YouTube Holds Special Event for Major US Advertisers
Simiilar event in the UK not far off?
The New York Times and blogging CEO, Ian Schafer of interactive advertising agency Deep Focus are reporting that YouTube held a glitzy invitation-only event in New York last night for senior marketing executives from advertising titans like Hewlett Packard, Pepsi and General Mills.
The event, termed “The YouTube Videocracy” was described as “Google’s first large advertiser event” by the New York Times.
Considering Google makes most of its revenue from advertising, that description seems a little misleading. However, I do think its significance is that it highlights the fact that Google bought YouTube to grab a big slice of the global TV advertising budget.
Ian Schafer was kind enough to point out some of the new features YouTube is preparing:
Advanced Audience Analytics
And about time too!
This one will significantly change the ball game. If content creaters are provided with a Google Analytics-style web interface for assessing content views and statistics, combining viewer information with geographical location and duration of views, YouTube would have significantly raised the bar for web video accountability.
Active Sharing
YouTube has now enabled active sharing of videos. A viewer’s name will appear alongside videos they are watching and a list of recently viewed videos will show up in his/her profile.
Ha, that will make it harder to hide the fact that you are watching YouTube at work!
YouTube Content Goes Multi Platform
Apparently, Steve Chen is rather excited about showing YouTube on very large TV screens. YouTube on more mobile devices is obviously implicit.
Tentpole Content Inititatives
And we have the following to look forward to:
- The YouTube Games — some sports-related content bonanza designed to run alongside the Olympics later on this year, perhaps?
- Living Legends — content featuring living legends like… The Rolling Stones. Wow.
- The YouTube Global Gathering — worldwide events, simulcast on YouTube. Could be pretty impressive this one. Live Earth, eat your heart out.
It wasn’t all fine wine and canapes, however. According to the New York Times:
“Google also made a plea to the industry to set standards for online videos, on the assumption that standards will help advertisers spend more on video ads. Google showed a video with executives from competitors like MySpace, Facebook and Microsoft urging the industry to pass video standards.
“As we get to a world of standards, it’s going to be very easy to do the big deals,” Jeff Berman, executive vice president of marketing and content at MySpace, said in the video.”
Fantastic stuff. Dovetails neatly with what the Joint Industry Committee for Internet Measurement Systems (or JICIMS as it is snappily known) is aiming to do in the UK.
So, please can I get an invite to the UK event when it happens?
Image Credit: YouTube Logo on Valentine’s Day
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