YouTube users are 1.5 times more attentive and engaged in advertising than TV viewers, according to research conducted in partnership with General Motors Europe, Motorola, media agency MindShare and the Online Testing Exchange (OTX)The research used eye tracking and biometric data to reveal the brand impact of advertising on YouTube.

It found recall and attribution for an ad viewed was up to 14% higher than watching the same ad on TV. Viewing a silent ad on YouTube in addition to a normal TV ad also improved ad recall and attribution.

Ads on YouTube can impact the perceptions of elusive audiences like young men and infrequent TV viewers. They also have a halo effect and increase brand perceptions such as innovative, cool, dynamic and unconventional.

Motorola’s YouTube ad impressions increased its brand metrics up to four times higher than TV alone, and GM Europe’s metrics for its Opel/Vauxhall Corsa brand increased three times.

Martin Sir, manager of European media strategies for General Motors Europe, said, "Immersive experiences like YouTube have changed and will further change the way entertainment and branded content is consumed and used.

“For GM Europe, distributing video content over the internet is far from novel but doing so in a way that’s always relevant for and engaging to our consumers remains challenging. This research supports us in our pursuit to further embrace these emerging advertising opportunities," he added.

We are delighted to launch an interactive drag and drop eCard for our friends in the National Concert Hall.

We wanted to do something different and innovative for this lovely brand, and we're really happy with how it turned out. You can customise the card with a number of different songs, drag and drop different animations onto different scenes, and create a custom message for up to 5 of your friends. Try it for yourself

I attended an event in the NCH recently, and I really hope this, and some of the innovative marketing they're planning for 2009 will encourage people to sign up and visit this great venue more often. A true diamond in Dublin's heritage.

Some 98% of marketers say online marketing is crucial to business success through the economic downturn, according to research by Efficient Frontier.

The survey of over 300 UK, French and German marketers found 73% expect to see the headcount of digital marketing teams increase through 2009, and 87% of those surveyed predict digital marketing will grow at the same rate in 2009 as it did in 2008.

Google is launching Sponsored Videos, a video ad auction model on YouTube aiming to replicate the success of AdWords on the video-sharing site.

Advertisers can now enter video ads and commercials into an auction model the serves them against specified keywords and phrases when YouTube users search the site.

More here...

A recent survey undertaken by Marketing Week and YouGov asked UK marketers how the credit crunch would affect their future advertising budgets. 64% percent of the people surveyed anticipated that their Online advertising spend would increase in light of the credit crunch.

vStream, the online video and online marketing experts, have been shortlisted for 2 awards in this year's IIA Net Visionary Award, and we'd really appreciate your vote! The categories are Best Internet Marketer, and Best Online use of Irish. The closing date is tomorrow, so we'd really appreciate your vote today! Click here to cast your vote: http://www.iia.ie/net-visionary/vote/

So far this year vStream have completed highly successful digital marketing campaigns for clients such as Irish Life, Hibernian and the award nominated www.lisbontreaty2008.ie, along with international campaigns for Jameson (www.jameson360.com) and a worlds first in interactive HD Video websites for Kopparberg Cider (www.kopparbergUK.com).

The first ad network letting brands run campaigns across Facebook’s 33,000 applications has been launched in the UK.

While there are no available dates to when this may be available in Ireland, this clearly opens up a new dimension of targeting to poorly performing social network ad platforms. Brands can also skin or sponsor applications for a period of time. With the vast wealth of very popular SN apps out there today (including apps in Bebo and MySpace) it will be interesting to watch how advertisers use this opportunity to connect with their audience.

More here...

Check out this new viral from Club Orange. Some bits are crucial!

Of great interest to all internet marketers out there is the recent announcement from Adobe that it has provided technology to major search engines Google and Yahoo which allows indexing of Flash (.swf) files.

For providers of SEO solutions, this announcement coupled with the advent of Google Universal means that the Search landscape is soon to change forever. While this is a very welcome development, some commentators see it as a pure PR stunt from Adobe.

I guess it will become very clear soon...

The online advertising industry in Europe experienced an average growth rate of 40 per cent last year, according to a new study.

Research carried out by the Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe (IAB Europe) indicates that the European online advertising market was worth €11.2 billion (£8.9 billion) in 2007, up from €7.2 billion in 2006.

Good news indeed! Read more here, here and here.

This weeks sees the first video ads introduced by Google in their search results.

What’s the motive for the change? As you might recall, last month a report came out showing that the amount of clicks on Google’s text ads was no longer increasing, in turn leading many analysts to project that the company’s earnings would stop growing as fast as they have been historically. Google’s high-flying stock is still around $300 lower than its all-time high reached in November.

More here...

In an effort to make itself of more value to advertisers and profit-driven groups, YouTube has rolled out YouTube Insight, "a free tool that enables anyone with a YouTube account to view detailed statistics about the videos that they upload to the site."

It enables video uploaders the ability to track the performance of their uploads and to put performance in context with detailed data, such as "how long it takes a video to achieve popularity and how a video behaves after popularity peaks."

Read more here...

This weeks Sunday Business Post had this to say about the Irish Advertising Industry...

"Ten years after the start of the digital advertising industry in Ireland, traditional agencies are beginning to admit that the future for advertising is digital and that they have left it quite late in the day to prepare themselves."

For an agency like ourselves, this is validation of what we have seen in the market to date, so it will be interesting to see how the big players react to the changing landscape.

Read the full article here...

Our mothers are so proud.

vStream are featured on this months Media Show. Presented by Alex Gibson, the media show takes a monthly look at the Irish media and marketing landscape. This special digital edition features a showcase of vStream's work, coupled with an interview with Technical Director Andrew Jenkinson and Creative director Niall O'Driscoll.

Watch it online here...

Behavioural targeting delivers 600% uplift

Are broad demographics really relevant in the online world? Is customer behaviour far more insightful to delivering your marketing message?

Behavioural information allows you to develop a toolbox of techniques to improve the relevance of your online marketing, delivering for one client a 600% uplift.

This article shows how Matthew Finch broke down the user journey into various steps allowing us to target the customer with the most appropriate message at the most appropriate time.

It’s like delivering a personalised TV advert, with an exclusive offer, to an individual customer at exactly the right time.

This article is one of an increasing number i've seen of late that poses the question - Are social networks all hype and no future? Interestingly, figures for engagement metrics (how long users stay on the site) have been dropping on the big networks (Facebook, MSN, Bebo) over the last year. There is an inevitable wearing off of novelty implicit in these findings, but what if the trend continues? If these networks taper off in their appeal they will become far less appealing as an advertising platform, but what will replace them?

Some commentators feel that for a social network to really appeal, it must be so feature rich that people will pay a subscription for it, thus negating the need to monetise with ad dollars. Others feel that closed social networks are the future. Whatever the end result, it's an area to watch closely over the next year...

From our friends in SalesOnline:

According to an OECD report for 2006 to 2007, Ireland had the biggest increase in broadband penetration among 30 OECD countries. This is a very encouraging trend but we are only finally catching up and broadband penetration is still quite low at around 16.35% of the total Irish population.

This is not exactly a new development (as in not in our industry as it's 2 months old!), but I felt the need to highlight a new development from EyeWonder, which adds the ability to quickly post content from a banner ad to your blog/social network page.

This technology, should it take off (and there has been considerable interest in the US already) really empowers the consumer to welcome the brand into their digital lives, and it's opt-in approach will find much favour in online communities, who balked at the introduction of Beacon on Facebook

Read more about Social Wonder here...

A very interesting article by Christine Beardsell of The ClickZ Network identifies a number of ways that video ads can become truly viral. As with everything, there's a hard way (organic) and an easier way (paid for), but both have their pro's and con's.

Worth a read here...

Burst Media recently conducted a survey of 2,600 online respondents to get a better idea of how they consume online video, and their perception of advertising placements within it.

Their conclusion: Online video content is in high demand – particularly for staying informed and being entertained.

• Men 18-34 years are the heaviest viewers of online video content.
• Caution to advertisers: Consumers are leery of in-stream advertising in video content –many abandon ad-fronted videos altogether.

This poses the question that we at vStream are constantly asking ourselves and our clients - How can we make the ad content less intrusive and therefore more effective. Luckily, we have the answer. Of course, you'll have to come work with us to find out!

Read the full report here...

This is some information that all you advertisers should be interested in. Essentially, consumers that watch TV online are more engaged than those that watch programs on TV sets, according to a cross-media study by Simmons of Experian Research Services, reports MediaPost (via MarketingCharts).

Moreover, there's a high correlation between media engagement and ad receptivity.

The Internet Advertising Bureau predicts that Internet advertising could surpass television marketing as early as next year.
by Helen Leggatt

Online ad networks have gone some way towards dealing with the “fragmented” nature of the Internet drawing more and more advertisers to the medium. "With the latest technology it is possible to amalgamate thousands of websites and segment their content into broad and narrow categories," said Jack Wallington, IAB programs manager. A rising Internet audience, coupled with the technology and networks that allow targeting of specific customers, such as DoubleClick, could see Internet advertising overtake television marketing very soon. If not 2009, then certainly 2010, said the IAB. In fact, online advertising in Sweden already surpasses television advertising spend and GroupM’s recent research found that this could well happen in the U.K by the end of this year.

An academic study in to the psychology of online advertising has found new evidence that internet banner ads work exceedingly well.

The paper produced jointly by several US universities, found that, although many web users do not necessarily click or focus on a banner advert, many subconsciously register the product advertised - and make positive conclusions.

Researchers asked test subjects to read an online essay under the assumption they would be quizzed on its content - in fact, they would be asked their feelings on a product advertised in a banner ad on the essay, with different groups of test subjects exposed to the ad zero, five or 20 times.

The research team found those people with negative impressions of the brand were unaffected by the number of exposures to the banner. But the positive connotation taken away from the ad went up and up in concert with further ad displays.

Banner ads have gradually been falling out of favour as more advertisers opt for keyword-based search marketing and other tactics. Despite this trend, the test results suggest that repeated exposure to banner ads yields positive results, with consumers taking away brand familiarity even if they don't click through.

A new year wouldn’t be a new year without a vast number of websites making predictions about the future of the web, and 2008 proves to be no different. From a number of different sources, e-consultancy.com have rounded up 10 key trends that they think are the ones to watch out for in 2008.

It makes great reading, and a very positive outlook for vStream and our clients in 2008. The list reads as follows:

1. Social networks advertising becomes scalable

2. Privacy will continue to be a sensitive issue

3. Internet advertising will overtake radio advertising in the US

4. Open Source will continue to dominate

5. The rise of the semantic web

6. Mobile web expected to explode in 2008

7. Video gains ground as a popular advertising medium

8. Local search marketing and advertising platforms can expect growth

9. Behavioural targeting will become more widespread - and something which is expected

10. Fear of recession will shift advertising budgets to online media

Read the full story here...

TV viewers are apparently much more ‘engaged’ when they watch content online, rather than on their TV sets, according to a study.

Researchers at Simmons found that respondents were 25% more involved in programmes they viewed on the web, rather than in the conventional way.

There was also good news for advertisers – viewers were reportedly 47% more engaged in ads shown during online TV shows.

The study, via MarketingVox, measured engagement by looking at different ways respondents’ viewed content – whether they found it ‘inspirational’, ‘trustworthy’ or ‘life-enhancing’, for example.

It found women and younger consumers had slightly higher levels of engagement online than average.

If you're not making money off your blog, 2008 might be the year.

As more people see potential in earning money off the Internet, there is a quickly expanding array of advertising services and tools for bloggers that go well beyond the standard pay-per-click text ads or display ads.

See what's available to make some money from your musings here...

SALINAS, California: A new report from AccuStream iMedia Research shows ad revenues from streaming video and audio totalled around $1.37 billion (€935; £697m) last year, up 38% on 2006.

The firm estimates that during 2007 there were between 2.1bn to 2.7bn views of streaming or progressive-download content each month, via ad-supported or free content areas on the web. The figures exclude user-generated videos.

The report also revealed that pre-roll ads generated around $420 million.

Data sourced from Wall Street Journal Online; additional content by WARC staff, 18 January 2008

NEW YORK, Jan. 7, 2008 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) -- Two Wall Street firms issued bullish outlooks for Internet companies in 2008, with Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and China's key players among top picks expected to show continued strength. The key trends predicted to drive growth in the sector are improved content, such as social networking sites, growth in Web access internationally, and improvements in search and navigation technologies.