Homepage takeovers and sponsorships are going to be the last thing on brand advertisers minds in times when return on advertising spend is more critical than ever.  Surely a more innovative and flexible advertising solution would have been a better option and attracted a broader range of advertisers rather than the few who are willing to fork out £35,000 for a days advertising.

The success of the latest Facebook and MySpace solutions is built on the fact they are flexible and accessible to all.  There are thousands of businesses out there who are dying to tap into the social media masses and they now can, through the latest Facebook and MySpace platforms.  This will keep the two networks going in a time when large budget advertisers are tightening the purse strings.  Who is going to be buying a £35,000 homepage takeover on YouTube when times are tight?

Unfortunately Google have dropped the ball with this one for me, it wouldn’t surprise me if they were heading back to the drawing board in 6 months time due to a lack of uptake on their latest proposition.

This obviously as cause agencies to rethink their current commercial agreements with clients and could see some major shake-ups in the search marketing agency world as existing contracts become unmanageable without the commission in place.

What has become clear in the last couple of weeks however is what Google now plans to do with agency commission, they are going to use it to grow their non-search products.  It has been clear to see recently for those who deal with Google on a regular basis, that Google is desperate to expand their product mix outside of paid search.  They have launched media planning tools, display ad creation tools and have used every given opportunity to push the Google Placement Network.  Similarly with Youtube and their video advertising options, there has been national roadshows to agencies broadcasting the availability of their video advertising options.

And now this week Google has announced that they will be introducing agency commissions on all YouTube advertising (nma article here) and it is thought that the rebate amount is going to be back up to the 15% agencies enjoy on other media channels.  There are also rumours in the industry that a commission is set to be introduced on advertising across the Google Placement Network, although only for the largest players.

So it appears Google no longer feels it needs to compete in pay per click advertising due to its dominance, and that it is better placed rewarding advertisers in the areas it wishes to grow in.  You cant really fault them on that logic.  The removal of Best Practice Funding is unlikely to see agencies pulling spend from their Google Adwords campaigns, as it remains the best performing search engine around.  But by offering an incentive to broaden the products utilised they can begin to make headway in other areas.

Barack Obama has even gone as far as using in game advertising to try and reach the youth audience taking out ads in 18 video games including Guitar Hero, Burnout Paradise and Madden 09!  The ads were to promote his website, vote for change, and are an openly stated as an attempt to “reach young males 18-34″.  How successful these campaigns are remains to be seen, I suspect YouTube is a far more useful medium than Guitar Hero!  I can’t say that I’m concentrating on anything more than rocking out the next big riff and thrilling the crowd with some smoking solos! But maybe that’s just me!

Some of the articles relating to this story:

Wii Fit Underwear Girl a Marketing Hoax
Wii Fit YouTube clip gets two million admirers
Wii Fit turns YouTube sensation

And here is the link to the video, I would have embedded it but for some reason it is messing up the page layout!

Wii Fit YouTube Video

The opportunity and issue now facing BBC iPlayer is how to monetise this growing service without annoying its users. Advertising in online video files has been debated far and wide and yet the most appropriate format is yet to be decided upon. Pre-roll, post-roll and overlay are the main considerations with the option of mid roll placements as well but all interfere with the user experience in some way. The key is to strike a balance between the exposure of the ad and the interference with the viewing.

Youtube are still to achieve this and at a recent seminar they were still asking the advertisers what their preference would be for the ads. Youtube have gone with an overlay style ad for in video but admitted trialling preroll and post roll with both showing negative results. I wonder whether the BBC will be able to crack the code?

This may sound a lot on the face of it but I dont actually think its a bad deal. with youtube set to overtake the bbc website in the rankings for site visits the cost per thousand on front page exposure isnt going to be too shabby.

The challenge is going to be finding a video which people want to view, add to favourites and ultimately get to the top of the most viewed rankings. If this can be done then the £25,000 cost will stretch much further than one day as the viewings will continue as long as the video remains top of the standings. On top of this, if the video can be used to promote some sort of response from the user, through a youtube microsite or other means then you could be on to a winner.