 7 days ended up becoming members.

I wouldn’t at all be surprised if they haven’t tested the hell out of this page, as it’s the one where most people would end up leaving. There’s so much great elements in this and it can really be used as a template if you’re looking to ask your users for credit card details but I won’t get into it now.

3rd party endorsements
TechCrunch is a trusted and well known unbiased source of technology news, they have given Video Blocks a thumbs up. So what do you do when the biggest tech blog gives your company a glowing review? You put it front and center on your landing page.
[image] Trust from TechCrunch is now transferred over to you. Anyone can say anything they want on the internet so it comes down to trusted publications to sort the straight up truth from the ‘half-truths’ and outright lies (which always makes for a great expose!). Because of this 3rd party endorsements are SO important, and much more so on the internet than in real life.

Also Video Blocks was voted as the #4 Fastest Growing Media Company and it proudly displays the badge.

What’s that you say?

You haven’t been featured in TechCrunch or A Current Affair? Well do you have any satisfied clients (if you’ve been in a business for a while that’s a real worry – unless you’re the government in which case you’re fine.) Why not ask your clients to give you a positive shout out – simply fire off an email with a pre made testimonial for them to approve – or tell them they can write their own. These testimonials are worth their weight in gold which is why I always ask for one once I’ve finished working with a client.

Big Numbers
One of my favorite rappers, Jay-Z said upon accepting an award “Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t.” While people have speculated who the comment was aimed at the general premise is true. If your business does the most sales in your area make sure to state that.

And if you have an exact figure put that down. Video Blocks states the following statistics:

7,476,649 Clips Downloaded To Date

25,693 Clips Downloaded Last 24 hours

If over 25,000 clips have been downloaded by clients in the last 24 hrs then someone else must be using the service, in fact many people… and can that many people be wrong?

Engagement
The reality is not everyone is going to buy/register with you as soon as they come to your site. So if you have a way to engage them and build a relationship in the meantime you should do that. Keep in mind though that this is a secondary option, as what you really want is for someone to take an action as soon as they come to your website, however failing that…

Scroll down and you’ll see Video Blocks offers for you to browse their library and see what they have in going for them. You need to scroll down to view it but it’s there. In businesses this is usually a blog or some other free content/checklist that people can view when they visit the website.

Cross Selling

You’ve made the sale or gotten an enquiry! Great! Your website has done its job. So what now? You have a hot prospect sitting there looking at a ‘Thank You For Registering with Us’ page. Why not take advantage of this time?

When I used to work for a television sales company this was one of the biggest earners. In fact the company made most of its money through cross sales. When someone would call to get a certain product they saw on TV, we would offer to send them another product worth either the same or 50% of the price on a free trial – they could return it within 30 days to get a full refund and shipping is free. But let’s be honest who’s going to return a vacuum cleaner (or any other product) once it’s shipped? Bingo – that’s 2 sales made for the price of one.

—

Make sure to study what online companies are doing and use it to your advantage on your website.

Make sure you have an irresistable offer. Any business can take advantage of this. Most service based businesses (like lawyers or construction companies) have a free consultation. But you can get creative – if we can’t find a way to save you $1,000 on your next tax bill we’ll give you $100. You get the idea. Get press clipppings (or failing that) testimonials and keep them in your marketing war chest.

Make sure to use them in every place you can to communicate trust to the prospective client. Think big numbers. Let’s take the lawyer example – if you have over 200 successful cases, bring that up. If you have over 1000, 10 000 or 100 000 clients and that’s a big deal in your industry mention that.

Engage your audience – what are prospective customers looking for? Give it to them on your website so even if they don’t pick up the phone to call you (or email you) they’ll be on YOUR website doing research. The longer you keep the customer’s eye ball the more your chances of securing that client.

Finally find ways to cross sell. Even if it’s not your own product. You can do this offline but if you can automate it online that’s just as good. I started Head Studios as a video production company and have sucessfully cross sold many products to the point that non video projects make up more of my income than video projects. I don’t know if that’s normal or not but that doesn’t matter – what’s important is that is a big source of potential revenue, not to mention it makes people’s lives much easier not having to deal with 10 companies.

Hope this gave you some ideas and fired off some neurons in your brain. To speak to me for a free one-on-one consultation where I can show you opportunities to increase your bottom line fill out the form below.

P.S. Just got an email follow up from these guys exactly a day after I registered with the subject line ‘TODAY ONLY: 6 Months of Unlimited Downloads – Just $89′. Great work on the subject line, even though the offer is mailed out exactly 24 hours after someone registers.

So many dumb ways to die…

November 20, 2012/1 Comment/in Featured, News /by admin

If you haven’t heard yet, a video created by Metro (which is like Melbourne’s Cityrail) has generated over 8 million views on YouTube. This was a safety campaign talking about how basically you shouldn’t jump in front of trains or do other dum things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0uybGeX5_8

So anyway, this video launched and they hoped for a good result but it blew past all expectation. You see the original idea was to target people in Melbourne with a a safety message (you see these all the time in Sydney, like those big posters telling you to mind the gap between the train and platform).

Of course with the internet you can’t really contain a message and especially with YouTube, once it’s out there th whole world has access to it. Well this vdeo was so good that eventually people started sharing it and it simply blew up. Checking on Wikipedia, Melbourne has a population of 4.1 million, and considering the video on YouTube has over 8.4 million views, you could assume that it is the equivalent to everyone in Melbourne watching it twice (the Metro YouTube channel owner would have more precise stats of exactly how many people are watching the video from each country, I can’t know that information).

Anyway it’s true that as soon as a viral video comes out people start analyzing why it has garnered so many views and try to replicate the success. Considering I’ve been in video production practically my whole life I thought I might throw in my views on it and the experience that I have from videos that have generated a lot of views and others that have generated very little.

By the way watch the video below if you haven’t seen it all ready

P.S. Between the time I wrote this article and embedding the clip the video has gotten an extra million or so views. It’s crazy.

Violence and Danger

Violence and danger are pre requisites for an engaging experience. That’s why most films you see that make big money in the cinemas have violence or at the very least drama that could lead to violence. This video simply goes all out with grizzly death scene after death scene. There is simply no way you would see so much death and violence (especially coming from a government organization which are known for being very boring) and not want to share it with a friend. While people will talk about how genius this piece is it’s actually really simple, lots of violence. The violence is done with cartoon characters and a happy theme in the background which adds to the contrast and makes it artistic and interesting (instead of just violence for violence’s sake).

In fact if you go on YouTube one of the most viewed videos are street fights/gangster and prison documentaries and war footage. People love violence. Of course you can’t just come out and create some violent video, you may get a lot of views but it’s not going to look good for your brand/service. However if you can create something interesting/artistic then it’s the perfect combination.

It Doesn’t Preach

Okay the whole purpose of this video is to tell people to not cross the tracks and do other silly things at train stations that could get them killed. However the video doesn’t get into this straight away, in fact the first half of the video makes no mention of trains whatsoever. Viewers (and especially the YouTube audience) hate watching an advertisement, that’s the reason we’re on YouTube! So if people see your video and they realize immediately that it’s an ad they will IMMEDIATELY leave. This video does well because it’s actually not even obvious what it does (in fact that creates some interest – like what is this all about, making people want to watch further).

Jingle

It has a cool jingle that stays in your head. “Dumb ways to die, so many dumb ways to die”. This sticks in your head and you’re probably going to end up singing it after you watch it and when one of your friends says “What the hell are you singing?” you can show them the video and so the ‘virus’ spreads. They even have a song you can download from iTunes.

Funny

This video has a good combination – unimaginable violence and being funny at the same time. It’s great. Kind of like Jackass. Actually the video is more funny then violent (the focus is more on that).

Unexpected

Whenever you do something completely unexpected, or film someone reacting to something unexpected it’s always classic. No one expects a video like this.

That’s all the things I can think of at the moment. Also you don’t have to be violent to create a high engagement with your video, but you do need some drama to get engagement. Controversy is also good however inerestingly enough this video really lacks any controversy (besides the controversy from being so violent, but because it’s so cartoonish no one would really have an opinion). This is so much better than those lame smoking ads where they cut open a liver.

Finally running across the train tracks at night is no longer cool, it’s just a dumb way to die.

P.S. Notice the YouTube video also links to http://dumbwaystodie.com where people can learn more and they even have setup a Tumblr blog – http://dumbwaystodie.tumblr.com/. I wonder how much traffic came to the website from the YouTube video. Anyway, great work.

CREATING A WEBSITE SITEMAP – 5 TOP TIPS

April 16, 2012/0 Comments/in Featured, News, Tips /by admin

Before you sit down with a designer to plan out how you want your website to look, it helps to grab a piece of paper and a pen (or a good software package, more on that later) and sketch out exactly what pages you want your website to have. Most web designers worth their salt will create a site map before starting development, it allows for a long range and complete look at the website architecture, which helps to avoid creating extra work by seeing what pages can be combined and eliminated, and also gets the whole team on the same page as to exactly what is required.

The other great thing about a site map is that you can also use it to plan your SEO strategy. Including what pages should be optimized for what keywords, doing this correctly from the beginning can also focus your SEO campaign from the beginning to make sure your site is structured for the most important thing – traffic!

But what exactly do you need to include on a site map, and what software do you need to make it useful , and what mistakes should you avoid?

Choose a good software
There’s a lot of great software out there, free and paid, as well as downloadable and online (cloud). One bit of software you may be interested in picking up is SmartDraw, which I personally use for a lot of things other than just a site map. However if you’re on a budget you may want to go for the old pencil and paper, however the problem with this is that it’s hard to modify. If you don’t want to go out spending money just to draw up a sitemap, you may want to check out https://bubbl.us/. It’s not strictly a site map generation software but it can get the job done – to check out SmartDraw click here and to check out bubbl.us click here
Understand the goals of your website
If you know the goals of your website, including how important each goal is, planning your site map will be much easier. For example, if you have an online store, you would need a Products page, with sub pages for different categories of products that you offer. Planning this up front will let you know what categories you may have to combine (if you only have a couple of products in that category). If the goal of your website is simply to educate your prospect about what you do, instead of making a sale, you’d need to find out what is that makes your company unique and gets clients to buy from you and organize your site this way. Do you have many satisfied clients? Then be sure to include a ‘Testimonials’ page. Are they from different industries? You may need sub pages in your ‘Testimonials’ page for industry.
Research your competitors
Competitors for your product or service have probably all ready put in much time and thought as to how they need to organize their sites. Clicking through and hanging out on their domains should give you some ideas for how you can organize your own site.
Save and revise
The first sketch out of your site map will never be the one you end up using. Save your site map and share it with your designer or your team and get feedback on what pages should be added or removed. However don’t try to share with too many people, otherwise you’ll have a headache incorporating all the feedback. Sometimes all you need is one person to bounce ideas off.
Think keywords
While it may be tempting to make your website site map have the mandatory About Us, contact Us, Products pages, you may want to consider looking at keywords that your customers are searching for and including them in some way. For example if you sell control panels, instead of naming the page ‘Control Panels’ why not go for a more descriptive name like ‘Home Automation Control Panels’ to make sure that you can get listed for that keyword.

Good luck with creating your site map. Remember, your first draft is just that, a first draft. Make at least 10 – 15 boxes to get started and you’ll have a lot of ideas come up as you do. Good luck.

Online Shoppers Kill the Christmas Spirit

January 26, 2012/0 Comments/in Blog, Featured /by admin

HARVEY Norman isn’t expecting a wonderful Christmas after consumer electronics sales copped a hiding in 2011 with the retail giant taking a swipe at tech-savvy consumers.

Chief executive Gerry Harvey warned the upcoming festive season would be “okay” but it would not be the best Christmas ever.

“This year I can’t say that,” he said.

“There’s no sign out there in the community that we’re going to have this wonderful Christmas. I don’t see it.”

Curiously, Mr Harvey took a swipe at technology-obsessed consumers who spend great chunks of their days looking at computer, tablet and mobile phone screens.

“They live on the bloody things. It’s so invasive into your lifestyle.”

He said people could live to regret the advent of the internet over the next 10 to 15 years.

“You can’t live without them.”

Mr Harvey says stores are selling large numbers of televisions and audio equipment, but prices continue to fall.

“I don’t ever remember selling as much product as we’re selling now while having so little turnover,” Mr Harvey told the company’s annual general meeting (AGM) in Sydney.

“It’s extremely difficult.”

Retailers around the world were having difficulties in the current environment.

“If you’re in the audio/visual, computer segment in retailing, you’re getting a hiding and there is no end in sight for that hiding.”

Harvey Norman, which began selling televisions in 1961, now sells huge volumes of computers, televisions and tablets.

Mr Harvey said online retail sales had increased every year, but businesses had to be realistic about the effectiveness of selling on the web, particularly as accurate sales and profits figures were difficult to come by.

Harvey Norman’s board believes its new online business will grow to one per cent of total sales this year, and by one per cent per year for the next three years.

However, Mr Harvey said there were a lot of “bull s****ers” spruiking the benefits of online retailing.

Businesses with a large exposure to electronics categories, such as Dick Smith, JB Hi-Fi and department stores, had a huge problem because they didn’t sell whitegoods, furniture or homeware.

“They’re in a very precarious position and somewhere along the line some decision has to be made about Dick Smith and JB Hi-Fi is in a similar situation.,” he added.

Harvey Norman has reduced the amount of space dedicated to audio/visual and computers and is now concentrating on other categories.

Snoop Dogg and Rico team up for Airline New Zealand

March 24, 2011/0 Comments/in Featured, News /by admin

Some time ago I did a blog post on Iceland Airline’s quirky online video to promote its airline, you can check it out here. Lately I’ve stumbled across some funny videos from Airline New Zealand which are random and a little controversial. It seems out there advertising is the new norm for the airline industry, which is known for its more generic promotions. Check these videos out from Air New Zealand’s online marketing campaign, keep in mind some, of course, were offended but perhaps that was Air New Zealand’s plan to get attention. One if its videos has pulled almost 6 million views.

Bare Essentials

There are a couple of videos. The first one has almost 6 million views, and is basically a safety video with a twist. You’ll know why it’s called ‘Bare Essentials’ when you watch it.

Rico

This was probably the commercial that got everyone in a huff, however it only has 300,000 views. Lots of innuendo here. Apparently Air New Zealand staff are upset that this is their mascot (Rico) though I find it funny, what do you think?

Snoop Dogg

This is the latest video from Air New Zealand with Snoop Dogg:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ICVXftJu0M&feature=player_embedded

The Swagger Wagon – viral Toyota hip hop

March 8, 2011/0 Comments/in Featured, News /by admin

Toyota released an online video commercial for their new Sienna SE family minivan. It was released online, namely YouTube, so it wasn’t the standard 30 second commercial. It was very creative, what Toyota did was make a hip hop video that was performed by a couple about their love for their mini van. If you’re a fan of hip hop you can see many references to hip hop videos. The amazing thing is that the video ended up getting more views than international musicians like Jay-Z and Eminem, I could see the people in this commercial forming their own hip hop group :).

Internet TV is inevitable, cable and free to air are scared

December 23, 2010/0 Comments/in Featured, News /by admin

On demand television (internet TV) may be coming to your living room very soon, and will be given a big boost if the NBN (National Broadband Network) is moved ahead by the government. If it does, it’ll be a big win for consumers and content creators.

What is Internet TV? Well you can check out what Google wants it to be here and what Apple want it to be here. Basically the idea is you sit down in your living room, grab your control and decide what you want to watch instead of waiting for it to come on. Online on-demand video is all ready very popular; YouTube is all ready the third most popular website on the internet after only Google and Facebook (source) however with the National Broadband Network being introduced by the Labor Government, in my humble opinion, will completely change the way Australia watches television. In fact, the established players in the industry including cable companies and free-to-air are all ready concerned about the introduction of NBN and what it would mean for their business models. However an on demand television service will be a win for consumers and content creators.

Here is a quick run down of how Google sees online television in the future:

Google TV

Have your mobile phone work as your remote control device
Create playlists of shows/videos
Use your television to surf the web
Netflix – $8.99 a month gets you access to 40,000 shows and movies on demand, watch as much as you like!

Google TV has partnered with a number of television hardware manufacturers such as Sony

While Google TV has all ready partnered with Sony to create a stand alone television with the technology embedded (image), Apple TV has not and at the moment only offers the Apple TV box which you can attach to your television (image).

Apple TV is not integrated with any television devices and works as a ‘set top box’

All criticism and politics aside, there is a chance the NBN network will be implemented. If it does cable television and free to air are going to suffer if they continue with their traditional business models. Consumers are just not going to want to sit down and wait for their show to start, it’s much more convenient to watch what you want when you want. With online TV the middle man is removed and the audience decides what they want to see at 6pm. This is a win for consumers, you can still watch The Simpsons at 6pm however you will now have the choice to watch a video series from a small production company too. In the end it will lead to more choice.

Fred is an online celebrity with no production team or marketing budget. This video has been seen 31 million times.

So to conclude if NBN does go ahead television as we know it will change and become much cooler. It is inevitable, the question is how long will it take?