I’m happy to announce, the little battler in the South, the island State of Tasmania, has come up trumps in the latest round to Tourism Video Marketing. My home state, Victoria, on the other hand, still won’t listen to industry advice, and continues to churn out expensive, irrelevant video campaigns that quickly disappear into the murky depths of the vast ocean of online video.
Tasmania Tourism has a marketing budget of $10.2 million compared to Tourism Victoria’s hefty $73.8 million. Despite this, or maybe because of it, Tasmania Tourism’s latest video campaign has been extremely cost effective, in fact, it only cost $5,000!
Tourism Tasmania sniffed the air, pardon the pun, and realised there is vast audience out there, who can make their own films, often better, and more cost effectively than would be the case if they employed a traditional ad agency.
The above film by Andrew Quaile won Tourism Tasmania’s 2012 Tasmanian Breath of Fresh Air Film Festival ‘Essence of Tasmania’ Competition. It takes one of Tasmania’s unique selling points, clean air, and markets it in a clever, engaging, humorous way.
“What about the foreign market, those who can’t speak english,” I hear you ask, “Wouldn’t it be better to do a campaign that doesn’t involve language?”
Well, in case you haven’t noticed, Australia is now one of the most expensive holiday destinations in the world! And, while the Australian economy is booming, many other countries, no longer even have economies! (a good chance to highlight some Australian comedy to the rest of the world)
So the great thing about the Tasmanian campaign is that it doesn’t forget the domestic market, it captures our quirky, self-depreciating humour and understands that for a vast majority of the world, Australia is just too damn expensive! So best to market to those who can afford it, other Australians!
Which brings me to Tourism Victoria’s latest campaign. A tired old music video format featuring the Great Ocean Road. Anyone ever heard of it, the Great Ocean Road? Of course you’ve heard of it, and seen numerous images of it’s great scenery, as you will see again, in the expensive production below ( I would estimate this production would cost at least five times more than the Tourism Tasmania video)
So which video, after a week online has engaged the audience? Well let’s look at the figures;
Views: Tasmania – 3885 views, Victoria – 171 views,
Likes: Tasmania – 26 likes, Victoria – 4 likes
Comments: Tasmania – 2 comments, Victoria – 0 comments.
Clearly the Tasmanian campaign is engaging the audience better. But please Tourism Tasmania, stop moderating the comments, open it up, the good and the bad, social media is about transparency, you have to be open to criticism. And with Youtube’s new algorithm, engagement, such as number of comments is important in how a video ranks in search.
And I can ensure you, 6 months from now, Tourism Victoria’s latest campaign will still be floundering, as did this confusing ‘music video’ by visit NSW. Six months, 77 views! Absolute waste of government funding. And what is message, Australia has magic mushrooms?
This is an example of Australian tourism marketing, but is relevant to any tourism body wishing to use video in their marketing arsenal. The important lesson; it doesn’t matter how much money you have at your disposal, this won’t guarantee success. What is of importance is that you understand your demographic and give them content that engages them.
Tasmania, with the lowest marketing budget of any state in Australia has given us a great example of how to make use of the changing media landscape. Travel Bloggers, Travel Vloggers, any tourist, can now have an influence on how your destination is viewed in the social media landscape. Tourism bodies have to understand this and accept this. In a crowded marketplace where everyone wants a piece of the global US$1,850 billion tourism industry, any publicity is good publicity. Spread your budget and engage your audience.
After ten months on the road I’ve taken a well earned break to catch up on some editing. Well, the plan was to catch up on some editing, what I’ve actually found myself indulging in one of my favourite pastimes…research. I’ve finally had time to watch online videos, read books, study successful people and companies.
One author I’ve been reading quite a bit of is Malcolm Gladwell. He seems to be very clever at defining the Zeitgeist of our times by bringing together studies and statistics across various fields from psychology to epidemiology. I’ve also been studying marketing techniques and social media with the end aim of using my findings to continue making independent media for the travel and tourism industry.
So in this article, I wish to tie all this research together and discuss various ways in which independent media can use different advertising models and platforms to produce content.
To quote Numantra’s Why Social Media Doesn’t Work (and What You Can Do About It) “Advertising is a lot harder today then it ever was before. According to Planet Feedback’s “Consumer Trust in Advertising” report, fewer than half the people surveyed trust print ads or television commercials. Hardly a third of them trust what they hear on the radio. It’s even worse for direct mail and outdoor advertising. What’s the number one trusted source of advertising? Word of mouth!
That’s a huge game changer. Before, advertisers had to convince consumers to buy their product. Now, advertisers have to convince consumers to convince other consumers to buy their product. That is a much harder proposition. Imagine you had to sell your car but you couldn’t sell it directly to the buyer. Instead, you had to convince everyone to sell your car to their friends for you.”
So it is understandable that big corporations desire and require popularity on social networking sites. And let’s be honest, from twitter to Facebook, youtube to website rankings, money can buy popularity. Views, likes, subscribers, weblinks, all these things can be paid for. Which leads to a very important lesson for both media creators and advertiser, Never trust the numbers, trust the engagement!
And even with regard to the engagement, who is commenting, who is the audience? e.g. It always surprises me when reading travel blogs that a majority of comments come from other travel blog writers.
But maybe, as stated by Malcolm Gladwell in his book ‘Outliers’, success, whether in social media, or elsewhere, has always been a questionable measurement.
Why an advertising model for travel and tourism media production?
There are other models that I will mention, but given that I’m specifically working in the travel and tourism industry, I don’t think they are sustainable given the huge amount of free information available online.
Crowdfunding – Sites like Kickstarter have lead to the creation of many one off programs, but may not be suitable for long term media creation
Subscriber or DVD sales – I don’t really see anyone doing subscriber based media successfully, it just doesn’t seem to stick, even for Murdoch!
Media creators producing dvd’s or downloads on niche topics have managed to sustain audiences. But with regard to the travel and tourism industry, as mentioned, there is so much free marketing material available, promoting countries, regions, towns, trying to sell dvd’s or downloads would only garner a small audience, unless, once again, making content on niche travel like pilgrimage
Video Platforms and Types of Advertising
Given that the above study by Numantra states word of mouth is the best form of advertising, does it make sense to bombard people with ads such as is done on youtube? Is there a better way?
The other big player in online video is vimeo, of which I wasn’t a fan in the past because there seemed to be a divide between the ‘filmmakers’ of vimeo and the vloggers of youtube which I saw as quite pretentious. Personally I think anyone can make a ‘film’ which is nothing more than a series of lovely pictures set to music, getting an audience is an entirely different skill set!
But on my recent visit to vimeo I was surprised. I did some searches for areas of my interests and found KORDUROY.tv who through video how-to’s, short films, rants and interviews are creating a new platform for independent surf culture. Now they also got started with a kickstarter campaign and are continuing content production via sponsors and an online shop selling surf related products. All with minimal advertising, six second pre-roll ads at the start and mention of sponsors at the end. Five supporter companies who service the surf industry provide funding to keep Korduroy creating content.
Niches
When a production company does what Korduroy tv has done, and targets a particular niche, you can be assured all there audience surf or at least are interested in surfing. So keeping the advertising low-key is probably a wise move, as what you are really doing is providing a platform for like minds to enjoy their hobby, funded by business that survive from that hobby. Such a formula, if done well, would lead to organic sharing amongst the community, thus guaranteeing it’s success. The huge views of a youtube viral video….no! A highly targeted dedicated audience established over time with ongoing content, yes! Which one has longevity and audience loyalty?
So how can this example be used in the travel and tourism industry?
The travel and tourism industry is huge. Last year it contributed US$1,850 billion to global GDP and employs over 99 million people.
All types of niches can be developed from grey nomads to fishing. This is pretty easy to deduct, a little bit harder is how to get paid to make this content?
I think the most important thing is to not make content for advertisers! Sounds a little counterproductive, but the reality is, people hate ads, and a lot of those who watch online video do so because they want to escape the bombardment of the crap they find on tv. This is also the reason most travel programs are staid and uninspiring, they are basically platforms for destination marketing.
One production company that has realised this is Vice. They brand themselves as edgy, underground and independent and produce content popular with the 18-29 demographic.
The fact they are backed by youtube and CNN to the tune of millions of dollars doesn’t seem to undermine their street cred, yet! I like vice’s travel videos, but in the same breath, I would not call them independent. Being able to hand out wads of cash to locals wherever you go is not my idea of independent travel. This poor bugger is independent, trying to visit every country in the world without flying. But, the reality of who is paying the tab isn’t so important if you are producing content people want to watch.
Branded Content
And this is where the branded content advertising model can be used by independent producers to feature travel related content. Branded content, where the marketing is not “heavy handed” and is “almost a bi-product” is the most effective form of marketing according to a October 2010 report by the CMO Council.
Featuring items or locations in content people want to watch has already been adopted by television and I think it will be the way of the future for online travel content.
Tipping Point
To use another Malcolm Gladwell term, I think social media has reached a tipping point. When you can no longer trust what has climbed to the top of the pile on social media sites, you have to wonder how long it will take for people to pack up shop and find other places to play.
Youtube for example has become too big and too American-centric. Even this ‘titty’ video got more fews on vimeo than youtube, and youtube has always been about tits and cats! (After one month – 25,787 hits on Vimeo and 1,804 hits on YouTube.)
The epicentre of top youtube creators is Los Angeles and most of the recent ‘original channels’ funding stayed within the USA. The individual creator community that made the youtube vibe have been pushed to the edge of the mega city by large production studios (e.g. vice) and their pre-fabricated instant stars. I can understand why youtube has to make the move towards more professional content, but you would think providing support to already established partners would be more sensible than bringing in outside production companies!
My prediction is little villages (alternative websites) will be established around the edges, feeding niche communities with content made from within these communities. They may still use youtube, or for that matter vimeo, but they won’t be relying on ad revenue from youtube, in the same way travel bloggers don’t rely on ad revenue from google. The clever operators will be making their own ad deals, dealing directly with the industries that service their niches. And clever advertisers will see through the hype of the huge views of viral videos, and understand sustainable communities of passionate individuals means more than short term popularity.
So to sum up, what does this mean for content creators; Produce work you are passionate about and develop your own community destination (websites) and your own advertising deals with companies that service that community. And ensure they understand that understated advertising methods are the only methods that will work.
Overlander.tv just clocked 11 Million views on youtube! Pretty amazing really. But I suppose not as amazing as youtube’s stats themselves. Last year YouTube had more than 1 trillion views or almost 140 views for every person on Earth! At the moment more than one hour of video is uploaded to YouTube every second!
I got involved in video in the mid 1990′s, when digital video cameras introduced broadcast quality images at consumer prices. From the very start it was about telling stories and documenting my travels. My first trip being with my brother through the Aussie Outback. We had a simple effective plan of attack, visit the local pubs and find people to interview. Looking back on the clip below, it’s great to see a lot of my family involved. Dad as the farmer, Andrew and friend as sheepdogs, Stephen as the waiter.
I could see the potential of the internet early on and set up one of Australia’s first video sites in 2001. It was a little bit too early, with bandwith speeds meaning the video quality and image size wasn’t really conducive with a great viewing experience.
There were tricks I used to help give the appearance of online video, such as by using flash animation in the project below commissioned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in August 2003
I joined youtube in Feb 2006. Back then I was posting to blip.tv as they were hosting more professional content and youtube was more about bedroom vloggers, which at the time I saw as amateur. I remember the day I joined, youtube was getting a lot of press in the Australian media and I thought I’ve got to at least reserve the overlander channel name. In November 2006 google bought youtube for $1.65 Billion. I was made one of the first Australian youtube partners which meant I got a little bit of promotion, but at the time I derided the whole youtube vlogging genre. I didn’t see much skill in people sitting in their bedrooms ranting into a camera!
Boy how that has changed! I now understand how vlogging has changed the whole media landscape. Viewers now want to be engaged, they want honesty and opinion. Even though I didn’t like vlogging at the time, looking back, my most successful film, ‘The Way’, due to the circumstances of filming, was vlogging!. In ‘The Way’ I walked the Camino de Santiago, all 760 kms lugging 17 kilograms of camera gear. I wanted to be completely honest with what I felt along the way. What I found fascinating is how my struggle, my personal journey has resonated with viewers. And it seems the harder I did it, such as the day I said I was just sick of it all, the more people enjoyed it.
So my ideas on vlogging changed. I realised this raw personalized form of filmmaking could move people. So I started watching the innovators at the time Nalts and Ze Frank. I even gave it a go myself, trying to mimic the wide eyed machine gun delivery of Ze Frank.
Which brings me to where I am today. After more than 15 years producing videos I now want to get back to the rawest, most barebones productions I can make! I’ve been living on the road since July 2011 and I dont want to spend days editing ‘masterpieces’ I just want to capture some of the things I see while traveling, preferably with a local person as a guide, and just keep it really lo-fi and punk! And this has been a big leap, to unlearn, to put myself in front of the camera and see if I can master audio-visual storytelling as a presenter. The video below was my first attempt, walking and talking, one take, trying to engage.
With the advent of cheap DSLR cameras anyone now can capture amazing imagery. Anyone can now afford the tools to make films. And this is wonderful. But for me, I want to move away from bigger and brighter and better. I want to return to the essence of good filmmaking, a bloody good yarn, plain and simple!
What do you think, is a good story enough, or do viewers also expect fancy production values?
Ten Months ago I stopped doing my main source of income, commercial video production for business and tourism regions, to travel and film the world. My plan was to rely solely on income I made from online video.
So understandably, it is in my best interest to have some idea of what the experts say works well for online video. The video above features YouTube’s trends manager, Kevin Allocca explaining the three points youtube has found helps videos go viral; 1) Tastemakers, 2) Participation 3) Unexpectedness.
I want to focus on one of these points, Tastemakers, and discuss who the tastemakers are for the genre of travel videos.
There are many cases of where travel video channels have been given a nice boost thanks to the help of other well known youtubers.
Natalie Tran, Australia’s most successful youtuber, was sent around the world to produce short and sweet location videos that have proved to be very successful for Lonely Planet’s youtube presence, increasing their subscriber base from 15,000 to over 40,000, and leading to over 3 million more video views
Next up winner Pdrop received a nice boost to his viewership and subscriber base when he was given a mention by popular vlogger sxephil
On youtube there seems to be a shift away from individual content creators to content produced by studios. Vice for example were recent recipients of youtube’s original content funding, whereby google dished out $100 million, with some studios receiving as much as $5 million each.
Other travel channels, even those with the appearance of an individual creator, now have the backing of large studios. Sonia Gil’s relatively new channel is backed by Big Frame Media Company, thus meaning she has access to cross promotion from other top performing channels in Big Frame’s stable.
Travel Videos seem to be a very fickle genre online. Even the big players have had difficulty finding viewers. Youtube’s own Vacationer channel has quietly disappeared without a whimper! And even one of the biggest companies in the world, Coca Cola had trouble finding an audience for this round the world adventure.
So when I see a travel video, which has the backing of a large company, suddenly go viral, I always question how it has happened and whether it is due to some clever white hat marketing? I saw these factories in the Philippines, rooms full of bleary eyed Filipinos clicking ‘like’ on Facebook and Youtube. Popularity on the internet it seems, can be bought at the right price!
So what does this mean for the individual traveller or couple trying to make a little extra pocket money from their travel videos as they travel? Can we find tastemakers in the travel blogging sphere? Should we all be cross promoting our work to help establish bigger followings? Interested to hear your thoughts below?
I don’t pay enough attention to my blinkx channel, it’s like the well performing student the teacher leaves alone because they get the work done.
Blinkx, the world’s largest and most advanced video search engine performs just as well in ad revenue for overlander.tv as does youtube, and minus the hassles such as getting videos flagged.
So Blinkx, I promise to pay you more attention, to never mention youtube in a video again, and to understand that I make travel videos, not youtube travel videos. The space is always changing as are the players!
Convergence, whereby the internet can be used on televisions will mean huge changes for the broadcast industry. It means advertiser will finally have all the statistics on hand to see how well television advertising works.
Youtube is currently the biggest ‘television’ station in the the world. Google wants it to stay that way and for good or for bad are making steps towards longer programming. Longer programs look more like television and, more importantly, allow for more advertising.
At overlander.tv we are aware of the changes taking place and, as always, want to remain innovators in the online video arena. So we have decided to list a majority of our travel programs on youtube in their entirety. For now it feels like we are ‘giving them away’ but our motto has always been to adapt to changes in the media landscape early, and we feel this attitude has lead to our continued success as a small boutique production house.
So sit back, pour yourself a cold one, and enjoy taking a visual journey through the countries we have filmed in. And while your at it, have a look at youtube leanback to get an idea where things are heading in the future and how much google know about you from your browsing history.
In this educational video we discuss the important points one must get across when contacting business with regard to the production of an online business profile video.
Working locally with video producer Raj of Ipoh, Malaysia. We assess which local business to approach with regard to producing a business profile video.
A new way to produce online business profile videos, using a tried and tested method – 2minprofile.com
I’ve had great success producing business profile videos for business. Most of the videos I have produced have gone to number one in google search for keywords related to the business featured. Just as important, I believe I have cracked the code with regard to what works online.
A video cannot be too long. I believe 2 minutes is all that is needed. In this two minutes I believe all a business needs to do is differentiate itself from it’s competitors 4 times. That works out to be roughly 30 secs per point. For the video producer, each 30 secs works out to be 6-12 shots, depending on the pace of the video piece.
So essentially a formula can be developed, that allows both video producer and business owner, to know exactly how the end product will look. Here is an example of a business profile video that uses my formula, it is short (approx 2 mins) it is personable (you get to know the owners) and very succinctly, it sums up how the business is different from it’s competitors.
So I have set up 2MINPROFILE which will empower business all over the world to use local video producers to produce online friendly video profiles.
At the moment we are just in beta phase, gathering a list of video producers from around the world interested in being involved in this unique project, and helping them learn the 2minprofile method with a series of free online video tutorials. For the first time, video producers name their price with regard to the going rates in their country and sales are made via one website – 2minprofile.com.
Video has been proven to be the best online marketing tool and we offer business a tried and tested formula to use with regard to their online video marketing.
At the moment we are reaching out to video producers from around the world who wish to be involved in this unique project. Any video producers interested in being involved please send us an email with 2minprofile in the subject.
