Xobni is Recruiting

I've been telling everyone how cool I think Xobni is. I use it everyday. Now, they're even cooler. Here's a nice recruiting video:

Brandframe Takes Product Placement Online

I ran across an interesting company today called Brandframe. I don't know anything about them or how successful they are (if you know, let me know), but I thought I'd share anyway. From what I understand Brandframe has created a marketplace where content producers and advertisers can link up and make offers to place products within video.

This is interesting because there are currently so many companies trying to figure out the best way to advertise against online video. ClickZ reported on an OPA study citing that 30 second ads are much more effective than 15 second ads. 30% on ad relevance and 23% on brand awareness, to be exact. So, what does this mean for product placement?

Obviously the goals of product placement are very different from other ad models. For one thing, product placement offers no direct response. The effectiveness is very difficult to measure and can usually only work for very recognizable brands.

One great thing about the Brandframe platform is its ablilty to open up that dialog between producers and brands. This will probably lead to very targeted placement - who knows the viewer better than the producer themselves? Hopefully this means that viewers will only see products they are actually interested in.

But back to the OPA study; if a 15 second ad is ~30% less effective than a 30 second ad, how effective is a few fleeting seconds of a product? Especially without any call to action. Is this a fair comparison or are we talking apples and oranges here?

It would be great to see Brandframe, or others, build a platform that matches product placement up with surrounding advertising. For example, if I'm watching a video of someone eating a Snickers, there should be a Snickers ad on the page and near the player. This is being done to come extent with contextual marketing, but I think this could be a profitable add-on service for Brandframe.

BuzzFeed

I've added a BuzzFeed widget to the sidebar. BuzzFeed is a fairly interesting concept, which I encourage you to check out. They have a hybrid system of editors and users who basically rank content up and down with the aim of measuring 'buzz.'

From time to time paid content is included (and clearly noted). What I really like about them is that they only accept clients with good content - meaning, they won't necessarily push your content, but they will help you track its viral success.

I think it's a good idea from the same people that brought you The Huffington Post, The Rejection Line and Black People Love Us, among others.

Disclosure: I recently interviewed for a position with BuzzFeed