Blogging from the ClickZ Online Video Conference in NYC today.

Here’s the first session notes along with the marketing information (see directly below):

9:15am - 10:30am  Strategy: Determining if video should become a part of an interactive marketing and advertising strategy.

 

• What campaigns and Web sites benefit from having a video component?
• Integrating video into the creative mix.
• Video media on the Web… and beyond (formats for the Web and portable media)
• Video and search - does one preclude the other?
  Moderator:
  Rebecca Lieb, Executive Editor, The ClickZ Network, division of Incisive Media
  Speakers:
  Dan Goodman, Senior Partner, Managing Director, OgilvyInteractive, NY
  Gary Stein, Director of Strategy, Freestyle Interactive
  James Kim, VP, Strategy, Organic, Inc.

This is the very first Video Campaign conference for ClickZ (or for anyone/anyplace).  Gary Stein spoke about Unique Content (Tiger Woods clips for Electric Arts, for example, not seen anywhere else but online for the Tiger Woods game).  The Tiger Woods campaign for Electric Arts got 1.1% CTR out of 35 million impressions.  Gary Stein’s most memorable statement:

Everyone is famous online for 15 MegaBytes

 

Dan Goodman spoke about the IBM HelpDesk and IBM SMB FastForward Online Magazine interactive online videos. Dan also mentioned a MidMarket campaign that was launching today.

There was a conversation about Engagement and how to measure it that will be covered in more detail in the Online Video Metrics session later this afternoon.

James Kim cited the Pew Internet Study on how people use the internet and the main trends (sounds similar to a study I wrote about on SmartMobs last night).  The trend toward Continuous Partial Attention (people scanning for information all the time but not being totally engaged). Kim feels the use of online video helps "engagement" but the measurements (metrics) can’t be behavioral only, they also need to be attitudinal (you also need some Survey data) to show that your target audience’s attitudes have been altered in a measurable way by viewing the online video.  James Kim also felt that you should not do online video if you can convey the information in other media - have a good reason for using Online Video or don’t use it.

One way to measure attitudinal changes is by message boards and blog post elicted by the online video - but this needs to be planned in advance.

Dan Goodman said you need to ask the client what the scenario will be to define success -and this had to be defined by the client for each case - it can’t be done by the metrics analyst (ie: me) alone.   For example, I had a case recently where an online Flash video lasted 8 minutes and the client wanted to know if that was successful - and it turns out the average visitor only looked at the video for 4 minutes - so we can say, at least one aspect of the video was unsuccessful - it was too long.   But in most cases, you need to get a lot more information for each video and then define your success metrics for that video - and define what engagement might mean for that promotion and how it might be measured.   Dan also feels that Online Video can be used in situations where the information being conveyed is very complex (like a site about Menopause) where there are many issues to put forward that can be shown in Video better than in other formats.

Questions:

1. How do we measure "Engagement"?

Engagement is a soft metric; Brand Engagement Metrics - don’t show a online video about a concert without putting a button on the video to buy tickets to the concert - in other words - don’t have online videos for brands where there is not action to take - and the actions taken can be measured as a form of Brand Engagement.

However, there is no sole measure of Engagement.  Some measure Engagement as a beacon of recognition that comes out of viewing the Online Video.  There’s also levels on engagement (ie: a Deep Tissue Massage vs. a regular Massage -  both are effective but one stays with you longer than the other).

My take: There’s a basic disconnect between those planning and producing the Online Videos and those who would measure the effectiveness of the Videos/Flash using Website Traffic Tools (me). Many of the Flash movies are not designed to be measured well or at all by most software packages, even when the plug ins exist for the metrics tracking. Often, the division of work across teams is the real culprit - in my opinion - need to put some hard and fast policies in place regarding how each Flash and Video action can be measured.