Shanti’s Dispatches

A lot of people still don’t get the Google/YouTube deal. This article makes a few good points, the best of which is:

…a reallocation of the $67 billion that advertisers spent on TV in the US last year.

Now, for many of us in the web advertising world, it’s crazy to think that all these BigCos spend so much money on television ads.

Especially when you factor in the direct accountability and measurability of online systems like AdWords.

But I think the sexy world of television advertising & bloated Madison Ave. budgets will be the next industry to take a major hit.

Why does Coca-Cola need to spend billions on fancy tv ad budgets, when a few kids in a garage somewhere can bang out a viral Coke ad for $0, spend $0 on hosting, and have it watched possibly tens of millions of times.

AND — this is a big and — they are watching the ad intentially! When you sit down to watch Heroes, if you’re lucky, you have a Tivo or DVR and the ads are just a 200mph blur. Maybe you catch a Nissan logo in the blink of an eye, but other than that, brands aren’t getting much exposure that way. And if you don’t have a Tivo-esque device, then the ads are just a major annoyance.

When you sit down at your computer and pull up an email from your friend, that contains a link to some hilarious new viral Coca-Cola video (I’m not even talking about the mentos thing, but maybe something like that), of course you’re going to check it out, and it’ll have your 100% undivided attention until you decide it’s either lame or cool. (and if cool, you’ll pass it along to even more friends!)

That, in a nutshell, is why the GooTube deal went down, imho.

You can bookmark this, digg this or check the cosmos