Your Next Ad Campaign - YOUTUBE!

Little broader focus this morning... talking about Marketing/Advertising 2.0 kind of stuff.

All 3 of you that occasionally read this blog know that I'm a Big Fan of MEEBO. Not just as a tool, but as a way to start a company, and how they've managed their success to date. Also, how PUBLIC they've been about the whole thing. They just seem like a bright bunch of eggs over there... and I wish them continued success. (BTW: If you IM, and you're NOT using MEEBO, you don't know what you're missing!).

So.. when I logged on to MEEBO this am, I get the daily blog post from the MEEBO team. It seems that they decided (along with some other startups) that it might be time to do an ad for their fine company and products. However, instead of blowing all of their $$$ on the "lone superbowl ad" they've decided to shoot the ad themselves, and go around traditional "media buys" and put it on YOUTUBE themselves.

This got me thinking... sure, you'll have 120m households watching the Super Bowl worldwide this Sunday, but for $3m a minute... are you getting the best bang for your buck on that ad when you could just submit it to YOUTUBE for Free... AND get paid for your ad (if it generates revenue... YOUTUBE's going to pay you for ad revenue now)? Why would you hassle with the inexact science and guess work involved in a complicated national media buy... when you could shoot the commercial... and plop it on YOUTUBE?

You could of course spend millions on your own "platform" to circumvent the traditional media channels (See Bud.TV for that example) but... again... is that going to be the best bang for your buck right now?

Frankly... I don't think so.

At a minimum... I think if I had ANY broadcast ads running right now... I'd have them on YOUTUBE. Look at the economics of this... Your CPM for your AD on YOUTUBE is... well... completely variable but could be just the cost of the ad. You have the potential of putting your ad in front of 82m people a DAY! And, unlike most standard ads, you get these advantages:

• completely user-driven consumption - no reliance on broadcast or cable/satellite scheduling to see your ad
• much better analytics on the response
• the buzz created by being out there
  

You could of course couple this with an email to your loyalty club... or even get a PR-Generated story in a local paper about "company takes new approach to advertising" to generate some more buzz. The possibilities are ENDLESS.

Check out YOUTUBE for some of your favorite brands today. See what the PULSE of the user-generated content wave is all about. My take is... smart marketers are already doing this but if you're not, you should get on the bandwagon.

Thoughts? Comment or MEEBOME!