Over the last few years, video advertising has become one of the hottest advertising formats on the Internet. According to eMarketer, online video ad spending was $225 million in 2005. eMarketer predicts that this will increase to $1.5 billion by 2009. As technology continues to improve, online video advertising is a medium that advertisers must pay attention to.

“The growing adoption of broadband combined with a dramatic push by content providers to promote online video has helped to pave the way for mainstream audiences to embrace online video viewing.” (Pew Internet & American Life Project) In a 2007 study, the Online Publishers Association found that more than 40% of Internet users view video content on a weekly basis. Viewership rises to about 70% on a monthly basis. There is, without a question, a large and growing audience for this type of advertising.

In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, rich media ads came onto the scene. For the first time, rich media gave advertisers the ability to be much more creative with online advertising. This technology allowed advertisers to utilize larger file sizes, interactivity that wasn’t available in static or animated GIF banner ads, as well as the use of sound and motion graphic as well as video. Rich media ads quickly gained popularity and they consistently outperformed standard banner advertisements. “Companies like Eyewonder, Pointroll and Eyeblaster enabled clients to go well beyond simply clicking on an ad. Users could roll over a standard size banner to expand it to twice—or triple—its original size, dramatically increasing the amount of content you could put into an ad. Adding multiple panels to expandable banners allowed marketers to create ‘pages’ within a banner ad, opening the doors to even more advertising messages and images.” (Glickman) This technology led to the introduction of online video advertisements.

Online video advertisements come in a variety of shapes and sizes. The most prominent format for video ads is Adobe Flash. According to Adobe, “Adobe® Flash® Player is the world’s most pervasive software platform, used by over 2 million professionals and reaching over 98% of Internet-enabled desktops in mature markets as well as a wide range of devices.” Other popular formats include MPEG-2, Quicktime, and Windows Media Video. In addition to Adobe Flash, Microsoft has also created an authoring tool, called Silverlight, for creating rich, interactive ads.

The benefits of using online video advertisements have been numerous. For starters, video advertisements have a strong response rate. According to the Online Publishers Association study, around 80% of respondents acknowledged seening a video ad online. More importantly, of those respondents 52% stated they “took action after seening a video ad.” (Online Publishers Association) Of those who took action, 31% checked out a company website, 22% searched for product information, 19% clicked a banner ad that accompanied a video, 16% talked to friends or family about the product, and 16% stated they had bought something as a result of a video advertisement.

Another strong benefit of online video is its viral marketing nature. In an Online Video study done by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in 2007, “more than half of online video viewers share links to the video they find with others.” (Pew Internet & American Life Project) This viral marketing of video content can exponentially increase the success of an advertising campaign. When creating video ads it is important to include viral marketing features into the video player. An example of this would be to include send-to-a-friend email functionality.

In conclusion, the online video advertising market is full of opportunities. This market is also relatively easy to jump into and create an impact. While there are still many discussions about what format, length, or whether or not television assets should be used, the numbers don’t lie. Online video advertising has become an extremely effective advertising medium and one that should not be ignored. As technology continues to improve, the use of video for advertising over the Internet will only increase. If they are not doing so now, advertisers need to begin looking at this medium.

A key step in any branding or identity initiative is coming up with the color scheme or palette that will be used. There are many approaches a designer can take when creating a color scheme. Professional designers will often rely on their own knowledge of color theory while more amateur designers may tend to use intuition. I typically use a combination of the two.

Often times it is a struggle. I’ll find one or two colors that work well together, but as I try to select other secondary and tertiary colors to support the main ones, I have a hard time selecting those.

A couple of years ago I came across a product called, ColorSchemer. ColorSchemer is a “professional color matching application for anyone from hobbyists to advanced professionals.” It can be used to “to explore color using a dynamic visual color wheel, actually see harmony relationships, mix colors, create gradient blends, and even analyze contrast and readability.”

ColorSchemer is a great tool and one that I would recommend. If you are on a tight budget and don’t want to purchase the program, I’d recommend checking out the online version.

The Internet provides a wealth of information for anyone who’s connected. People have come to understand that they can utilize this medium as a true resource for whatever topic interests them.

Over the years, as a creative, I’ve come to appreciate the many great resources for standards-based web site design and programming, graphic design, usability, search engine optimization, and other Internet marketing topic areas. Today, I want to share one such resource.

FreelanceSwitch is a web site that I’ve been frequenting since its launch a little over a year ago. FreelanceSwitch is a community of freelancers of all shapes and sizes. From designers to programmers to copywriters and everything in between, this site is a valuable resource to anyone living the freelance lifestyle (and even to those like me who only moonlight as a freelancer). The web site offers content on topics such as product reviews, marketing tips for freelancers, must-have products for home offices, how to find projects, and much more.
you’ll find Advice, Jobs, Resources and much more.

If you haven’t yet, give FreelanceSwitch a look-see!

Anyone who’s known me since I was about 15 knows that I am a huge Pearl Jam fan. So, as you can imagine, I was quite excited to hear they’ll be touring this summer. It was announced last week that Pearl Jam will be playing an east coast tour during the month of June. The tour will start off in West Palm Beach, Florida and end in Mansfield, Massachusetts. Towards the end of the tour they’ll play two shows at Madison Square Garden. Tomorrow is the day that fan club tickets go on sale for the New York shows. So, I will be hunkered down doing my best to get a pair of tickets to both MSG shows. Wish me luck!

I am hoping this won’t be the only tour news we hear from the band for this summer. It’s been several years since Pearl Jam played a show at Alpine Valley in East Troy, Wisconsin. The last time they played their was in June of 2003. Before that, it was October of 2000 for the memorable “Ice Bowl” (as it was branded by the band) show. It was about 26 degrees in early October or something crazy like that. Anyway, it made for a memorable show. I am hopeful that they’ll make a return to Alpine Valley this summer.

Web 2.0 is changing and shaping the way companies market to their customers. Ever wonder what the key best practices are for marketing online in this Web 2.0 world?

MarketingProfs is holding a virtual B2B 2.0 expo online today. I tuned in for the keynote by David Meerman Scott who discussed the idea of online thought leadership and using this idea as a way to capture and hold on to prospective as well as current customers/buyers. In addition to David’s keynote, the expo will be covering topics such as:

• What in email marketing is still working – and how should it change?
• What are the newest, most productive SEO tactics?
• Is there an increasing digital divide, and how should B2B marketers address it?
• How are social networks changing the way B2B marketers communicate with customers?
• What data can we now collect on customers, and what does that mean for evolving security and privacy issues?

I’ll post more later. If you’d like to join in, visit http://www.marketingprofs.com/events/3/conference