The rise of video content on the internet over the last 2-3 years is simply astounding. It seems hard to believe that what we now consider a household name – and the undisputed leader of the pack – YouTube, was founded just over 5 years ago.

With improvements in technology, download speeds and bandwidth, the online video revolution is set to continue and will play an increasingly important role for marketers as consumers engage more and more with this medium.

Here are 15 very good reasons why marketers should consider using online video:

1. Size: If YouTube were a country, it would be the world’s 3^rd largest, behind China and India, with more than 400,000,000 users. It is currently ranked 4^th in the world in site traffic, based on the combined measure of page views and users¹.
2. Content: The amount of content on YouTube is simply staggering, with an estimated 20 hours of video being uploaded every minute. Interestingly, 52% of YouTube’s users in the 18-34 year old demographic are sharing this content with friends and colleagues¹.
3. Search Power: If YouTube were a search engine it would be ranked #2 in the world (behind Google sites), even outperforming Yahoo, based on search queries¹.
4. Share: More than 80% of the online audience in each of the USA, UK and Australia watch videos online².
5. Locally very popular and engaging: In Australia there are 6.17 million monthly unique users, split 54% male and 46% female, each of whom views on average 59 pages per month and spends an average of 49 minutes per month on the site³.
6. Huge monthly viewing: In Australia there are more than 362 million page views per month on YouTube³.
7. Everybody’s doing it: The Prime Minister of Australia, Queen of England and the Pope all have branded YouTube channels.
8. A star was born in 2009: In 2009, Susan Boyle, star of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ was the most watched YouTube video both in Australia and globally (with more than 120 million views globally).
9. Still as popular as ever: YouTube has a subscription system which delivers videos from content creators to interested people – this has become so popular that the “subscribe” button is activated 1 million times dailyª.
10. User rewards for top viral videos: Viral videos on YouTube can now be monetized with users able to make a one-off submission and profit from their success on the channel°.
11. Recently rewarded: The David After Dentist viral video, with more than 36 million views, has generated more than $30K for the up-loader°.
12. Continued innovation: YouTube broke new ground in 2009 with live streamed music events, including Alicia Keys’ World AIDS Day concert in New York and U2’s LA Rose Bowl concert, which was broadcast to more than 140 countries and, with more than 10 million streams, became the most successful live stream event in history°.
13. Online video is very popular on other leading sites: Whilst YouTube has a seemingly unassailable lead at the top of the table, both Hulu and Facebook are at least on the move. Vimeo, the destination for people to showcase their own video content, is also showing signs of growth – with global visits up nearly 44% over the last 3 months*. Facebook’s huge growth, coupled with its user base engaging more and more through sharing video content, will surely continueˆ.
14. Some impressive stats from late 2009: In late 2009 we saw Facebook unique video views rise 25% from 31.18 million in September to 41.15 million unique views in October, setting a record for the world’s largest network and mirroring the trend to online video viewingˆˆ.
15. YouTube’s growth continues: Google sites (including YouTube) jumped from 125.3 million viewers in October 2009 to 129 million in November 2009, and its share of video views rose from 37.7% to 39.4%ˆˆ.

We’ll keep a very close eye on the developments in online video throughout 2010 and will continue to report on them in our What Next newsletter. Stay tuned!

Steve Jennings is an Interactive Account Manager at BCM Brisbane

Sources:

¹ Alexa Web Info – 19/01/10, YouTube Fact Sheet, comScore December 2009;

² Nielsen IT&T report 2008-2009

³ Nielsen//Netratings Net View Sept 2009

4 The Official YouTube Australia Blog – 17/12/09

ª YouTube Biz Blog – 12/01/10

º YouTube Biz Blog – 30/12/09

ˆ Nielsen Wire October 2009

* Alexa Web Info – 19/01/10

ˆˆ comScore – 25/11/09

During pressure situations in the BCM office (such as looming material deadlines or a furious games of table tennis), it’s not unusual to hear the odd swear word being let loose. Despite this, the profanities have not yet sneaked their way into our advertising communications. But there are many campaigns out there which have a bit of fun with four letter filth. These include:

1) Air Asia’s press and outdoor execution which launched their services from the Gold Coast:

2) Fernwood’s foxy positioning across all of their current communication:

3) UK Burger King’s homage to the “king” which launched a  couple of weeks ago…

What do you think?

***king brilliant or ***king lazy? Or can some brands get away with it while others fail horribly?

Let us know what you think in the comments below. All comments will be ***king moderated.

Update (4/3/10): This is the ad Greidy refers to in the comments. Pure gold.

Nathan Bush is an Interactive Strategist at BCM

One day sale? I’m there. Special discounts available just to me? It’s sold. Loyalty program?! A further 10% off?!! Done and done!!!!

You hear stories about friends or even your friends’ mums plotting how to best hide their new purchases. Some dutiful poor schmuck takes his girlfriend’s credit cards hostage at her request, only to find an unpaid bill from PayPal a month or so later, hidden along with her secret stash of recent online purchases behind a stack of old shoe boxes, still in its original packaging, in a satchel, addressed to her best friend!

And that’s where I’ve been sneaking off to! Like many, I have fallen victim to the online retail industry – over $500 gone in less than an hour on the first day of a recent happy-Thursday-payday. Hi my name is Erika and I’m an online fashion shopaholic. It’s been a week since my last fashion purchase in real life, but only two days since my last online fashion buy.

Though I certainly am not alone as a shopaholic. It’s a real problem judging by the number of readily available self-help websites there are pertaining to online shopping addiction, although perhaps not quite as pervasive here in Australia as in the UK and US, yet.

But is this addiction entirely our fault? Online retailers hardly play fair. Data capture as part of a checkout process is pretty much standard practice, where online shoppers may supply information about themselves they might otherwise never give out in-store. And it seems we’re increasingly happy to exchange our personal information and purchasing data in return for exclusive online-only products, members only discounts, email updates with suggested products, and everybody’s favourite… free shipping.

It is this highly personalised online shopping experience that entices and lures even the most iron-willed shopper to keep coming back for more. Especially when coupled with the ability to quickly and easily source products and brands from around the world, that your favourite little boutique store can only dream of stocking, and at prices they could never compete with.

So do you suffer from ’shopaholism’? Are you happy to hand over your personal and purchasing details in return for a better online retail experience? And where is this all heading for real, physical stores? Let me know what you think!

But onto more important matters, where do you shop online?

Erika Veloso is an Account Coordinator at BCM Sydney

When we all grew up we were taught that we should share.

Share our toys, share our feelings, share responsibility, share our thoughts, share our wealth. Sharing is healthy.  Sharing is what nice, well balanced, good people do.

Then along came the interweb and social media.

We instantaneously shared information, thoughts and material via email. We began sharing our views on blogs like this!

We started sharing things we had for sale through Ebay.

We then shared with other people our travel experiences through sites like TripAdvisor.

Business contacts were shared via LinkedIn.

Our videos then were shared through YouTube, and available to everyone on the planet with a web connection.  Over a billion video views a day to be precise.

These days it seems that we share almost everything about ourselves on the web.  We’ve become share-a-holics.

Through social media platforms such as Facebook (7 million Australian users and growing!) we started sharing even more personal information.

We started sharing our eating habits, daily routines, TV shows we watched, stores we shopped in and even what we fed the dog that morning.

Then along came Twitter. We started sharing real time thoughts, feelings and news, as well as what we’re doing and where we are at any given moment.

How could we possibly share any more? Well, today my own question was answered when I read about Blippy.

In short, Blippy is Twitter for retail. Users share every transaction they make with others, with Blippy describing it on their site; ‘as a fun and easy way to see and discuss the things people are buying’.

How does it work?

Blippy asks people to share their transaction information by being linked to their credit card to automatically reveal the things people buy. If users register a credit card on the site, every transaction bought on the card would be displayed to their Blippy friends.

It can also track transactions through a range of retailers.  Already retail brands like Amazon, iTunes, Blockbuster, Wine Library, Zappos and Ebay have signed up.

Can you imagine telling the world, or your followers at least, what you spent your money on today, which shops you went to and how much you spent?

‘Paul spent $16.95 today at iTunes on a Passion Pit album’.  Scary, but not true ( I can’t claim to be that ‘in’ when it comes to music).

Will it work?

Well, Blippy is backed by one of the co-founders of Twitter and they’re deadly serious about its potential. Since launching last month it already has 13,000 users.

Will people be willing to share even more information, particularly detailed financial information, about themselves?

I’m not so sure.

What do you think?

Paul Cornwell is a Partner at BCM

Thanks to the generosity of my work colleagues I was the recipient of a Nando’s chicken burger today. In fact I had just received the “bonus burger” attached to a 2 for 1 offer – an offer which Nando’s had decided to honour following the decision of their rival Grill’d to pull their latest 2 for 1 promotion to students.

The original 2 for 1 burger offer targeted readers of the print edition of Victorian student publication The Uni Times Magazine, although an opportunistic individual (or individuals) decided to scan and share this offer online.

Updated (7.14pm): It has since been revealed that an electronic version of this voucher was actually available online through the Uni Times Magazine website, although this version had been removed from the site at the time of writing.

In part a victim of their own popularity, Grill’d were quickly on the back foot as people flocked to their outlets (primarily in Victoria) all trying to redeem the offer. Whilst they quickly pointed out that the offer was never intended for anyone other than the Uni Times Magazine readers, the damage was already done. Within no time they were taking a hammering on their website from scores of hitherto loyal fans – many defamatory posts have since been moderated. Twitter also has resonated to the cries of “PR failure” over the last few hours.

The offline to online transfer really does demonstrate just how quickly these things can get out of hand, almost to a viral level – in the context of the intended market. Moreover, it’s a timely reminder for companies to make sure their disclaimers are up to scratch. This exercise in damage control will surely cost Grill’d more than a few burgers and it will be interesting to see their longer term response.

Nando’s response however was swift, and I believe demonstrates their willingness and ability to listen, analyse and leverage this opportunity, as evidenced by their rapid press release and a statement posted on their website. Anyone presenting a copy of the Grill’d voucher to a Nando’s restaurant in Victoria or Queensland would be able to buy a burger or wrap and receive one of equal or lesser value, free of charge.

Kim Russell, Nando’s Australia National Marketing Manager, went on record and empathised.

“This time of year, students are back at Uni, paying for all their books and struggling to make ends meet… Many of our own staff are uni students and so we understand their plight.

“Downloaded, photocopied, scanned, emailed, original, we don’t care where you got them, just bring the Grill’d vouchers in to Nando’s and we’ll honour the Grill’d offer and terms and make sure you’re all well looked after,” she said.

Never shy of controversy, Nando’s delights in running topical ads, such as for the promotion of its Tropico Burger, and its homage paid to Sacha Baron Cohen’s Brüno and the unforgettable “Chips” advert which did the rounds over a year ago. Have a look through YouTube and you will find many more.

So is this timely intervention a great piece of marketing, or is it blatant opportunism from Nando’s? Do you think Grill’d will lose customers over this unfortunate incident? Either way, the famous Nando’s cockerel has good reason to crow!

Steve Jennings is an Account Manager at BCM

A mate of mine from my radio days posted this on his Facebook wall the other day and it got me thinking.

Radio is having a very tough time competing for your time since new media has come along. Facebook, Twitter, Blogging.. What advice would you give radio stations in 2010?? I’m giving a speech to Radio heads in the Maritimes* in two weeks and I’d love your thoughts. Thanks Dave

Is radio doomed? Do Gen Y, let alone Gen Z ever listen to it?

Radio has proven itself to be extremely resilient over the years.

TV couldn’t kill it. MTV couldn’t kill it. The Sony Walkman couldn’t kill it. Even Kyle & Jackie O couldn’t kill it. Can the digital revolution make the hit?

Logically, iPods, podcasts, mobile video etc make radio irrelevant. Radio can’t deliver news, weather, cricket scores quicker or more reliably than your mobile phone.

But the commercial stations claim revenue is as healthy as ever. Radio still produces big stars such as Hamish and Andy. And radio is adapting with specialised digital stations. Pink 24/7 anyone?

We seem to still be listening to our favourite radio stations even though we can easily program our own commercial free playlists on our iPods/iPhones/iThings. Are the ‘personalities’ and content that good? Do we just like to have a friendly voice in our ear? Is it good company? Does it make us feel like part of community? Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes. There are lots of good reasons radio survives and why people are fiercely loyal to their favourite station. Ever seen anyone (outside of media) wearing a TV station branded t-shirt?

Personally, I think the Pink 24/7 option will be the way radio goes. Lots of boutique stations. But in the meantime, my two cents to Dave was for radio to play to its strengths. Be local, topical and human.

What would your advice be? I’ll pass it on to the Radio heads in the Maritimes.

P.S. Radio Nigel is MY new station. Have a listen.

Jeff Smith is a writer at BCM and has either worked in, written for, or listened to radio for over 40 years.

* Apparently the Maritimes are on the remote east coast of Canada.

More than five years ago we created a brand idea for Sunny Queen Farms’ egg brand that was expressed via a smiley face on their eggs.  It was a wonderfully simple visual idea that encompassed everything we wanted the brand to own ie. happy, healthy, positive and active. It was accompanied by the strapline ‘Crack a Sunny Queen Smile’.

A carefully planned program of clever product development, packaging innovation, trade marketing and a host of other marketing initiatives were executed by the crack team at Sunny Queen (Sorry about that. No more egg puns I promise).

Sales success was immediate, growing over 4 share points to 23.1% within 12 months of launch, and the brand went on to become the only national egg brand from this achievement.  Success has continued for Sunny Queen Farms, with the Australian Marketing Institute recently granting them the National New Product Award winner for their recent Cage Free campaign in 2009.

Then for this year we set ourselves the task of further developing what had become a very successful brand in a highly commoditised category.

Realising the massive potential of the brand, or ’smile’ idea, and of the rapidly growing social media landscape, we embarked on the next phase of the plan to develop this brand into one of Australia’s iconic food brands.

Our ’smiley egg’ became a personality called ‘Sunny the Egg’ who entered the social media arena with a Facebook page.  In short, Sunny has been a massive hit. Sunny the Egg’s public gags and regular musings on life, eggs, cookery and the state of the nation have attracted more than 38,000 fans in just 8 weeks.  That’s nearly 5,000 fans per week.  What’s incredible is how adoring these fans are.  Check out this selection of fan posts…

Recently, much has been made in the media about how people are once more craving optimism and positivity. Sunny the Egg is satisfying their appetite, with regular exhortations to ‘Wake up on the Sunny Side’.

The next part of our plan was to create some ‘noise’ for the brand in our key business development markets of Sydney and Melbourne.  We launched a hoax product called ‘Whinging Pom’ eggs which was brought to life with a bogus viral video and an Australia Day BBQ brekkie for all the whinging poms in Melbourne.

This generated huge ‘talkability’ and garnered coverage in the Today Show, Channel 7 news and many other national and international news platforms.  For relatively little cost we were able to generate massive publicity for the brand.  This stunt also fuelled much discussion in social media.

Last weekend we launched the next phase of our program with our new strapline ‘Wake up on the Sunny Side’.  Late night TVCs encouraging people to wake up on the sunny side were launched as well as a brand TVC featuring a frisky elderly couple who’ve obviously woken up on the sunny side.

We now have serious momentum built for the brand and much of this can be attributed to the skillful use, thanks to our social media team, of Facebook.  With 7 million users in Australia and growing, Facebook has enormous potential for brands that understand how to leverage it effectively.

Naturally, social media needs to be considered as part of a thorough strategic approach to brand development and in many cases will not be appropriate.  But, when harnessed, as we have done with Sunny Queen Farms, the possibilities are very exciting.

How many fans can Sunny ultimately have?  40,000? 50,000? 100,000?  Maybe Perez Hilton will be writing about him soon?

Paul Cornwell is a Partner at BCM

At lunchtime on Tuesday, Brisbane went from a sunny 29°C day to a stormy, flash flooding mess. It was some crazy weather which caused some major disruption throughout the city. So, how did you find out about the damage caused by this little storm?

Was it through a mainstream news outlet?

Or was it through a social network such as Facebook?

For me, it was through Facebook (yes, I was on Facebook during work hours… but that’s what I get paid for). In fact, one of my friends posted a video of the flash flooding outside her office in Milton to Facebook. This was then taken from Facebook and uploaded to the Yahoo!7 breaking news.

It highlights the different way in which we consume our news. We are less reliant on major news outlets to deliver news to us. The ease and speed of spreading information means we are likely to see breaking news through our online networks before a camera crew, reporters, editors and publishers can hit the ‘publish’ button.

But it’s not only content we are creating which is changing the way we consume our news. Content we are sharing on social networks is influencing what we are exposed to. Research released this week by Compete concludes that Facebook drives more traffic to news portals than search giant Google does. According to their research, Facebook drove 13 percent of traffic to portals such as Yahoo and MSN while Google accounted for 7 percent. Even though we may not be seeking this information out, we are more likely to view it because it has been recommended from a credible and reliable source.

It’s obvious that news is becoming more social in the way we create, consume and share it. And that’s no surprise is it? Current affairs have always been central discussion points around dinner tables, BBQ’s and water coolers. Social networking just means we want it faster, personalised to our interests and from people we trust. In that order.

And you thought Facebook was just for drunk party photos…

Nathan Bush is an Interactive Strategist at BCM

There is no doubt about it – Australian TV viewers love Australian content. Few would disagree that locally produced shows like Packed to the Rafters, Underbelly and Talkin’ About My Generation have provided all three Free to Air TV Networks with bumper audiences and revenue opportunities, and Australians with a lot of enjoyment.

So in what seemed like good news for viewers last week, the Federal Government, unexpectedly, surprisingly and quietly cut licence fees for the Seven, Nine and Ten Networks by 33% this year and by 50% next year – a rebate worth more than $250 million. This was done in order to “protect Australian content on commercial television” – except, the Government has not tied any conditions at all to the generous rebate.

There is no impost upon the networks to actually increase Australian content production above what is currently legislated.

The Government’s action to hand the TV Networks $250 million of taxpayer’s money is even more curious when you consider that Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) compliance figures from 1999 to 2008 show that the FTA networks have a history of always meeting  their annual Australian content licence requirement figures no matter what the economic conditions.

On the back of the news last week, the Ten Network (which traditionally broadcasts the bare minimum of Australian content to meet licensing requirements) saw its share price soar and many analysts predict that the rebate will go straight to the FTA Networks’ bottom line.

So how, at such a challenging economic time, has a group of private equity investors managed to gain such favour from the Government? Well it would appear that friends in high places may have been helpful. Head of the lobby group that brokered the deal was Mr Rudd’s old boss, Wayne Goss, who also more recently sat on the board of Igneus (the PM’s wife Therese Rein’s Company).

Don’t get me wrong – the licence fee structure has not been overhauled since 1964 and boy a lot has changed since then! It may well be time for a bit of a re-think. But let’s be fair dinkum with taxpayers’ dollars. If the rebate is to protect Australian content, make that a condition of the gift. If there is some other agenda in place – e.g. a subsidy for the enormous cost to roll out digital TV (inextricably entwined with the success of the Government’s National Broadband programme) let’s call it for what it is.

What do you think?

Jo Stone is Head of Channel Planning & Integration at BCM

I’ve been enjoying some banter on the home front lately about the merits or otherwise of ANZ Bank’s new campaign, insisting it doesn’t have a bunch of ‘Barbaras’ in its institution, but promises to serve you ‘differently’ to the others.

Thanks ANZ, you had my interest – great talent and an injection of humour which carried through right up until the point you delivered your promise – and what a let down that was.  As a new customer, maybe you might get one handshake at the door – I doubt it – but don’t think it’s going to continue after you’ve opened the account.

So here’s my vent -  it ticks me off when I regularly see discounts or incentives being offered to lure new customers (which of course is a marketing strategy which pays dividends), but as a consumer who’s already signed up, these are constant reminders that you are now a member of the ‘forgotten ones’.

And I don’t mean to pick on ANZ.  This happens across the board – insurance, banking, gym and video club memberships and the list goes on.

To a cynical consumer like me, a marketer is probably between a rock and a hard place.  Those personalised letters that appear in the mail box attempting to up-sell me ‘with benefits’, are seen as just that – and end up in the recycle bin.

With Valentine’s Day romance in the air, what’s a marketer to do to get a tough nut like me to feel the love?  Well I’m happy to report that one marketer has found the way to my heart.

Last week I received a letter from a bank thanking me for my loyalty and acknowledging my value to them.  The note informed me that they’d deposited 10,000 reward points into my customer loyalty account – that’s worth $50 in fuel or shopping vouchers.  I didn’t ask for it, didn’t have to tick any boxes, or send any SMS’s to get it.  I felt flattered and deserving.

So what’s the lesson?  Something we regularly talk about here at BCM – remember to surprise and delight.  Although you need to focus on growing your customer base, don’t forget your existing members.  Remember that they have feelings too, and that loyalty can be subtly bought with a surprise that delights.

Gillian Tucker is BCM’s Agency Manager