The engaged viewer

What's the value of an engaged viewer? This is the headline of Google's True Video launch announcement on YouTube. The answer may arguably be, 'everything'. An engaged viewer find value in having their need state met. Engagement invites conversation and hopefully a long term relationship if not a transactional one. True Video simply enables viewers to decide which ads they see when. This puts user centricity and relevancy at the forefront - delivering messages to the right person at the right time in the right environment. This is a trend being embraced by many, including Hulu with their self-selecting ad capability.

In its five years of existence, with 3.5 years under the Google umbrella, YouTube videos are streamed 2 billion times every day and YouTube is ranked as the second largest search engine behind parent Google. According to Mintel, watching videos over a PC is the most popular way to view videos, with the majority of those under 45 years of age doing so - particularly watching TV shows. eMarketer notes that video leads in the creation of 'magnetic content' defined as content that consumers genuinely want to engage in and pass along to others. The upside for brands is that they only pay when someone actually views their ad or video on YouTube - so it is win-win for the media publisher, the audience and the brand.

So, as marketers, the need to establish a reciprocal value, served within the context of relevancy, extends beyond merely creating the video, but also in redefining the 'ads' served as well. Shifting from advertising to engagement, awareness to education, push to invite - will be key success factors a brand's ability to form and sustain a relationship with their audiences. Perhaps instead of focusing on creating a marketing plan, we need to shift to understanding what our brand's value plan is.

Google Slam

There are rare times when I read my industry updates with my morning coffee and say "wow, that's amazing". Google's Demo Slam is definitely one of those moments. Contests are not new to marketing. However contests where a brand's audience, or ideally their fans, celebrate the product and elevate it's usage to others - that is not common in our current environment of splintered consumer media attention and brand loyalty. Demo Slam is experiential in how it engages fans in the many existing and emerging Google products, and reinforces Google as a branded house, not a house of brands.

The idea is eloquent in its simplicity. Upload your own video of how you use a Google product, and your idea will face off with another video to be voted on and ranked. Current champs include "The Logo Bandits" featuring Google's Change Background Theme, and "Rushmore by Slam Force One, featuring Google Goggles for mobile. This week's contenders are battling it out over Gmail Video Chat, and my pick for this week - Google Real Time Search, (which is different from next week's slam on Google Instant Search which can save 2-5 seconds per search), where two guys compose a song on the fly using real-time search results for "babe" - video below.