Isnt it exciting to be involved in the online video space when it is so obvious that the power of online video to drive action both online and offline is going to forge a bright future for the medium? Here is just another example of the power of online video in a niche industry - The Bling Bling industry.

According to results from the Fall 2008 Ad-ology Media Influence on Consumer Choice survey, online video was cited by many consumers (20% of all males surveyed) as a significant influence in their recent purchases of jewelry and watches.

Online video is fast becoming an increasingly popular advertising vehicle, especially for marketers of style products, said C. Lee Smith, president and CEO of Ad-ology Research. Many videos found online for watches resemble mini-movies more than commercials. Our study finds that for one in five male jewelry/watch buyers 18 to 24, online video does more than entertain, it impacts what they buy or where they buy it.

Additionally, Lee Smith, president and CEO of Ad-ology Research recommends that jewelry and watch marketers utilize pre-roll video advertising.

Pre-roll video advertising on other Web sites may also be an effective option for jewelry/watch marketers.

Other key findings from the survey:
50.9 percent of U.S. adults 25-34 say they bought jewelry or a watch recently.
Nearly 84 percent of consumers prefer to buy jewelry/watches in a store as opposed to online.
The store experience is important: 63.5 percent rate store reputation and 65.9 percent rate the sales staff as important factors in their purchases.
47.9 percent of recent jewelry/watch purchasers were influenced by information or advertising from newspapers. Magazines, television, and direct mail were also among the most influential traditional media.
More than 20 percent of respondents consider cause and/or charity support by a manufacturer or store to be somewhat or very important. That number goes up to 25 percent for African-American consumers.

About the Study:
The Media Influence on Consumer Choice survey is conducted quarterly by Ad-ology Research to study on- and off-line mediainfluence on buying decisions. The survey asks a national consumer panel about key factors in their buying decisions. Respondents also rate nine types of online and seven types of traditional media in regards to how each influenced what they buy and where they buy it.

The full report covering Media Influence on Consumer Choice: Jewelry & Watches is available through Ad-ology and can be purchased online athttp://www.ad-ology.net. The 60-page downloadable report is $495 and features 27 data charts, consumer-spending estimates on jewelry and watch purchases, and additional marketing insights.

Some online vendors have promoted to their customers video search engine optimization solutions, simply by allowing them to assemble stock footage from their digital media library and with no unique video content produced at all. However, video compilations where the entire, or vast majority of footage, is widely accessible stock quality, has never shown to achieve any notable prominence in the search engines or any viral distribution, simply because theyre not focusing on what they should unique and engaging content. ez show is a prime example of how a company that banked on that claim for their entire business model eventually became defunct. Video SEO (with no unique video required!) the failed business model of ez show

In May of 2007, a new company named ezshow announced themselves as The First Complete Online Video Ad-builder where businesses could make their own ads in just a few minutes! Their process was meant to be a turnkey solution for businesses with a smaller budget ($1K-$10K) for producing and marketing video for online, and with the extra appeal to business of them not needing any equipment or software of their own. Ez Show offered a digital media library, do-it-yourself online editing (where the business could choose your clips), and a publishing area where your ad was being promised to go out to their large distribution network of sites. The model was actually somewhat similar to SpotRunner, the video solutions program that was meant for a television broadcast audience, with pairing of digital media and insertion of some graphics and text that represented the actual business.

The ez show publishing process
First, you were supposed to select all of the footage from their digital asset library (music, voice, images, videos), assemble the selections, include any text, transitions and other effects; then, have it published to the web. Its Video SEO tools are promoted on its website as follows:
A publish feature, where you were to enter keywords and your website address, but never gave any indication of how these keywords would have any impact on whatever sites they were to be distributed on. The ability to link to your video ad from anywhere on the web An email feature that lets you send your ad anywhere.

After checking out ez shows publishing interface in the demo area, I couldnt see any essential SEO tools that would be considered standard for video publishing. There were no distribution features to the search engines, or to YouTube, or any video sharing sites; no Google Video Site map, no RSS feed, etc. Whats worse, ez Show did not allow customers a copy of the actual video file, so the customer wouldnt be able to do any of these submissions on their own.

No viral video content
While ez shows stock footage was of good quality, they were simply standard all-purpose commercials - totally unoriginal and forgettable. There was nothing in there that would be engaging enough on its own for people to want to share it with anyone else.

But heres whats much worse: It doesnt take great marketing savvy to realize that ez shows video ads could actually harm their clients business, simply because they would create for customers a false visual impression of the actual operations, location, building interior, displayed items, etcetera. For example, when I was shown a restaurant video, it had scenes of a very specific looking dining room and outdoor terrace with a skyline. (OK, how many restaurants have an outdoor terrace with a skyline? Or an ocean view??) After watching all of their other ad types on their home page - floral, health and fitness club, furniture store, and I was left scratching my head - do these guys really think that its acceptable to have a video ad for a business that actually looks nothing like the actual business??

And if you even get to the analytics, theyre downright horrible. The reporting would only show views, and nothing else. Other features promised for 2008 such as calls-to-action and click-thrus, never have materialized.

My ez show / CEO meeting
I happened to meet up with the CEO of ez show, Bernie Day, back in 2007 when I covered the Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago, when she was manning her companys booth. I queried Bernie about what I perceived as her companys ads creating this potentially serious consumer confusion. Her response to me was along the lines of that customers dont really care about the actual look of a business, and theyre really just pleased that the business has a video. (??!) I then asked for how they were actually optimizing this video content for the search engines. She said that ezShow had some major link partnerships where the videos were featured on highly popular websites. I asked for a few examples, which she first refused to share with me. After I pressed her and said I needed some sort of evidence to back up her claim, she relented by showing me what must have been her best example - a Los Angeles website geared for the African-American community - very poorly designed and not at all as popular as Bernie claimed it to be.

Now its seems that after a year in 2007 when they were doing many press releases and conferences, 2008 has made them virtually silent. My Emails to their company are now bouncebacked, and phone calls are never answered. Even a link to their highly touted online retail media network (at ezshownetwork.com) is now a broken link. ez show has become a ghost-town, a site with false expectations and leaving a black mark on the online video ad marketing space for SMBs. What any business should look for in a Video SEO ad publishing solution The lesson to this story: If youre a business looking into using a turn-key publishing solution for producing and promoting video content online, make absolutely sure it meets the following criteria:

Ability to upload your own footage (video, audio, vocals). If you want to have your video stand the best chance of going viral, make it all unique content. Otherwise use stock footage as sparingly as possible!
Ability to do your own post production editing online (graphics, text, transitions)
Ability to submit the video directly to the video sharing sites.
Has an acceptable media player which can be embedded and displayed on any web page of your site.
Ability to share with others (embedded link, email, etc.)
Ability to have a copy of the final video do to with as you wish, so you can publish it elsewhere.

I myself have been hard-pressed to find a publishing company that can offer a turnkey online video SEO solutions program (both production and distribution) to SMBs. Mixpo has an excellent program but does require going through one of their own partners, which for now may be the best solution available for most businesses. (Prices I was quoted for by one of their providers, Comcast, started off at $3K and also provided for distribution through their large and reputable site network, which makes it a very good deal.)

My key point is that when it comes to Video SEO, there are no tools or digital media library that can ever be a substitute for unique, engaging video content you should be producing yourself. Relying on stock footage will never be the answer simply because its not original. Video SEO is not simply about entering keywords; its about providing a memorable (and hopefully unique experience) that gets people to act and make them want to share it with others. If you take enough pride in your own business to consider it at least in some ways to be unique, then your video certainly should be, too.

Grant Crowell is the Senior Media Analyst for Grantastic Designs

Online video ads are considered excellent for branding. But, the DoubleClick findings suggest that online video ads perform extremely well even on direct response metrics like click-through rate. While image ads have click-through rates of 0.1%. Online video ads in comparison have click-through rates as high as 0.74%. Spending on them is only 0.6% of their TV counterparts. Online video ads spending should see a surge if publishing networks can find a way of targeting videos contextually. US advertisers are expected to spend $775 million on online video ads this year.

Online video consumption has been increasing with 62% internet users viewing streaming video content once a week. Most of the consumers prefer watching streaming video content at home. Content most watched online include news clips (62%), movie trailers (38%) and music videos (34%). Users in the age group 18-34 are more likely to watch movies, TV Shows and user-generated content online. These users are also more likely to generate video content. In comparison users over 35 years are streaming more news clips, sports clips and user-generated content. 69% of internet users streaming online video content are above 35 years of age.

Consumers are 8% more likely to view to completion video ads that are 15 seconds in length compared to those that are 30 seconds long. However, the 30 second pre-roll video ad format slightly outperforms the 5- and 15- second ad formats in terms of CTR.

Consumers are more receptive to advertising appearing in informational videos as compared to entertainment videos. As consumers are already searching for content related to a product or service, they would be more receptive to relevant advertising. Content-rich videos websites have click-through rates of 0.72% in comparison to premium websites which have click-through rates of 0.35%. Consumers say they are more likely to view through ads (visit advertised sites without clicking on ads) than click-through.

References:
1. DoubleClick TouchPoints IV "How Digital Media Fit into Consumer Purchase Decisions" (White Paper)
2. Bi-Annual Online Video Study: First-Half 2007 vs. Second-Half 2006 "The Who, What, When And What Works of Online Video Consumption and Advertising", (Advertising.com)

Everyone who is not living in a cave must have heard about Internet Video Marketing and I can assure you that this is not one of the latest Fads, which keep appearing on the Internet scene every week.

Video marketing is here to stay and the success of Pipeline Profits venture by Brock Felt and Buck Rizvi has proved this as a fact. Brock & Buck were relatively unknown marketers who suddenly appeared in the Internet marketing scene and used Internet Video Marketing in their campaigns, with great Success. They used videos from the Stompernet event and captured the attention of a large number of audiences. The people who came to view these videos were then given attractive incentives to subscribe to their mailing lists, which became quite large in a very short period of time.

Then there are some other well-known marketers who have used Internet video marketing to reap huge profits. Some of these big name marketers are John Reese, Joel Comm and Michael Cheney.

I still remember how Joel Comm used Google videos to create awareness about his Adsense Template Packages and Michael Cheney started his Cheney's Marketing News. Michael was clever enough to make it viral by allowing his videos to be placed on any site around the web and thus generated a large number of links pointing to his site.

There are some other people who have started sending video mails to their customers. In this way they were able to capture the attention of their customers who had become immune to text mails. Receiving video mails is so intriguing that it makes a person curious and thus he is forced to open up his mail and see what it contains. Thus the marketer is able to get his message to the customer while the customer is happy because he got something, which was pleasing and appealed to him.

Internet marketers have started to understand the power of "Internet Video Marketing " and thus a large number of services and courses are coming up which promise to help marketers in their video marketing campaigns. These services offer to create professional videos for these marketers and help them gain maximum benefits from their video marketing campaigns.

Internet Marketers who are still unable to grasp the power and uses of Internet Video Marketing, now have access to courses which help them to understand and apply Video marketing to their online business and thus be able to compete with other marketers who have already started using this as part of their marketing campaigns.

The message here is that, you can either educate yourself and start using Internet Video Marketing in your campaigns or get left behind by your competitors.