There has been a paradigm shift in advertising. It’s online media vs. traditional media. With more and more competition for attention in both realms, content is becoming even more important. Traditional commercials can be purchased by any agency or studio that has the money to afford the time slot. The quality of the content can be very low. It doesn’t really matter, their message will reach a great deal of eyeballs, regardless of DvR. Traditional advertising just interrupts people’s lives. It’s exactly opposite with viral videos online. They don’t have the luxury of being forced onto the consumer, which breeds creativity.
Creativity has to be much higher with viral videos. Yes, viral professionals can direct eyes to your content, but the virility of the content is greatly decreased if your content is pedantic. That’s because with viral videos, the power is in the hands of the consumer. There is such a saturated market for online videos, marketers and advertisers have to be extremely creative to develop content that is unique and worthy of being spread by word of mouth. With millions of videos being uploaded daily, you have a small window of opportunity, don’t ruin it with sub-par content.
Everything needs better content. When bad content spreads virally, and its no longer a secret, people won’t take a flier. The entertainment industry is learning this fact very quickly. Twitter is killing or boosting movie sales rapidly. Two recent examples are Bruno and Paranormal Activity. Bruno was Sasha Baron Cohen’s highly anticipated follow up to Borat. Opening night it did very well, but the negative reviews spreading through Twitter caused a 40% drop in sales the very next day. That never happened before when information lagged and people were left only with their curiosity. Most recently, Paranormal Activity has blown up due to it’s viral marketing success. If you’re unaware, the movie with a $15,000 production budget has grossed over $68 million due to it’s phenomenal viral success, most notably through Twitter. Viral marketing didn’t single handedly make this movie a success. It’s a scary ass movie. People wanted to see it because it was so good, not just because they saw a bunch of commercials.
I may be biased because I’m a viral and social media marketer, but I see first hand the power these online tools have. I also know how much useless and dumb content there is online. Creativity breeds success in the ever growing field of online advertising. Content is KING.
Tags: bruno, content is king, paranormal, paranormal activity, viral marketing, viral videos
