Marketing with Internet Video

We like to pick on tv commercials at Cantaloupe, but it's not because we hate them. (In fact, I'm about to share with you a commercial I like.) It's because for most marketers commercials aren't the right video tool, especially not on the internet where the ability to skip advertisements makes Tivo look like a joke.

I recently heard about a commercial for a company where tv advertising does make sense. It was one of those instances where I was hanging out with some friends and one of them said "Hey, have you seen the (insert description of funny/astonishing/inspiring/useful video here)" This time it was the new Nike Tiger Woods commercial.

I hadn't but now I wanted to, which meant I had two options:

I could watch ESPN until the commercial finally came on, if it ever came on
Or I could find the nearest computing device (I would have settled for an iPhone) and search for it on the internet

When you look at it like that, it's crazy to think that not too long ago the second option didn't even exist, but now, there should be no reason why I can't share in this commercial with my friends.

Except the commercial wasn't available on the internet. Not ony was it not available, but it seemed someone took the time to remove it from YouTube. I could find the commercial in Google results, but as soon as I hit play the video was "no longer available." I was in disbelief.

Here I am, your typical commercial-loathing American, actually going out of my way to watch a commercial - this has to be every tv advertisers dream - and yet, you're stopping me from watching it? Nike = Fail

So what can we learn from this? Well, if you're a tv advertiser, embrace the fact that people will use the internet to search for your tv commercials and make them available.

If you're like most marketers who don't use tv commercials, take this as a sign that users are actively searching for video on the internet and give them what they want. I was searching for entertainment reasons, but next time my company needs to hire a new PR agency or we need a new web meeting tool, I'll be looking for a video to help me make my decision.

I eventually found the commercial I was looking for on YouTube, but you can tell by the quality of the video that Nike likely didn't put it there themselves.