A recent scroll through our video library brought to light a notable trend spawned by an underexploited market. It’s an all-too-often overlooked market right here in our very own country.

According to the *IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada) in 2010 out of the $2.23 billion in online advertising revenue (2011 stats were estimated at $2.6 billion), approximately $428 million or 19% were from French websites (2011 stats were estimated at $500 million, 17% increase) with a predicted continued steady growth for 2012. The article also goes on to state that 2010 was the year that online ad revenue officially beat out newspaper ad revenue, therefore bumped up to place second and looking to be number one in the coming years. So basically, if you aren’t creating marketing content for online use yet, that’s your first problem. However, if you are…start transcribing! These stats give an idea into how large of a market French-Canada really is when considering online advertising revenue. The chart below sourced from IAB, shows the French proportion of ad revenue in display advertising vehicles (ie. Banners etc.)

French Canada, mostly of course located in Quebec are some of the top rated Internet users and growing each year. What does this mean? There’s a huge market, not being spoken to in their own language! How can this be? As companies and brands begin to merge their marketing efforts online and get more comfortable using this as an ongoing platform its not that shocking that areas become overlooked or forgotten altogether. A critical mistake being made by many companies and brands worldwide is forgetting to translate their videos and other online content. If I haven’t convinced you yet, here are some more Quebec stats that might get you to say “sacré bleu”.

• 43% of Quebecers have a Facebook account;
• Of those, 49% access it at least once every day;
• Only 3% of Quebecers have a Twitter account, but this number is expected to significantly increase in the next few years;
• 15% of Quebecers follow a company on Facebook and 6% on Twitter.
**source: http://www.adeointernetmarketing.com/news/social-media,-a-growing-movement-in-quebec-59.aspx

Just a few examples pulled from our own library of companies tapping into French-Canada and beyond.

*All IAB statistics sourced directly from: http://www.iabcanada.com/blog/2010-internet-revenue-survey

We hope you all had an excellent March – the online video world sure did!

Things are looking very bright in our industry based on some recent reports from comScore, Google and MediaCT.

If you’ve noticed more videos being shared via smartphones, it’s no coincidence and the trend is looking up. In Canada, video is accelerating in the mobile world with half of Canadians watching more online videos than they were last year. Specifically, 35% smartphone owners, 56% tablet owners, and 75% laptop owners in Canada are regularly watching videos on their portable and mobile devices.

Even further, Canadians watch an average of eight videos per week. What percent of our nation is still not willing to engage? A small portion – only 13% of Canadians do not watch any online video content. This is all pretty remarkable and the diversity and easily accessible nature of online video inevitably makes the medium more entertaining than live TV (according to 26% Canadians to be precise).  It’s all about convenience and on demand content with none other than YouTube leading the way.

For those who are using media dollars for the traditional media outlets – you may want to rethink your strategy as leading networks such as CTV and CBC, were popular with only 25% or less of Canadian online video watchers.

Last but not least, Canadians also don’t just watch videos – they take action. Out of those surveyed, 18% follow up after online video watching whether it’s searching for more information, social networking, sharing, visiting or purchasing.

Also, some great news from our neighbours down South:

US has reached a new record of video advertising impressions in one month! 

It’s true, online video advertising impressions surpassed 8 billion for the first time on the record with 181 million Americans watching video online in March.

YouTube is dominating but take a look at who is next in line:

Great month in our industry!

Let’s keep this up,

VMG Team.

Sources: TechVibes & REELSeo
Images:  DigitalTrends, Klaszter.

It’s safe to say that having online video as part of a company’s marketing efforts is finally universally accepted. 

Measuring online video Return On Investment (ROI) is not much different than a traditional marketing campaign. If anything, it presents opportunity for analytics that a traditional campaign would not be able to deliver with a much more targeted reach. When videos on YouTube are able to receive millions of views within days and Comscore releases reports stating that on average a person watches 14.8 hours of online video a month; it’s not the matter of trying to prove that online video marketing is effective.The quick pace of new media in today’s marketing landscape has us trying to keep up with the latest trends more often than not with C-levels wanting to see numbers justifying these efforts. The C suite wants to know that the marketing dollars are achieving the highest value and ROI while receiving the desired results.

So how do you measure ROI of online video?

No matter what kind of video initiative your company wants to execute – whether it’s internal communications or consumer oriented – you’ve got to be able to show the results. Here are some tips that can help you.

1. Know your objectives.

The most essential component of executing a campaign successfully is having clear goals. The simplest way to measure return on what you’re investing is knowing your target audience and what message you are trying to deliver.

Your objectives may vary. For example, if you’re trying to promote product sampling, your objective may be to have individuals register for a coupon on your website after viewing the video. On the contrary, if you’re executing an online video for internal communications between various offices, your objective may be saving on travel costs. Whatever it may be, figure it out prior to execution.

2. Use Available Analytics.

With various analytics tools, it is easier than ever before to evaluate how others are interacting with your video. You are able to examine which videos are being watched until the very end, at what point others may drop off, the demographic of your audience and how far the video is shared.

You are also able to create a model to calculate what the engagements are worth based on your messaging objective and how others are interacting with your video. If you’re looking to promote sampling and want to calculate what the engagement is worth, assigning a value for each sign up is a great way to measure success. For example, every person who watches your video and engages fully by registering for your sampling promo can each equal to $100 of investment. Working with these numbers will make it easier to draw comparisons between media channels.

Similarly, ROI doesn’t necessarily have to equal a dollar figure. It can be social interactions, conversations around your brand and those very important recommendations by your brand ambassadors. If your video is getting shared by your target demographic and this audience is recommending your video to their friends, the reach and engagement is just as valuable as a dollar figure.

3. Partner up with experts.

There is no point in producing expensive high quality content without a distribution strategy. Online platforms have an advantage over traditional platforms in being able to target the right demographic and this is something your campaign should benefit from.

It’s rare that a video goes viral and is shared without a push and without a doubt, a successful online video campaigns require the same level of planning for a targeted distribution to ensure desired exposure to a relevant audience.

If you are able to, it’s beneficial to partner up with experts to help your campaign achieve maximum return – whether it’s perfecting your analytics or helping your video receive the target views it needs. Video marketing agencies like VMG Cinematic specialize in not only producing broadcast quality content for the web but also ensuring that the video gets in front of targeted eye balls.

Let’s take Canadian luxury fashion retailer, Holt Renfrew, as an example. At one time, The HR YouTube channel hosted 22 videos with a total of 92,000 video views; however 84% of those views came from only 2 of the 22 videos with the help of VMG. Furthermore, these two videos have also accounted for total of 84% of total consumer interaction on brand’s channel. 

Partnering up with online video industry leaders can provide you access to numbers and reports that provide in depth analytics and more importantly, results that justify your online video ROI.

4. Don’t be afraid to get creative.

Measuring online video ROI isn’t always an exact science and with a non traditional platform, you have room to come up with creative and different ways to validate your efforts.

Online video can often drives traffic back to your website and one way is to look at what that traffic would have cost if it had been acquired by a push advertisement.

For example, comparing the pay per click model and the received traffic you can use the following:

Running banner ads on a website with $3 per click which results in 300 unique visitors to your website. This traffic of 300 people to your website is then worth $900.

Although this approach offers an easy dollar figure, it’s crucial to note that the difference in pay per click banner ad traffic and organic post video engagement differs greatly and the value through organic engagement is much higher.

To conclude, online video enhances and creates the most engaging online user experiences. When it comes to ROI, the measurement metrics differ greatly depending on the specific goals. However, success lays in in the ability to target a specific audience based on demographic, geographic and contextual parameters.

Investing in your industry’s community programs, helps develop and shape its future. This is why we at VMG Cinematic feel it’s important to offer support to The Remix Project. 

The Remix Project is a youth program for those between ages of 16-22 that acts as an incubator for youth in the Toronto Area. It’s for young people aspiring to start careers in the urban arts sector who would not necessarily get the chance. The program develops a 6 month action plan for success for these entrepreneurs by providing:

-Supportive and knowledgable staff.
-A 4,930 sq. ft. facility, with a full recording studio, business development centre, visual art lab, video editing suite & more.
-Mentors and industry professionals with wide range of experience.
-One on one guidance sessions.
-Regular workshops lead by industry professionals, giving practical steps and advice.
-Flexible schedules for youth.
-Meeting like minded individuals.

Specifically, VMG support the  City Life Film Project that finds young, talented filmmakers from Toronto’s priority neighbourhoods to tell their stories through film.

So why The Remix Project?

For VMG partners Mark and Reid Campbell and Nick Haffie-Emslie, it carries a personal interest. Spending their youth making films, they know first hand how important it is to be able to pursue your passions at a young age. In their case, it eventually lead them into starting their own business of making brand videos.

As Reid Campbell explains, “Filming, editing, video cameras…. film making as a hobby can get ridiculously expensive. Especially when you’re in high school! We wanted to give back to the community and give a chance for others to follow their artistic passions”

The Remix project works with priority neighbourhoods, of which over 30% of high school students are not expected to graduate resulting in higher unemployment, increased crime rates and deeper social divisions. The City Life Film Project trains talented youth and gives them the chance to work with top filmmakers from the Toronto film industry helping the youth expand their education.

TIFF Bell Lightbox hosted a red carpet and special screening of City Life Film Project on January 24th showcasing artistic excellence in film making created by talented youth from priority neighbourhoods, and VMG was proudly in attendance showing our support.

It was an inspiring event with many of our industry friends. So amazing to have a chance to be a part of something this great!

And you know what the best part about supporting organizations like The Remix Project? Reading stories like these:

I have been hanging out with a lot of kids lately. It’s my age, it seems. The tables have turned and there are no longer get-togethers with friends and family in which small offspring are not involved. I have been watching them, in their new lives, as my parents and their parents before must have also, with fascination. Marveling at how different the realities of their childhood will be from my own. A case in point, my parents didn’t own a computer until my later years of elementary school and Duck Hunt was the biggest, most technologically advanced thing to happen in my living room!

Children of the current generation are already on Facebook just days, sometimes minutes (serious social media dedication on their parents’ part) after birth. They comb through playlists searching episodes of Dora the Explorer from their strollers in the grocery store. They sit tucked in bed curled up with an iPad alphabet game instead of a book. This is reality and, understandably, new parents are wondering: is this ok?

In chatting with friends and in researching more scholarly debates, schools of thought on the subject of social media and kids are as varying as Twitter handles. Some believe that children should be shielded from social media, and media overall, for as long as possible. They argue that social networks fail to really educate kids about the real world, substituting video games for books, cyber chats for community or human interaction and promoting mindless consumerism over serious learning.

Others feel that media-savvy kids are genuinely unavoidable and necessary. They feel that it is a modern parent’s responsibility to allow their children to be on social networks, because children should learn about the world and technology – and media and the worldwide web are highly effective and realistic ways of doing so.

Of course in any debate there are many sides. I do appreciate them all and not being a parent myself, I have yet to come to any truly definitive social media child rearing intentions. However, having invested a career in marketing and social media communication, I appreciate and recognize the fact that it is only going to play more of a role, not less, in the future of our society. This being the case, perhaps efforts to keep children from it might be fruitless?

I was most surprised by the concerns about “reality” (and social media’s detachment from it) that came up in some of the perspectives I uncovered on this topic. I recognize that video games and TV are not reality, and that children should be taught the difference. But online social interactions with other individuals, be they Facebook comments, YouTube responses, or general emails, are very much real. Rather than shy away from social media, for fear of it not being a meaningful interaction, shouldn’t children be encouraged to recognize that what they put out into cyberspace is in fact received by other people in the real world? Most importantly, they should be taught that there can be both positive and negative repercussions when interacting via online forms of communication, which can mirror those of speaking face to face.

Like any other lessons in life, the next generation will need to be taught the values and risks of social interaction online. How to be safe. How to communicate, yet at the same time harbor discretion for personal protection and privacy. How to embrace it, as an enjoyable and positive element of their social development, a forum for creativity and expression. Most importantly, we should help our children understand that they can all hurt, anger, influence and inspire with the messages they send and persona they project online.

At times kids can surprise us, in their ability to digest information and entertainment with an exceptional level of candid maturity. They have the ability to distinguish reality from fantasy, right from wrong. This is made evident through one of my subscribed YouTube shows, “Kids React to Online Videos”. Their responses are not only hilarious, but also showcase how easily they recognize non-sensical entertainment for just what it is.

Charlie Sheen

Fred

Undoubtably there are media dangers: teens posting unmonitored material, lost cognitive skills through video game comas, and it is true that these are unique to our generation as parents. However, risks in child rearing are not new. My grandmother, in the mid-fifties, used to let her children out for the day into the once suburban woodlands of Mississauga and just hoped that they would show up for dinner. That must have been a bit concerning too!

In summary, a child can be safeguarded for only so long. After all, documentation of their formative years no longer live in dusty basement albums, but rather on their parents’ Macs or, more likely, Mum or Dad or even Grandma’s social media page. What hope do they really have of avoidance? So for now, I aspire to offer my future children opportunity, confidence and wisdom in all aspects of their life. With some diligence, if such principals are applied to a strong and dedicated Social Media upbringing, perhaps my kids might just blog and tweet for the better!

Microsoft posted a new video recently that perhaps all advertisers could learn a lesson from, which is, to learn from others’ mistakes.

This video was unfortunately released publicly on their YouTube channel and served to the lions of the online world to rip apart. I think it was their intention to present this as an advertising platform for agencies and media buyers, however, they may have overlooked the very important opinionated end user, especially when it comes to the very in-your-face advertising that is displayed here.

The take away point here is to understand the importance of creating a positive and unobtrusive online branding presence. Similar to what was talked about in the previous post, viewers want to be entertained, engaged in someway without really knowing they are being advertised to and if that’s not the case, well, at least offer some kind of incentive! We love free stuff! And we will click on anything to get it…most of the time.

Not to be too harsh on Microsoft Advertising, because I can see where they were going with this, trying to intertwine advertising on XBox with the user and their personal social media pages, however, I have to agree with this comment made by one of the video viewers: “Oh man… I thought interactive ads meant cooler things. Like instead of there being an actor, kinect could place me into? the ad (or something less fancy).”

That said I think there is a little more work to be done with this platform before its release, unless of course the initiative has totally been canned after the hugely negative response. Come on Microsoft, you can do better than that!

Was that real or fake? It’s this type of question invoked by millions of YouTube video viewers that leads a brand to viral video heaven.
Remember when Roger Federer knocked that can off a crewmembers’ head in what they claimed was a trick shot.

Or more recently the Microsoft video of the longest waterslide.

These types of videos aren’t just watched once or partially watched and passed over for the next video link or news story. Viewers are watching repeatedly, tweeting it, posting it, sharing it, and creating an organic buzz as a result of the skepticism surrounding it. Proving the “social” in social media, people are asking, “How’d they do that?” “Is it real?” and “How could they fake that?” Everyone is going online clicking the video up for dispute, playing and pausing and trying to solve the mystery. The online community without any coercion will circulate the video and come together creating CSI-like discussions. Thousands will comment, reply, like and dislike building a brand’s real/fake video into something equivalent to a highly publicized celebrity scandal. In the end, viewers will amplify the “Is it real?” video to rack up millions of hits to a (what seems to be) scantily placed YouTube video.
Some brands do this very well and some well, they might be making it a little too obvious like this one just done by Pepsi where David Beckham nonchalantly kicks not one but three soccer balls into trash cans in the far away distance.

However, that said it didn’t stop this “Is it real?” genre video from going into viral bliss as it approaches the 4 million views mark. What really makes this genre of video almost always a home-run for brands is its playful nature. Yes, they are messing with the viewer, but they are also entertaining them and usually using a celebrity to do so, and in return receive a highly positive response from viewers/customers who enjoy the challenge of putting their inquisitive skills to the test.

Social Media Week is in full force! There was a great response from the JWT Canada’s Retail Slam event last night that our very own VMG CEO participated in. I thought I would give a quick review of the event entirely composed of tweets made while the presentations were happening…how’s that for putting social media to work.

Day 3 of Social Media Week in Toronto and every attendees’ head is exploding w/information & ideas for clients. JWT Canada’s Retail Slam event went from Balckberry converting top faqs from call ctr to how to YouTube videos. There were incredibly interesting presentations from speakers, the audience was convinced that the future of social media in retail is taking over! The insightful and powerful presentation by Mark Campbell about the future of online videos brought light to the powerful Info-tainement on YouTube : Case studies, How-to videos, Live video, Video Hauls and eye-opening statistics such as YouYube : More than 35 hours are uploaded every hour. I asked Mark what he wanted to get across to listeners in one tweet, but someone beat me to it: Mark Campbell – Make videos about what people are actually looking for, do customer support on YouTube. As presentations went on and updates were made by the second, it was apparent that everyone involved were also feeling smarter by the second.

Here is a little montage of the event filmed, assembled and ready for viewing by the time the last question was answered.

Social Media Week is approaching! 9 major cities around the world will simultaneously be taking part in this global platform from February 7th – 11th. As a host, Toronto will be buzzing and tweeting to the tune of everything and anything social media. 5 days of conferences, panel discussions and presentations are being held on every topic on this communication revolution that has become one of the most important marketing tools for you and your business. This year, a new initiative will be launched to connect and share experiences by having real-time conversations with other attendees around the world as well as new location check in capabilities.

Whether you are just learning the ins and outs of social media, or if you consider yourself an expert on the topic, lets face it, in this type of industry even if you think you have caught up with the latest advancements and news, think again, as quick as a tweet there is something new and exciting announced or launched without even being spotted on your social media radar. For this reason and more, SMW has grown and doubled just as quickly, needing two separate events throughout the year so we can keep ourselves up-to-date as much as possible. As SMW is here to help inform, educate and develop social media as a whole, all events are free, however you do have to register. There are still a few more events that are open, and for those of you that couldn’t quite decide and missed registration, there will be rush lines to fill seats after the first 15 minutes of each event.

VMG will be taking part in the JWT Canada’s Retail Slam event, sharing some of our own knowledge and experiences. So don’t get overwhelmed by the abundance of events packed into 5 days of sharing, networking and running from one event to another, but appreciate the integration of socializing online and offline (for a change) as we merge internet with real world in our very own city.

So grab your iphone, smartphone, ipad, laptop, whatever is your preferred communication device and start tweeting, posting, and checking in!

Check out the schedule of events here: http://socialmediaweek.org/toronto/schedule/

Revise the HTML standard in programming and look at what you get. WOW! Talk about getting crazy and creative and one up-ing the Arcade Fire We used to wait video. Of course it would be a band from Japan to blow personalized unique music videos out of the water. The actual song isn’t exactly next on my “to download” list but the video/webpage is definitely a cool look into how music videos are transforming online and their capabilities of interacting with their fans and viewers. In case you don’t want to connect your personal facebook page, twitter account and webcam to watch that version of the video, it basically takes pieces of information as well as live video through the enabled webcam and uses it thorughout the video. They have your location, and make a block figure out of you and your facebook friends’ profile pictures that walks through different screens related to you the viewer (pictures below). Anyway, I’ve tried to explain it enough, you will have to check it out for yourself. Perhaps facebook, google, or even twitter should let Sour Mirror make a promotional video for them. Enjoy!

This link will take you to their site, but you will most likely have to download google chrome from there. http://sour-mirror.jp/