This is the final post in a series exploring interactive video integration online.  Read the full article here.

Experience Brand/Theme Pages

An experience page is a dedicated area of the site associated with a brand or theme. On this page consumers get to experience the brand's “feel-good” factor or theme that the retailer is trying to convey. This is achieved by mixing a collection of premium video with both semi-professional and user generated testimonials. Consumers get to experience the brand through video while still allowing the retailer to build the direct calls to action into the video. An experience page can be expanded to included competitions and consumer feedback mechanisms.

If you'd like to know more about how you can use interactive video on your eCommerce site please contact us at info@overlay.tv.

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This is part five in an ongoing series exploring interactive video integration online.  Read parts one through four here.

How-To Videos, Style Guides and Advice

For a number of products that are best explained through video, a how-to video can be a great way of demystifying a potential purchaser and also gives the retailer an idea opportunity to cross-sell. Recent discussions include a cosmetic company looking to demonstrate to women how to apply eye make-up to achieve certain look and a DIY retailer demonstrating how to construct a free floating wall shelf.

In each case, as the products are used within the video, product links are directly provided to enable the user to immediately add to basket. Moving this call to action directly into the video at the point at which a product is shown has demonstrated an increase in conversion rate. This can also help the consumer feel more confident in their abilities, reducing return rates.  Surveys have shown the consumer feels a closer relationship with the retailer resulting in higher sales.

Next: Brand expereince/theme pages.

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This is part four in an ongoing series exploring interactive video integration online.  Read parts one, two and three here.

Repurposing Celebrity Videos

This is very similar effort to repurposing television commercials. Many brands, especially in the area of fashion retail, use celebrities to endorse products through video. These videos often include multiple products, and hence do not often fit on the product pages of the website. This means that although the consumer can get the “warm glow” and celebrity appeal, they often are left with the need to navigate around the site to find the products mentions. By adding an overlay to the celebrity video, you can create a direct link between multiple products in the video and multi-product landing pages where the video can be purchased.

The call to action is moved within the video rather than expecting the viewer to navigate after watching the video. There are also a number of successful experiments being undertaken in video by adding overlays that allow the user to “buy the look” from within the video. This can significantly increase the average order basket for the retailer.

Up next: How-to Videos.

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This is part three in an ongoing series exploring interactive video integration online.  Read part one and two.

User Generated Content

Much has been written about the challenges of User Generated Content (UGC). While we agree that it needs to be moderated and is not suitable for some applications, many companies are using UGC to great effect as a way of engaging their customers in community applications. After all, one of the key objectives of an eCommerce website is to keep user loyalty rather than constantly spending on acquiring new customers.

Hopefully, as a business you have customers that actually like your products and care about your services. UGC can be a great way to allow them to share their experiences with other potential shoppers and allows the retailer to increase their library of video content.

There are many examples of this, which includes genuine consumer reports of how a product performs in the case of electronic goods, usage experiences in the case of footwear and clothing and cooking experiments for grocery retailers.

Up Next:  Repurposing Celebrity Videos.

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This is part two in an ongoing series exploring interactive video integration online. Click here for part one.

Repurposing TV Commercials

Many companies as part of a new product launch or range produce a very polished commercial for TV. Since this is often an incredibly expensive endeavor, why not take this commercial and repurpose it for the website.  By creating an “invisible” overlay, products in the video can be directly linked to places on the website where they can be purchased. The underlying video does not need to be reproduced, just reformatted for the web.

Next: User Generated Content

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Just read an interesting article on AdAge today, which talks about a sharp decline in percentage of users who click on online display ads. Couple this with recent numbers of online ad spend decline and you’ve got yourself a pretty scary picture of the state of content monetization. But is it really?

Semi, or unrelated display ads, are not like other links on the page. They usually bring no utility or immediate value to users; more like “content high jacking” than “content monetization”. It’s no surprise then that people are fed up with this noise. We do still click on things  - to get to more relevant content - so click-through is not dead, just getting smarter.

I think it’s got something to do with the packaging. When we visit web pages we very easily separate between “content” and “noise”.  The former is what we came in for, while the latter is what we have to put up with because we are not willing to pay for the real content. We’re obviously less likely to click on the “noise” which drives its price down, making it even more difficult for good content providers to survive. It’s not the underlying content though, it’s the ineffective way of associating the message with a call-for-action.

One of the main reasons for this, I believe, is the lack of relevance due to weak contextual association. In order to have an effective “participation” from viewers, one has to bring closer the enabler (primary content) and the CFA or ad (secondary content). There are two dimensions to this. The first one is space: if it’s relevant to the content then couple it with the content, don’t just throw it into the same container (page) and expect the two messages to stick. The second is time: most content is fundamentally linear (text you read through, video you watch though, or audio you listen to) and comprises of lots of smaller pieces of information (a sentence, a frame in a video or segment of audio). It is those pieces, rather than the big piece, that could be monetized, just like hypertext links to relevant/contextual content are being followed.

The ultimate goal is to personalize this, to get the right message delivered to the right person at the right time in the right context. Lots of progress is being made towards these goals by my company (Overlay.TV) and others.

Click-through is not dead, it’s just getting smarter.

[Orginally posted at  http://kishkush.com/2009/10/01/is-click-through-really-dead/]

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Time for an update on what's been going on at Overlay.TV. A few months ago we launched a new platform called Overlay.TV for Retail. At the time, the focus on our site was split between user-generated content and our new eCommerce video platform, but it became clear in the months that followed that interest in the UGC side was dwindling and that our energies would be better spent if we concentrated solely on our retail platform. It wasn't an easy decision to make as we had some very loyal users, but we felt that the new platform needed all of our love and attention, especially in these early stages, in order to deliver the best possible product  to all of our clients. Check out the revamped site to see how our focus has changed and to find out more about Overlay.TV for Retail.

So, with our sites set on making Overlay.TV for Retail the most widely used eCommerce video platform, we thought it was time to have a coming out out party of sorts, and what better place to do that than in Las Vegas! Myself and some of the gang from Overlay.TV traveled to Vegas for the Shop.org Annual Summit 2009 at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino where we set up shop in a 10x20 booth.

The Summit was 3 days of non-stop meet and greets. Not only were we able to introduce ourselves to loads of people from all over the world, but we were also given the opportunity to see what's new in the world of online retail. What we heard a lot was that online retailers are looking for new ways to integrate video, product and user-generated,  into their sites to better engage existing customers and entice new ones. It's not just about pushing products and shopping, but about building a community of like minded consumers and giving them the ability to share their experiences with others. If you you missed the Summit, check out the Shop.org Blog for recaps on the show and keynote speakers. Thanks to the Shop.org crew for putting together a fabulous trade show. We couldn't have asked for a better coming out party.

Stay tuned, because over the next coming weeks and months I'll be posting stories and examples of how our clients are successfully integrating the Overlay.TV for Retail onto their sites.

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What's this you ask? I can win a Wii? How?

Well kids, you may recall a few posts ago I told you about a very special tool we launched called ijustine.overlay.tv. Basically it's a free product endorsement backed by none other than the Internet herself, iJustine. Well now you can review a product and maybe win a Wii. Go to ijustine.overlay.tv, create your product review, iJustine will pick what she thinks is the best one, and Overlay.TV will give that lucky person a Wii! OMG a Wii!! The winner will be chosen on March 17th at SXSW, the last day of the Interactive portion.

For more info on how you can win a Wii, watch the clip below from iJustine's new show, Ask iJ.

· Ask iJ · contest · iJustine · product · review · SXSW · wii

In theses times of economic uncertainty celebrity endorsements, for some, may be very hard to come by, and frankly fiscally irresponsible. But fear not my cash strapped friends, well known online personality iJustine, aka the Internet, is here to help. iJustine is willing to schill your products for you, and do it for FREE! iJustine and Overlay.TV have partnered together to create the first free online celebrity endorsement tool, and it's not just for the business minded. Users who just want to share their opinions or review consumer products can also use iJustine as their celebrity mouthpiece, because after all everything sounds better when it come from someone famous! And it's ridiculously easy. Just go to ijustine.overlay.tv and ... wait! I'll let iJusitne tell you herself:

Here's an example of what your iJustine endorsement or review could look like:

advertising · celebrity · consumers · endorsement · iJustine · internet · Product Placement · products · review

Over the holidays one has time to think about things. Looking back on social media trends of the past year, such as increasing Twitter usage, and the current economic situation, one finds one’s self asking the following question:

Can companies afford to use Twitter?

In situations like the current economic downturn companies are looking to reduce cost and/or increase productivity. We’ve all heard that social media is being touted as a low cost means of establishing an online presence. Company profiles are showing up on Facebook and executives are communicating with customers on Twitter. Services like Twitter are free to use. Free is good. But how much does it really cost the company when corporate executives use Twitter?

Before I start on the analysis, let me say we love Twitter. Having said that, I took a look at the Twitter usage of three executives: a light Twitter user with an average of 20 tweets per month; a moderate Twitter user with an average of 110 tweets per month; and one heavy Twitter user with, on average, over 500 tweets per month (names withheld to protect the guilty).

Now let’s assume that it takes one minute to post a tweet. Let’s also assume that for each tweet we post we read five others. Each tweet we read is not going to have the same response time.  If we read five tweets for every one we post, one tweet may take three minutes to read if, for instance, we are directed to external items, another may take one minute, and the other three may take thirty seconds. For arguments sake, let’s say that for each tweet we post we spend about 5.5 minutes reading other tweets.

Therefore each tweet posted is equivalent to 6.5 minutes of one’s time. For the light user that translates to 70 minutes of Twitter usage a month. For the moderate user that’s 385 minutes and the heavy user it is 1,750 minutes per month.

All of these executives work at the same company yielding 4095 minutes, or 63.25 hours a month on Twitter-related activities. That is 819 hours a year. If each executive has a loaded cost base of, on average, $88/hour that’s an investment of $6006 per month or $72,072 per annum.

That is a significant investment in a “free” service.

That’s not close to the total investment either. If you have an environment where the executives are using Twitter the employees of that company are likely following them on Twitter as well. If the executives are accessing Twitter at work, so are the employees. The cost of using Twitter is thus even higher than $72,072 for the company.

There are lots of arguments in favor of using Twitter. Companies can track what people are saying about their product and respond in real time. It provides branding and PR opportunities as well as the ability to track trends. Twitter also allows corporations to put a professional yet human face on their company, be it through customer service representative or an executive. It is another opportunity to build relationships. The list of great things that Twitter provides goes on and on.

Twitter definitely has value, I’m not questioning that. Rather, I’m questioning whether or not Twitter provides the best value in time and money spent for your company. What could those executives do with their 819 hours a year to build the business? What could your employees be doing in those untold hours they spend tracking the executives on Twitter? If you had $72,000 to invest in your business what would you do with it?

corporations · economy · Facebook · online presence · PR · social media · twitter · value