The Consumer Generated Video Conference
Posted by Joe Lichtenberg on Tue, Mar 27, 2007 @ 01:29 PM
I just got back from the OMMA conference, where everyone spent a lot of time focusing on the consumer generated video movement. Sessions included the Doritos Superbowl commercial contest, YouTube, and firms offering "YouTube in a box." What I thought was missing was some hard data on the business value of the various new media and social media platforms. My guess is that six months from now, most folks in this group will be done with consumer generated video, and they'll all be off on the "next big thing."
A few standouts from the conference:
First was the keynote from Arianna Huffington. The Huffington Post is proof that in the Web 2.0 world you can build a brand in the fraction of the time it used to take. In a nod to being the new kid on the block, their tagline is "Delivering News and Opinion Since May 9th, 2005." According to Ms. Huffington, she has 800 bloggers that are working for her for free! How did she pull that off? It's the draw of people wanting to be associated with that organization's community.
Another was Jordan Rohan, a very smart Managing Director from RBC Capital Markets. When asked whether Viacom was serious about suing Google, he observed that Sumner Redstone is partnering with YouTube at CBS for March Madness clips, while simultaneously suing them at Viacom. It's portfolio theory in action. Try a variety of business models in his various companies, see which ones are successful, then quickly follow suit in his other companies.
The last was a presentation from Nick Grouf who started a company called Spot Runner. They're doing for TV advertising what Google has done for web advertising: making it affordable for the little guys. The folks at Spot Runner have discovered that TV airtime in local markets is cheap, really cheap (like $100 for a 30 second spot). So they produced template commercials for a variety of industries (like sporting good stores and realtors) that they customize for you for $499, then let you buy airtime in just the local geos you want, airing at times that reach the just the target demographic you want. Very cool stuff.