Adtasm.com | Ads in Media

 The YouTube InVideo Ads are semi-transparent overlays that appear in the bottom 20% of the video player. The rich media animations show up 15 seconds after the chosen content begins, with the overlay lasting up to 10 seconds. The overlays also have interactive functionality, allowing users to click through to an advertiser’s linked URL–or to launch a new player within the original window that will run a video ad and bring the user back to the content at any time).

MediaPost Publications - YouTube Launches InVideo Ad Platform - 08/22/2007

 We’ve gotten a few “tips” that YouTube has actually grown larger than Google in terms of page views according to Alexa.

This is, of course, complete fiction. And it shows just how useless Alexa has become as a method for measuring web traffic and reach. Comscore tells a much different (and more accurate) story - Google is nearing 100 billion monthly page views; YouTube sees around 16 billion.

Even newcomer Compete, which measures traffic in a similar way as Alexa, seems to be getting it right. Alexa needs an overhaul. It’s long since become less than useful.

[Alexa Says YouTube Is Now Bigger Than Google. Alexa Is Useless]

Youtube crosses the cultural boundaries and will soon come in nine different flavors. With increasing demand for multilingual and multicultural videos Google has announced that Youtube will now have nine new domains in Brazil, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Ireland and the UK. You can read the entire story at the Official Google Blog.

In response to many requests, each new site is fully translated and localized for each country including content (Featured Videos, Director Videos, Promotions), as well as the interfaces, search, user support, and such community features as video ratings, sharing, and content flagging. And these new localized versions are built using Google
search technology, so you can quickly find more of what you want to see. Perhaps best of all, you can continue to use youtube.com, or move to one of these localized sites — and switch seamlessly between the two. Happy creating, viewing and sharing!

Oh I’m so excited now I can watch people from around the world act stupid… and think of the foreign girls. Thank you Google for being so damn good.

I wrote about this particular Internet phenomenon before, but I decided to highlight one successful campaign that used the power of the Internet to generate some viral buzz. This video was an illustration in the possibilities of viral marketing and one of the factors that put Youtube.com on the map in 2006.

Dove, in 2005, started a campaign that highlighted “real” woman, as opposed to the overly anorexic wisps of air that we see normally in commercials, print ads, and the like. Seth Stevenson, in a Slate.com article critiquing the campaign, noted overall the short term prognosis was excellent, but that on the whole that:

Sadly, this is not a winning play for the long haul. If Dove keeps running ads like this, women will get bored with the feel-good, politically correct message. Eventually (though perhaps only subconsciously), they’ll come to think of Dove as the brand for fat girls. Talk about “real beauty” all you want—once you’re the brand for fat girls, you’re toast.

A bit of a change in direction was expected to keep the message fresh, but the overall message was clear: beauty is often manufactured. Along those lines, a viral video was created by Ogilvy & Mather, Toronto, which had massive exposure in all avenues and media.

Synopsis: A plain woman steps into a studio for a photo shoot. The timing is increased, ever so frantically, showing the process in which the woman is made to look better for the billboard her photo will be placed on, from the make-up artists, to the photoshopping of the woman’s features.

Bonus: Here is a parody video, amongst many on Youtube.com, that kept the original video exposed and talked about for many months after.