Vlogvertising Vloggersation

Michael Verdi speaks to the state of vlogvertising HERE. In the post, he links to one of Jay Dedman's 2006 vlogs on the subject of advertising A click-through is worth a trip.

I've been experimenting with vlogvertising for a long time. As the first human being to have purchased an ad on a vlog, can say that for the nonce, vlogvertising remains in its infancy, and as every parent knows, infancy includes sleepless nights and dirty diapers. For all that, there remain rewards.

Have been experimenting with Blip.tv's advertising options. Certain choices are allowed for:

• mid-roll video
  
• post-roll video
  
• post-roll clickable text cards
  
• stills / animated gifs embedded in the post page
• one-by-one, or all of the above

These items are frequently discussed on the Blip user group, so I have no qualms saying it here, too. As a producer, I need to be able to choose what products I support, and on a per-post basis.

I must be able to choose specific ads, too, based on whether I think my audience will respond to them, but more important, whether I find the ads authentic, interesting, and compatible with the mood of the video at hand. Better Bad News had a recent vlog that envisions startups auditioning venture capitalists rather than the other way around. Like THAT.

Blip's hot on the trail of these things.

In the meantime - as far as I can tell - no automated vlogvertising site offers choices of advertisers or specific ads (though you may 'blacklist' keywords for - immen.se - one of Blip's advertising partners). Until that happens, content creators create in-house advertising for people, places, music, events and products we believe in. But that doesn't provide content producers with direct compensation.

Why the hell not?

Paid advertising-as-business-model is flawed by definition. It is by its ruthless nature corrupt in its use of hyperbole and lie. Morally flawed so deeply that in my heart I suspect any company (or politician) that stoops to advertising of disingenuousness.

That is in part why big stakes are increasingly good indicators of subjects unworthy of my attention. It bugs me out that Apple's iTunes / iPod images are everywhere.

I support imperfection. Small enterprise.

MacLeod asked a while back where he thought marketing was heading and I told him.

Think:

• Sets not billboards.
  
• Wardrobe rather than SWAG baseball caps.
  
• Playgrounds rather than couches for couch potatoes.
  
• Jazz improv rather than rock n' roll.
• Paying more.
• Better products.
  

[DISCLAIMER: As an independent producer, I have a vested interest in taking down OLDSTREAM MEDIA and their OLDSTREAM MARKETING / ADVERTISING methodologies. Using tits and ass to sell shit is shooting fish in a barrel. Where's the fun in that? Where's the sport? I want a highest-common-denominator life. Period. I'm the long tail with education and money to spend.]

The enclosed video bears repeating. The 100-post-long Vloggersation to which this vlog post responds is to be found HERE.

Click To Play

Fish in a barrel.

[Download the Quicklime version HERE.]

Were Coca-Cola to donate its entire 2008 advertising budget to education - say media literacy - and spend 2007 talking about it, now, that would be cool. Spend that budget on AMERICA and its future.

Finally, social currency must be added to the sustainability equation. Advertising mathematically deflates social currency, as the recent Pay-per-Post flap so clearly illustrates.

What inflates social currency?


Tags: Faux Press Metaphrasty