How brands should look at video ads in the New Year

Jay Miletsky, MyPod Studios CEO: When people think of online video, they think of YouTube; when they think of YouTube, they think of amateur videography (kittens stuck in bottles, schoolyard fights, that sort of thing). So by association, to many people, online video = amateur...well, crap, for lack of a better term. As hard as they try, YouTube won't make the headway they want into becoming a premium content provider. If that happens, it'll happen over the course of a few years - right now, they're brand is too established in the amateur videography space.

Kristina: What are the new types of online video advertising available to marketers and what are the pros and cons of each?

Jay: I'm not sure that the focus really should be on "new" types of online video advertising, as much as it should be on taking better advantage of what's already out there. Pre-roll ads, for example, seem mostly stuck at 30 seconds, and for the most part are just standard TV spots, reconfigured for the Web. There's limited benefit to this - for one thing, the Web allows users to interact with the videos their watching, so why run static ads? If you can get a consumer to interact with your brand, that's an immense value! Plus, if users are turned off the 30 second ads, which they are, why frustrate them, and have that frustration associated with your brand? Create 15 second spots instead, which viewers are more comfortable with, and which can still get the brand's messaging across.

Kristina: If you could give just one piece of advice to marketers on the topic of online video advertising, what would it be?

Jay: Stop looking at online video as a second cousin to the marketing family. It seems like a lot of marketing directors treat online video as something they have to do, because it's there, and because of its ongoing, steady growth, but haven't put their heart into it. And they haven't taken the time to understand how it really works from a marketing and branding perspective. Instead of force fitting online video into other strategies, think about online video on its own, or at least as equal part of overlying marketing efforts, to really get the most out of it.

You can read parts 1 and 2 of my series with Jay Miletsky and MyPod Studios here.

Tags: MyPod Studios, online video, video ad tips, video advertising, video content