Imagine you’ve searched YouTube for a video on how to cook authentic, Louisiana Shrimp Étouffee. Yum! My favorite. I recently did and found a great video from a chef that lived in Baton Rouge. Exactly what I wanted, but the video (and recipe) was so good, I wanted more. In the video he mentioned he had a cook book for sale. After an exhaustive search, I gave up, but found other cookbooks that I am thinking of buying instead. Not Good! What if…in the video, during the cooking or even when he mentions his book, you could click on the book (in the video) and be taken to an order page…with no searching. Well, that is exactly what is happening in online videos today. It’s called hotspotting. Check out this video that explains this great use of interactive video, branding, and conversion…without pre-rolls.

Arguably, Fed-Ex is one of the most recognizable brands out there. Their name is synonymous with overnight delivery – most people say “I’ll fed-ex that to ya,” they don’t say “I’ll UPS that to ya.”. And now, with what seems as the same sudden and quick pace in which they treat their deliveries, they have made some changes in how they are treating their television advertising dollars. Every year for the last twenty years, Fed-Ex has advertised on television during the biggest game of the professional football season – the super bowl. You could almost set your watch to it. Matter of fact, they have even had their tv spots rated “most memorable” and won several awards during that time. Well, not this year, my friend. Fed-Ex has decided that the Super Bowl isn’t so Super – at least for the money versus exposure….especially when they think they can get the same exposure through online video. Next Monday, Fed-Ex will introduce to the internet world the first online video in its new advertising campaign. They will have five three-minute short films featuring Fred Willard. Yes, the funny man that you recognize, but not from anything you can remember. Obviously, they hope to hit the elusive viral video gold mine.

The videos will appear on a dedicated YouTube channel, and on FedEx’s own Web site. Steve Pacheco, director of advertising at FedEx, said, “we’re still very involved in television…but digital advertising and communication is taking a bigger role in the overall plan, because we try to scale our media plan to be where our customers are.” (Source: N Y Times) But will that involvement include a future spot at the Super Bowl, doubtful considering the $3M price tag for a 30-second, one-time airing. The amount of advertising they can do online for that same amount is probably astronomical in relation. With a big brand like FedEx dipping it’s toes into the shallow end of the online video pool, does this mean other’s will follow? Overnight delivery is their bread and butter, but the results of their foray into online video advertising surely will not be determined as quickly.

I ran across an interesting article about the myth that online video has to be short and attention spans on the web are shorter than Paris Hilton’s skirts. All the videos I make for aggregation on the web follow this principle of “shorter is better” – somewhere Ryan Seacrest has a small smirk on his face. Anyway, the below New York Times article says that the trends as of late are for longer longer online videos. What do you think? What’s your attention span online?

NY Times article

I had been anticipating seeing the Tranformers sequel like a teenage boy anticipating his first car, minus the acne. So this past weekend, I grabbed my five year old son and headed to the cineplex. He too, had been anxiously awaiting the fist-pumping, shape-shifting, metal-on-metal, explosion-filled spectacle. Truth be told, I was really there for Megan Fox.

The movie was good, not life altering, but as advertised. After we finished watching Transformers, we snuck into “Up,” the latest Pixar creation, to attempt to bring the testosterone levels back down to an acceptable level to drive home. “Up” was a good movie as well. All in all, nice day at the movie theater, two movies – neither of which were the normal dismal experience.

So, later that night I asked my five year old son which movie he liked better and to my surprise – he went with “Up.” I asked him why and he said it had a better ‘series.’ So, I had to clarify what ‘series’ meant and after a little sleuthing on my end, what he meant was the ‘story.’

There’s a lesson here, folks. If a five-year old boy, who lives for the wham-boom-pow in everything, sees more value in a good story than the glitz; what does that mean for you? Well, I’ll tell you, wrap your product, brand or service around a story and you’ll win every time. Tell a story – a good one – engage your audience and watch the results. Hopefully, you’ll be as surprised as I was to my son’s choice in film. Even Megan Fox couldn’t sway him.

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