INTERNET VIDEO ADVERTISING:

On the Fast Track to Growth
Companies are still trying to figure out how to make advertising that viewers want to watch. Now television stations and advertisers are developing their own media divisions to create their own 'branded video content' and mobile webisodes. These companies need to figure out that TV style commercials embedded in video and on webpages are not going to work. New research shows that corporations are hot on interactive advertising, but they also need to recognize that they no longer have a captive audience. Content needs to be free, good, entertaining and relevant and then, maybe then they will sell their product. But is putting Burger King's "King" character in a feature length film the right way to go? We'll just watch and see if this campaign goes viral (word-of-mouth).

Nontheless, companies will keep spending the advertising dollars until they find the perfect formula. According to an eMarketer summary of an upcoming study release, spending on online video advertising will reach $410 million this year, 82% more than was spent in 2005. By 2010, Internet video advertising will be a $3 billion business, according to eMarketer's latest projections.

FAKE NEWS:

Stations Fail to Disclose Video News Releases
The Center for Media and Democracy's follow-up research indicates that viewers are still routinely deceived by fake TV news. From April through October 2006, CMD documented 46 stations in 22 states airing at least one of 33 different video news releases. (See "Methodology.") The total number of VNRs tracked for this study—109—represents just two percent of the estimated 5,000 VNRs offered to U.S. television newsrooms over a six-month period.

Eighty-nine percent of the VNR broadcasts documented—48 of the 54 examples in this report—included no disclosure whatsoever of the nature or source of the sponsored video. The six remaining VNR broadcasts exhibited different approaches to disclosure. However, none approached the level recommended by CMD: continuous on-screen notification of the client that funded the VNR. Read more Go to PRWATCH