One of the main goals for organizations in the future will be to make their ads more interactive. Youtube is still new enough that it generates media attention and gives companies a free way to gain views. Youtube users now watch 40 million videos daily (USAToday.com). It is a quick way to upload clips for advertisers and consumers and is simple to search. Not that long ago, companies only had to worry about advertising to television and local radio and newspaper audiences. Now, they have their marketers specializing in television, radio, satellite radio, online newspapers, and online video ads. The goal of the majority of ads is to make you laugh. Laughter is a universal language, so their aim is to get you to associate their brand with happiness. This also appeals to more audiences. Youtube is known for their wide array of streaming videos.
In a recent article, Youtube says this about their future in online ads: "2010 was a breakout year for video advertising, which is an unmitigated good thing for advertisers and viewers alike... To find audiences and break through all the noise, brands must create content that people seek out, love, and share with others." One really successful online advertising campaign is Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. They started off with commercials on television in 2004 that celebrated women of all sizes, shapes, and colors. Not too long after, in 2006, they started the Dove Self-Esteem Fund. The goal was to promote “healthier” looking women and take away the idea that a “stick-figure” woman was beautiful. The way they funded this was through online-based short films that were very successful and interactive. The reason I mention this is that now another company is going to have to come along and surpass their success in online video advertising. Not to say other companies haven’t, but there will always be a need to be more creative than the one before you.
However, if the ad goes too outside the box, it is more than likely to fail. Chevy tried to begin an interactive online advertising campaign where they provided the images and music, and let users create their own Tahoe commercials. It backfired when users created anti-SUV commercials instead and posted them on Youtube. While audiences like to see something different and more creative, there is still a sort of invisible window where ads need to fall into a “safe” category. Of course you can’t knock them for trying, but it is an enormous loss of time and resources. Big companies are the dominators