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How To Do Advertising On YouTube: Make It Awesome

from the content-equals-advertising dept

Thu, Oct 2nd 2008 9:10am — Mike Masnick

In the past, as we've talked about how advertising is content and content is advertising, we've pointed out that many folks who worry about "advertising" on YouTube are missing out on the fact that the YouTube videos are advertising themselves. But, of course, with millions and millions of videos on YouTube, it helps to do something special. Our own Tim Lee sent over this example of a YouTube video about a Nintendo Wii game that's worth watching in its entirety, just to see what happens. Can't say much more about it, other than that you should watch the whole thing. It acts as fantastic content and fantastic advertising in a single shot -- without "overlays" or "prerolls" or anything like that. It's yet another example of how a YouTube video fits in when people recognizes that content is advertising... and advertising is content.

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Filed Under: advertising, content, video, wii
Companies: google, nintendo, youtube

19 Comments

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Chronno S. Trigger, 2 Oct 2008 @ 9:22am

That was freegen sweet
I had my window shrunk so it just showed the video because we have a stupid internet policy where I work. I paused the video to let it buffer and scrolled down to read the comments and saw the progress bar hanging from the video at an angle. I continued to look around and saw scroll bars, tables and even links had fallen down. I had to reload the page just to see it again.
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Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased), 2 Oct 2008 @ 9:57am

Impressive
Bravo! Didn't see it at first but if you hang on long enough it is pretty apparent. Great idea!
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Scott Lithgow, 2 Oct 2008 @ 9:58am

Don't tell anyone about the hidden twist at the end
DOH!
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Oct 2008 @ 10:02am

Credit Where Due
Don't forget that this is possible because of Flash. You can't see this kind of goodness in any other platform... yet...
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- T.J., 2 Oct 2008 @ 10:51am
  
  Re: Credit Where Due
  http://www.eseidel.com/gravity/ . Albeit it only works in Webkit browsers right now, it's still done without the use of flash, just straight DHTML.
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- Anonymous Coward, 2 Oct 2008 @ 12:45pm
  
  Re: Credit Where Due
  You can do it with anything else.
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PPitstop, 2 Oct 2008 @ 10:07am

Everyones selling but is anyone buying
Cool suff!

So much of the internet is people showing their content but how many people actually browse?
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Ragaboo, 2 Oct 2008 @ 10:16am

Didn't see it till the end the first time
It didn't work the first time until the end when everything crashed, so I reloaded and it worked very well; nicely done! I have no interest in the game, but I've already sent the link along to other friends.
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- Anonymous Coward, 2 Oct 2008 @ 10:36am
  
  Re: Didn't see it till the end the first time
  I bet it did and you just didn't notice...
  
  Show it to someone else while you're there and see how long it takes them to notice what's happening. My colleague didn't notice until very near the end.
  
  cool thing is that even after they fall all over the place, most of the links still work. You would expect a few to get "broken"
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Buzz, 2 Oct 2008 @ 10:43am

LOL
I had seen this before Techdirt's mention of it. My wife and I loooooove this ad. Neither of us noticed ANY damage until the very end. Watching it again, I was surprised at how oblivious I was the first time seeing it.

Best ad evar.
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Dirk Belligerent, 2 Oct 2008 @ 11:14am

No joy here. I'm only seeing a big white empty page in Firefox 3 with AdBlock Pro on or off. No Flash or video windows or nothing. [sad panda]
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- Anonymous Coward, 2 Oct 2008 @ 12:08pm
  
  Re:
  I'm using Firefox 3 with AdBlock Plus turned on. Didn't make a difference either way, the video still worked. However, make sure you're not using something like FlashBlock or maybe even NoScript. One of those might get in the way, especially FlashBlock (obviously).
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  - nasch, 3 Oct 2008 @ 8:43am
    
    Re: Re:
    It's NoScript, you have to allow gmodules.com. FlashBlock users get the first clue something is up, because the flash content clearly fills the entire page. I figured it was just a fluke until I saw the money spraying off of the video frame.
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Anonymous Coward, 2 Oct 2008 @ 11:43am

I only noticed about halfway through cause I paused it to let it buffer and I noticed a few things dangling loose.
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A Soya Crown Mound, 2 Oct 2008 @ 11:56am

Slick!
You can even pick up and toss the "debris." Just click and drag.
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- Mike (profile), 2 Oct 2008 @ 12:51pm
  
  Re: Slick!
  You can even pick up and toss the "debris." Just click and drag.
  
  Ha! I'd actually missed that, but that is very slick.
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Xander, 3 Oct 2008 @ 6:14am

And the Cycle is complete
I think it's safe to say that the content and advertisement have merged perfectly in this one. I know I was personally looking forwarding to playing this game, but even the people that would naturally be turned off to purchase have something to share with others.

Well played.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Feb 2009 @ 1:03am

Ok, well that was amazing!
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mlgreen8753 (profile), 26 Jun 2009 @ 4:48pm

Never Heard That One Before
I've never heard that saying but it's so true. If you have good content people will sell themselves on whatever related product you're pushing in the that market. Videos certainly allow you to provide extra layers of content through visual and audio aids. YouTube is a must in video marketing, but other another site I recommend, which is more commercial friendly is Adwido.
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