Maybe you’re convinced that Web video is worth your company’s marketing attention because YouTube drew more viewers than all the network TV Web sites combined in the first week of February. Or maybe you were persuaded by research showing that 37.6% of the U.S. population watches online video at least once a month.
But how do you put those numbers to work? Can you get a basic video ad for your product or service without a headlong plunge into the complex, costly world of commercial ad production?
Yes, you can, says Ken Lipscomb, chairman of FourSpots advertising exchange network, which offers more than 1,000 video ad templates that marketers can customize with their own creative and editorial content. Add some data about your company’s market region and customer demographics, and FourSpots will assist in designing an online video campaign that will reach those customers over TV set-top boxes, desktop PCs, mobile phones and digital displays — hence the “four spots.”
As a result, Lipscomb says, small or local businesses can get a video ad created for as little as $200 to $500 for use of the ad template and distributed at 35 cents to $2 per play. FourSpots takes part of the template fee, most of which goes to the creators and the ad-serving publishers, and splits the ad delivery revenue with publishers too.
Still in beta launch, the company has signed 25 sites for its network to date, including social broadcast network Dave.tv, which Lipscomb founded, and other sites as eclectic as the official Earth, Wind and Fire fan site. Advertisers aren’t restricted to the company’s network; they can place their FourSpots video ads on Web sites, blogs, podcasts, e-mail or social network pages.
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