Tag Archives: Digital Media

Can You Predict a Viral Marketing Video?

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Volkswagen Star Wars Super Bowl Advertisement

As a first order of business, the thunder-stealing, lead-in answer is still “probably not.” That said, this week we’re pleased to announce the launch of a new video analytics tool for ad agencies and video content marketers that brings this predictive digital marketing dream one step closer.

Video Analytics Screenshot

Our solution is a first-of-its-kind tool capable of performing targeted, simultaneous algorithm and audience-based testing of a single video, multiple videos or even multiple edits of the same branded content spot. By enabling digital advertisers, video marketers and content creators to specify audience goals such as age, gender, income level, zip-code and/or video “share rate,” then quickly test their videos against those goals and audience profile, our scoring tool brings scalable marketing automation, big data analytics and a rapid-prototyping feedback loop to video production, video audience measurement and video performance forecasting. Beneficial ways to use our new video analytics tool include:

  • A/B testing different video concepts or video edits to determine which performs best for a given campaign/activation goal or audience profile.
  • Test and compare your videos against public videos from competitors on key metrics like audience retention and viewer click-through rate (CTR).
  • Pre-release testing one or multiple pre-roll or TV ad spots earlier to proactively reduce the risk of negative brand exposure, campaign under-performance, mis-targeting and/or distribution over-spend.
  • Evaluating branded entertainment and web series pilots with richer tools, deeper insights and a faster feedback loop (so you don’t have to play the Netflix game and order seasons up front at $4.5 million an episode).

Best of all, by connecting your YouTube or Wistia video hosting account (plus more hosting platforms on the way), users will also be able to compare and back-test predicted video virality versus actual, real-world earned media rates, social media mentions and referral shares, and easily generate reports.

The tool is currently in private beta, with a broader, public release planned in May. To apply for early access, contact ZoomTilt via email or visit our video analytics signup page .

6 Important Innovations in Video Spotted at 2013 CES

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CES 2013

Every year the CES conference showcases new technologies and campaigns from the biggest names in technology. Video, TV and transmedia integration were high on everyone’s minds this year, spanning two-screen advertising to smart TVS to cloud-driven video recording.  With thousands of attendees, three expo halls (plus tents and a few food trucks), the CES was, at times, overwhelming, so we’ve broken down a selection of important media innovation developments from this major tech gathering as part of ZoomTilt’s 2013 CES recap:

1. Cisco: Videoscape Unity
Videoscape Unity is a new and expanded video services delivery platform which will allow companies to provide a synchronized multiscreen video experiences. It will also provide unified search, discovery, and viewing functions to allow consumers to watch premium live and on-demand content on any (service provider managed or unmanaged) connected device regardless of location.

2. Audible Magic: Content Recognition
Audible Magic will bring an advanced television advertising solutions including interactive and addressable advertising across smart televisions, set-top boxes and second screen devices. This will provide an interactive advertising solution which will use the company’s SmartID ACR technology to identify ads in real-time watched by users and will then display supplemental, promotional and additional informational options.

3. Google TV: 3rd Generation Streamers
In its race to reverse second-screen the TV into the “new monitor,” Google TV debuted its latest generation streaming device, the ASUS Qube with Google TV media streamer, alongside OEM partner Marvell.  The team watched a few ZoomTilt web series episodes at the Marvell both, and, needless to say, Google TV’s new boxes are hands-down the most convenient and enjoyable way to watch ZoomTilt shows in big-screen HD.

4. Accedo: TV Everywhere
Accedo’s T.V.E Solution will provide an integrated solution, which connects content distribution and management platforms with attractive Pay TV applications on any connected device. Additionally, social networking integration through TVE app will allow for an enhanced user experience.

5. YuMe: Click-to-Ngage
The Click-to-Ngage icon located on an advertisement will allow users to see more information and options from that brand.  Although it remains to be seen if this type of feature will catch on (clearly the quality of the content alongside it will be of critical importance), YuMe’s approach is clearly looking to combines the big screen, couch-based TV viewing experience with the interactivity and measurability of online video.

6. AT&T Enters Online Video Streaming Fray
A telecom heavyweight is wading into the streaming TV space? It would certainly seem so.  The phone company’s upcoming U-Verse television service will start offering an online video streaming service called “U-Verse Screen Pack” for an $5 a month, available to U-Verse television subscribers.  The bundled offering appears likely to offer a content library similar to Netflix at a slightly lower price point, although it remains to be seen if AT&T intends to win customers based on a differentiated experience (and/or content), or simply hopes to entice its existing telecom subscriber base to pick up streamed TV at a slight discount.

See anything else new and noteworthy at the 2013 CES? If so drop us a note in the comments section.

An Open Letter to Shark Tank Boston

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Dear Katie Rae, Mike Troiano, Pete Backlow, Fred Destin and Dharmesh Shah and One Anonymous VIP Shark/Investor,

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Amy. I am just shy of turning twenty-eight; I was raised in North Jersey and educated in New York City, where I began my career.   Currently I am a full-time MFA graduate student at Emerson College, a freelance filmmaker, and “Maker of Happened Things” at ZoomTilt (because, well, I make lots of things happen), one of the 70 odd-something companies listed for the Shark Tank at FutureM.

I write to you today not to tell you to pick ZoomTilt; but rather, to tell you why I choose ZoomTilt and trust by the end of this letter that you will understand why we deserve to be on the stage with Shark Tank.

You saw the generic run-down of my credentials above, but that is just skimming the surface of my resume. I’ve been involved in public relations since PR was considered the “new advertising.” I’ve worked for large agencies representing Fortune 500 clients, I’ve been in-house with an internationally recognized diamond retailer and I launched smaller brand campaigns as an employee of a boutique PR agency. When I transitioned my career into film production I backtracked a bit, working first as an assistant, climbing the ranks to senior assistant and then finally, producer. I moved to Boston two years ago to pursue independent filmmaking and since then I’ve created an array of digital content and received thousands of views under my own LLC, Greenview Entertainment. I’ve studied with theater institutions around the globe, and my work has been nominated and recognized at film festivals throughout the country. I am also a YPC Member for the Cancer Research Institute and I am a published writer.

So, you are probably asking yourself with all this success and accomplishment and amount of work on my plate, why did I seek out ZoomTilt at the end of August 2012 and demand that I join the team, working, as most start-ups and entrepreneurs do, for absolutely no pay?

At a basic level, my interests are strongly aligned with the work that ZoomTilt is doing, so it’s a no brainer that I wanted to work for Anna Callahan and Chris Bolman. But for me it goes beyond my passion for filmmaking and why, even though I am a full-time graduate student with my own production banner I have officially taken on the role of the “Maker of Happened Things” over here at ZoomTilt.

ZoomTilt is a digital entertainment studio that provides filmmakers with the opportunity to get their work seen and paid for. Anna Callahan, the company’s founder, is an experienced filmmaker, who knows as well as I do, that the current model and economics of “Hollywood” and “Big Studio” do not work anymore. Today, it’s brands and advertisers that bring both funds and recognition to filmmakers and video creatives on content platforms like YouTube.  Content-hungry brands are the new funding engines that creative professionals use to present great, original, episodic content to audiences.  To feed this hunger and reinvent the economics and experience of both filmmaking and video advertising, ZoomTilt is spearheading a digital empire to fund independent, digital TV and video that also provides brands a more compelling, more engaging and lower cost way to tell their story to consumers.

The reason why I love ZoomTilt is because it aligns everything I’ve worked for over the years. A good publicist, like a good filmmaker, is a storyteller.

Individuals such as myself, Anna Callahan and Chris Bolman are the media makers of the future.  And in the highly fragmented and noisy digital space, standout media content, my honorable judges, is king.  What ZoomTilt is building allows me, my colleagues and an entire industry of creative professionals to succeed – because media is how messages and experiences are spread.  Media is what sustains and enlivens culture, even more so now in this fast-paced, information driven, digital age than ever before.

At ZoomTilt, we have a unique way of connecting brands and filmmakers to create and distribute that media; marketing media that entertains, promotes ideas and drives revenue and ROI for brands with deep, deep pockets and big, big budgets.

Marketing media is the reason why FutureM exists. So, I’ll leave you with one last question to consider:

Don’t you want one of the six companies standing on the stage at FutureM’s Shark Tank to be the company that is fundamentally redefining media marketing?

Exactly.

Happeningly yours,

Amy DePaola

Maker of Happened Things
ZoomTilt
amy@zoomtilt.com
@theeamydee
@zoomtilt