Innovative videoblogging ad goes after new audience

Videoblogger Amanda Congdon has done an intriguing videoblogging ad deal with Dupont to promote its bullet-proof Kevlar material with “Dupont Science Stories.” The clips are produced with a mini-documentary style and run about two-minutes in length (see below). Selected blogs are paid to host the clips — just like ads — which are distributed by Brightcove and Federated Media. Other blogs can post the clips if they like, like we’ve done below, but we don’t get paid. The clips are cross-posted on YouTube and hosted on a Dupont microsite, stories.dupont.com. All in all, this is a very innovative way for Dupont to use the viral nature of video to achieve broad distribution with a new audience. Smart, and I bet there’s a new ad model emerging here. Meanwhile, some folks have brought up the potential conflict of interest issue here, since Amanda hosts a videoblog for ABCNews.com. But hey, is she really a journalist? “ABC and HBO both approved the DuPont spots,” Amanda explains. “And under the ‘blogger’ title, which is what I am, hello? I am not subject to the ‘rules’ traditional journalists have to follow.”