SpeedPlexer Blog

Advertisements shown during the Super Bowl each cost around $2.5 million for a 30-second spot and have long been known by viewers to be some of the most entertaining ads, that often generate as much conversation the next day as the game itself.  But which ones best used internet speed to keep the conversation going online? 

TechCrunch reports the numbers from several sources.  According to Reprise Media, the winners, in terms of the level of integration between their television commercials and presence on the web in search and social media were:

• Boost Mobile – where football legends do the Boost Mobile Shuffle
• HomeAway – with Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo hinting at their roles from National Lampoon’s Vacation.
• E*Trade – where the E*Trade Baby is having some girl troubles
• Google – where an American finds love in Paris.

Trendrr, the social media monitoring service, said their winners were Dockers (+307%), Boost Mobile (+161%), Emerald Nuts  (+150) and Disney’s Alice in Wonderland (+120%). Out of all of the car commercials, Audi’s A3 Green Police advertisement received the most buzz on Trendrr.

Social media measurement company Radian 6 and ad agency Mullen based their ranking on which brand was most effective according to sentiment and volume of Tweets on Twitter. Their report says that Doritos was the most effective brand to advertise on the Super Bowl telecast on CBS this year.

Google and Focus on the Family followed Doritos is becoming the most discussed commercials on Twitter. Of course, it should be noted that Doritos had several commercials in the Super Bowl, which could have contributed to the volume of tweets. On the other hand, Google had a higher percentage of positive tweets. Budweiser Select55 was the least effective brand.

Many Super Bowl ads can be found on YouTube.

YouTube said last month that it would try out the digital movie rental business, and its test would be with five independent films tied to the Sundance Film Festival.

This is good news for the indie filmmakers, since some of the films at Sundance may have only been seen by a few hundred people. But the YouTube test may have allowed them to increase their audience with internet speed.

The New York Times BITS blog says, “To be sure, for the independent filmmakers, the YouTube rental model is just one of many avenues they are pursuing because traditional distribution models no longer work for them. Fewer than one in four films from last year’s Sundance festival received commercial distribution.”

The five films, which were available on YouTube for 10 days, received a combined 2,684 views.

The Cove was watched 1,103 times
One Too Many Mornings – 340 times
Homewrecker - 355 times
Children of Invention - 490 times
Bass Ackwards - 396 times

At $3.99 per rental, YouTube netted $10,709.16. While these aren’t numbers that should have executives at Netflix, Apple’s iTunes or Amazon’s video on demand worried, (Netflix said recently that about 6 millions of its customers stream movies online.), YouTube will invite new video partners to join in their rental offerings. They’ll start with video categories like education, health and anime — content areas that aren’t likely to produce blockbuster audiences… at least in the short term.

Of course, YouTube would like to add more popular fare to its rental service, but until their talks with major studios help them secure rights to that content, you’ll be seeing things that appeal to a much smaller audience.

Several people have made it to Carnegie Hall with internet speed. 

On Wednesday, April 15th, the concert at the famed Hall will be performed by an orchestra assembled online. The YouTube Symphony Orchestra is a promotion by Google to make its video-sharing site an online destination for classical music and creative alliances.

“I think of this as setting a new trend in online artistic collaborations,” says Tim Lee, a former project marketing manager for Google in London who came up with the idea. Down the road, says Mr. Lee, rock bands or Broadway musicals looking for talent could audition parts globally using YouTube.

In December, aspiring orchestra members downloaded the scores for their instruments from a piece commissioned from the composer Tan Dun (who wrote the score for the movie “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”), then posted videos of themselves playing on YouTube. Users uploaded more than 3,000 audition clips in two months, according to Google.

Then, professional musicians from groups including the London Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic narrowed the field to 200 finalists. YouTube users then voted on their favorites.

Google is paying the airfare and expenses for the 96 winners, who range in age from 15 to 55 and hail from 29 different countries or territories. Though many are professional or semi-professional musicians, a few are amateurs. Regardless, they’ll have only a few days to rehearse together as an orchestra, as well as in the chamber ensembles and improvisatory and solo arrangements in which they’ll play during the concert.

Ed Sanders, YouTube’s project marketing director for Europe, says the concert will be more of an “experience” than a traditional concert, with multimedia effects and videos from Yo-Yo Ma, Lang Lang and others. Video of the concert will be available on YouTube the day after the event.