I spent sometime today watching TV — something I don’t do very often. I paid close attention to the commercials. Sadly, I am absolutely amazed how boring they are. I mean, if you take any of the commercials and put it on YouTube, there is little chance that I will finish most clips, let alone recommend it. They are not remotely as interesting as some of the amateur videos, not even close.
Isn’t it surprising that highly paid professionals — the people who make videos for a living — can’t quite measure up to the standards of Youtubers who shoot their videos using their cell phones in their backyards for free?
If I was to run a TV commercial today, I’d put it up on Youtube first. I’d measure the view-to-comment, view-to-share and view-to-rate ratios. I’d use these numbers to determine the quality of my commercial. I wouldn’t put too much emphasis into the total hits since I would be spending million of dollars to purchase my viewers on TV.
The thing is, if the viewers fail to respond to my video online, I am just not convinced that showing it on TV would make any difference.
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Jay,
You are absolutely right. Youtube set new standards for commercials and I do not see TV ads catching up at all. I watch French, German and Swiss TV, and the commercials look like CTRL C & CTRL V to me….
Youtube is the perfect platform if you want to advertise efficiently your brand and limit huge $$ spending, and in most cases, you have a direct reach to your audience.