On-line Video Viewing is No Longer a Novelty

The International Herald Tribune (The Global Edition of the New York Times) recently featured an article titled Whichever Screen, People Are Watching. In the article, Brian Stelter discusses recent reports following on-line consumer viewing habits.

According to the article, “The first in a series of new ‘three-screen’ reports by the Nielsen Company shows an emerging shift toward a more video-centric use of the Internet. The average American spent 127 hours of time with TV in May, up from 121 hours in May 2007; and 26 hours on the Internet, up from 24 hours last year. More than 282 million people watch television in a given month and nearly 162 million use the Internet.” Furthermore, data reaffirms that “on-line video viewing is no longer a novelty. Two-thirds of Internet users in the United States or 119 million people, watched video in May.”

In fact, a similar article, Product Placement Creeps Into Amateurs' YouTube Offerings, highlights this increasing trend and how more corporate sponsorships of on-line video clips are becoming more popular. According to author Mike Musgrove, “Product placement and corporate sponsorships have been seeping into new, user-generated turf lately. Last year, Dr. Pepper sponsored production of a music video by YouTube star Tay Zonday. This year, Sprint Nextel is offering a few bucks to people who incorporate a new Samsung phone into a home video and post the results to YouTube. Finally, big-name entities from Revlon to Coldplay also have recently sponsored contests on the video site.”

Mike Musgrove believes, “It's easy to understand why sites like YouTube are attractive to advertisers and corporate sponsors. Getting a 30-second commercial on the air in front of a prime-time audience costs hundreds of thousands of dollars; uploading a video to YouTube costs nothing.”

With such easy access to on-line video sites today, videos have the potential to reach large internet and target audiences. They also serve to be useful PR tools by releasing product messages in ways that are fun and attention grabbing. We found this article reinforcing the significance of on-line videos to be important and wanted to share.