AOL' s new free video service, In2TV will launch Wednesday with premiere advertisers Intel, Kia, Kraft and Hershey. In2TV will host thousands of old Warner Brothers shows hoping to become the first stop on the web for video content. We wish them luck. We have no idea who would want to watch all those old shows and, maddeningly, they had to go and use some video technology that requires Active X rather than a more graceful solution like YouTube or Quicktime. There's also this thing called Hi-Q which, of course, doesn't work with Firefox.
So basically, the service is perfect for all those middle America, late adopter, IE-Suffering couch potatoes who somehow find pleasure in watching reruns of Wonder Woman, Head of the Class and Welcome Back Kotter.
Completely misunderstanding current culture, NBC, after forcing YouTube to remove several Saturday Night Live clips, has re-released on NBC.com the very same clips it said should not have been freely distributed. Explaining the twisted brilliance of the move, NBC VP of Interactive Stephen Andrade said, "We were concerned about building their corporation instead of ours since it's our video. We would like to make it as easy for people to share as we can, so we're trying to provide as many tools as we can to do that." Gee, if we were NBC.com, we'd be more than happy for YouTube and everyone else to suffer the bandwidth and infrastructure costs to freely publicize our content.
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Steve Jobs is very happy today. A new study has revealed that people are cheap and would rather watch an ad to get a free TV download than pay for the download. The study, conducted by Frank N. Magid Associates, found 54 percent would be more likely to buy an iPod if they could download TV programs with a :30 included or free. 72 percent of people already planning to buy an iPod would be more likely to download an ad-supported TV program than pay for it.
We think we like this. The girl's hot. The guy's hot. The ad sounds good and...yes....it follows the movie trailer format! All to promote the new Sony Bravia TV. It's just weird enough to be good. It was created by McKinney. Watch it (slow site) and tell us what you think.
CBS SportsLine in partnership with CBS Sports, CSTV and the NCAA today launched NCAA March Madness on Demand, an online video player that will stream the first 56 games of the 2006 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship as they are broadcast by CBS Sports beginning on March 16th. The broadcasts will be available on NCAASports.com for free. Users can also access MMOD via links on CBS SportsLine and CSTV.com.
CBS thinks MMOD will attract one of the largest audiences in the history of live streaming events on the Internet. Capacity will be available to provide millions of video streams over the course of the Tournament but to manage the anticipated demand during Thursday and Friday, March 16th and 17th, access to the MMOD video player will be managed using a "virtual waiting room." When demand exceeds peak capacity virtual lines will form. Viewers need to apply for a VIP status to insure quicker access.
Umm...wouldn't it be a hell of a lot easier to just turn on the TV?
I didn't watch the entire broadcast of The Oscars but I will tell you this: many of the ads during the broadcast were, far and away, superior to those that aired during the Super Bowl. Miller ran an ad that actually treated beer drinkers as intelligent people. American Express (say what you will about celebrity selling out to that campaign) created an amazing and very quirky commercial featuring M. Night Shamalan. It was brilliant. The ad is currently viewable on the My Life My Card site.
Aside from the ads, the presentation of the honorary Oscar to Robert Altman by Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin was one of the best presentations in Oscar history. The performance put teleprompters and most other actors to shame.
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Fully embracing the notion and value of consumer generated content, MasterCard, during the Oscars, will air two commercial which say basically nothing. The ads, Sailboat and Typewriter, will follow the customary format of listing prices for various items and closing with the final item labeled "priceless." However, the item lines in these ads will be left blank. The ads will close encouraging people to go to priceless.com, click on "Write a Priceless Ad Contest" and complete the commercial by filling in the blanks using their own words.
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Beginning March 13 and continuing for six and one half months during episodes of Procter & Gamble Productions' Guiding Light and As The World Turns on CBS, a multi-digit numerical code will appear on screen which viewers can match with the code they obtained off DaytimeDollars.com to win $500. It's a win-win straight forward strategy to increase viewership and ratings providing increased visibility of Procter & Gamble's and other advertisers' products as well as potentially increased ad revenue for CBS.
Toyota Canada will unveil a, two-minute feature commercial during this Sunday's telecast of The Academy Awards on Canada's CTV. The ad will run only in Canada and only once inside the Academy Awards telecast during the first commercial break. The long-form spot, entitled "What You Want Is What You Need" will introduce Canadians to the new, restyled 2007 Toyota Camry. The two minute commercial will be followed up with :60 and :30 versions to be aired on CTV through May.
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Cheeky New Zealand vodka marketer 42 Below is at it again. This time the company is highlighting its Stil vodka with a "Win A Russian Bride" competition complete with video and print ads. Geoff Ross, chief executive of the 42 Below company, explains the promotion thusly, telling the Sunday Star-Times, "For the single Kiwi bloke who might not be an All Black or very good looking, this is a chance to get hooked up with somebody pretty hot. The ideal woman for the Kiwi bloke is one who keeps him fed and looked after all day and meets all his needs."
Of course it's all a tongue in cheek joke but, predictably, not everyone is taking it that way. View the video/ad here.
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