Auto dealer remotes, YouTube style
Liz Foreman May 29th, 2008
I wanted to pass along a fun project I just completed at Cincinnati.Com: our very first video advertiser remote. The client, a group with 13 car dealerships, wanted something a little different, so we shot user-generated-style video packages for all the dealerships, then put them in a Mogulus channel which became - via embedded video players - their ad creative. We are using Mogulus to host the video because of the “live playing” feature plus their nice ticker. We’re already up to 1 million+ views and it’s only been up since Wednesday. Like Cory, my new (been there a year..is that still new?) job is revenue-driven. Who says ads have to be boring?
16 Comments Add your own
1. Steve | May 29th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Is it me or is the audio mixed funny, with music and voiceover on one channel and the dealer’s voice on the other?
2. Liz Foreman | May 29th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
I hope not! Which one did you watch?
3. Rocker | May 29th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Cool application of Mogulus technology, and I can see why dealers like/would pay. Can’t for the life of me though understand where viewer interest of this magnitude is coming from…the content is just not that interesting. At this rate Cincinnati dealer advertising is going to be in the top 100 of all internet streamed video?!? It’s borderline unbelievable.
4. ljones | May 29th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Yea I hear the same audio mixing issue on all the videos.
Cool application, not to crazy with the TV metaphor on the volume controls. The placement of the controls bother me too. Seems the embed and full screen are more forefront than some of the more priority controls of a video app.
5. Nick | May 29th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Couple questions —
1) What was the revenue model - production/cpm, etc.
2) How did you drive people to watch this — the idea is okay, but I’m just not sure it’s REALLY compelling enough to generate viral interest — although I won’t argue with your numbers.
I too made the switch from “Content” to “Revenue” — and am always looking for great ideas. This could be one — but need to know more.
6. Liz Foreman | May 29th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
First off…Thanks for the alert about the audio! That’ll be remedied shortly.
The great traffic is due in part (I’m working on finding out to what degree) to planned exposure - we’ve placed it on key pages of our site. That’s the real benefit to advertising, right?
The stats, by the way, are straight from Mogulus’ site.
Also, the video plays automatically on our site, sans sound. It’s always harder to get people to take that crucial step to hit the play button, so we just made it a matter of turning up the audio.
Production-wise, we made it in-house with local talent.
As for revenue, I need to be careful about what I say, but it is part of an overall campaign that also includes print.
7. mako | May 30th, 2008 at 4:00 am
As Mogulus is primarily about the ability to “go live,” will Cinci consider allowing the local car dealers to do live shots inside their own video ads? Now, that would be ground breaking–and if they are buying the space and eyeballs, why shouldn’t they be allowed to “go live” inside of their own ad too? You might even be able to raise the CPM’s for such access…. Live instant deals, live video of new inventory just arriving on the lot, live interviews with happy customers who just bought a new car and got a great deal…
8. Liz Foreman | May 30th, 2008 at 5:48 am
Hi Mako.
The web live remote was our original concept but the client really wanted the pre-prepared YouTube-style pieces.
I’m torn…
Part of me thinks the concept of ‘live’ (besides a live news event) is really a TV concept, because live auto dealer remotes (at least the ones I’ve seen) are always staged to the point that they require TV station employees to pretend to be customers just to have enough people milling about.
This is probably a different story in the New York market, but in Cincinnati…
Also, when it comes to TV live remotes, they’re always planned to coincide with peak TV audiences, which are usually during local newscast times, which usually means weekday times that folks generally not in the mood to go out shopping. (Again, this is in my experience.)
Now, just apply this to web and you’ll see the problem - web usership goes down during the popular times to visit dealerships - weekends.
On the upside, web can do a great job of offering pre-taped content for folks who are looking for cars from the office.
True the web is about smaller, more qualified audiences, but for a local market that may not total enough audience to make the effort successful. Or maybe it could be! With smart production ideas, it could be a real hit even on weekends.
So, long story short, both ways probably have their merits.
Finally, live or not, I have really gotten a kick out of the fact that our newspaper is providing a client service (video) that used to be exclusive to TV.
9. Rocker | May 30th, 2008 at 6:20 am
I applaud this effort. But you provided the answer to the question “why so many streams?”. A: “the video plays automatically on our site, sans sound”. That accounts for at least 95% of the streams. This may work for local car dealers but I don’t think national advertisers will consider it a legitimate impression unless it’s user-initiated.
10. MAKO | May 30th, 2008 at 6:38 am
If it sells cars, national advertisers will buy it too–it may be some new metric though… As for the idea of live, think about the Mogulus player analytics…you always know when there are peak audiences…a dealer could go live when there’s 1500 concurrent users (or some threshold number) and not bother when there is only 20… It’s in his control, not ours…which is a new concept to both the web and TV. Also, the dealer can publish the Mogulus player on other sites, as well, including his own–giving himself an even larger audience for which to perform (and car dealers LOVE to perform)…
11. ljones | May 30th, 2008 at 7:33 am
There are plenty of way to get around tracking a user when it comes to video content. A check for an idle user would be a start. Because simply using user initiated doesn’t mean much if the user clicks everything and watches nothing.
I use Omniture often at work and Google Analytics for some of my freelance clients. Various measures are setup to identify what an impression is, and thats based on various business rules.
Having truly live video wouldn’t matter much, unless this broadcast was offering something exclusive or hyping some big promotion. Considering this isn’t entertainment, most users watching are doing research, so a more entertaining delivery of the content could hold their attention longer, but being live will not be the reason why.
12. Liz | May 30th, 2008 at 7:58 am
I agree, Rocker and Mako!
Although a user-initiated metric is truer, it doesn’t show off the creative like it’s meant to be shown off. In other words, the hope is that people actually start getting engaged with the video.
SO…how about this? (I’m sure there’s something wrong with it, but at first blush it seems logical.)
The user-interaction metric is determined by **how many people un-muted the video**. That shows that they’re really watching it. Of course, then, if possible, we’d want to know the duration that they watched after that.
But, of course, to Rocker’s point, that’s not a great recipe for national advertisers, being a nonstandard metric and all.
Really, the ultimate metric is how many cars were sold based on this promotion, something that is an even bigger challenge to capture!
13. Liz | May 30th, 2008 at 7:59 am
i had missed ljones’ comment above. he/she said it best:
“There are plenty of way to get around tracking a user when it comes to video content. A check for an idle user would be a start. Because simply using user initiated doesn’t mean much if the user clicks everything and watches nothing.”
14. Anonymous | May 30th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
I THINK you said you shot a bunch of ads and cut them together for a bunch of car dealerships then put them on a server…but I am still searching for a Wedgie award.
15. discreet_chaos | May 30th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
I like the embed on the homepage and I can see where it’ll draw attention and get viewer interaction. As for the actual content via the Mogulus feed (which they also use quite well on LiveNewsChannels), it sort of has the feel of those weekend afternoon dealership infomercials.
16. liz | June 2nd, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Anon, I agree, the content really isn’t different, but it’s the fact that newspapers now do this while many TV sites aren’t capturing these dollars that seems important.
Yes, a sincere answer to a meanie’s question!
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