SMSFirst Cricket Game on YouTube – A social media experiment to find the feasibility of TV like Advertising model for YouTube
Ahem… finally investing 10 days - staying back after office hours, including 2 sleepless nights, messing up with 96 videos, the first playable Cricket game on Youtube is ready for beta release.
How to play?
1. It’s a game of 2 overs. You need to score your maximum runs.
2. When a ball is delivered, it pauses for a while and gives you an option to click on buttons labeled – A,B C, D…
3. You click a button and guess your hit. Add the hits manually to your total score and remember it.
4. At the end of each hit, it displays a button and clicking on it takes you to the next ball.
5. At the end of 2nd over, you can share your score by writing it in the video itself.
Since the game is based on streaming of YouTube videos, you might find the UI a bit glitchy.
Now, apart from the game, the real motive behind this personal project was to find the feasibility of a TV-like advertising model where multiple advertisers can bid for time slots within youtube videos.
Currently YouTube offers the following advertising options:-
1. Create your own brand channel
2. Sponsor a brand channel
3. Participatory video Ads that are shown on homepage
4. Contextual Google Ads and banner Ads
YouTube statistics show that around 5.8 billion video clips are watched each month, with average time spent per person is 54 seconds. Complete report
While watching a YouTube video, the full attention is within the dimensions of the video player which need to be leveraged by giving advertisers a TV like platform to buy time slots within a YouTube video and unlike TV, viewer can interact with the Ad and ROI can be correlated directly with the video views.
I shared the same hypothesis to Shishir Mehrotra, Director of YouTube monetization to find the feasibility of following advertising options using YouTube Annotations feature:-
1. Advertisers can buy time slots for FOURS and SIXES. You can find “Your Ad Here” links. It let you compose a message where advertisers can inquire for a time slot. e.g. Castrol can bid for the FOURS as it is a four-stroke engine oil (just for demo purpose)
2. A secret link can be shared with the advertisers, which will enable them to write their copy, brand name right on the video on the exact timeline.
3. After 1st over there is a drink break and advertisers can buy that space to play a video ad (maximum 10 sec).
Note: current YouTube policies do not allow any commercial activity of your videos. Thus, the pointers mentioned above are just a proof of concept. But, YouTube partner channels can join the project.
Now, various other possible advertising options could be derived from the same:-
1. In-video advertising - “A 10 seconds time slot within most viewed videos on YouTube”. Tell me how it sounds?? So, there is a possibility of media buying on youtube.
e.g. Branding of a condom brand within a videos tagged as sex related (which generally get high views), of course with a message for safe sex, where multiple advertisers bid for the same time slot. Kiwi and Cherry Blossom shoe polish brand can bid for a time slot in a highly viewed video of Charlie Chaplin for a scene of “polishing a shoe”.
2. Integrating Google AdSense with YouTube Annotations feature, a revenue sharing model for video publishers where advertisers bid and buy time slots dynamically based upon the tags and description of the video.
3. Improvement of YouTube annotations feature might enable you to integrate images, videos in future.
Let’s see how the face of online video advertising changes!
How to play?
1. It’s a game of 2 overs. You need to score your maximum runs.
2. When a ball is delivered, it pauses for a while and gives you an option to click on buttons labeled – A,B C, D…
3. You click a button and guess your hit. Add the hits manually to your total score and remember it.
4. At the end of each hit, it displays a button and clicking on it takes you to the next ball.
5. At the end of 2nd over, you can share your score by writing it in the video itself.
Since the game is based on streaming of YouTube videos, you might find the UI a bit glitchy.
Now, apart from the game, the real motive behind this personal project was to find the feasibility of a TV-like advertising model where multiple advertisers can bid for time slots within youtube videos.
Currently YouTube offers the following advertising options:-
1. Create your own brand channel
2. Sponsor a brand channel
3. Participatory video Ads that are shown on homepage
4. Contextual Google Ads and banner Ads
YouTube statistics show that around 5.8 billion video clips are watched each month, with average time spent per person is 54 seconds. Complete report
While watching a YouTube video, the full attention is within the dimensions of the video player which need to be leveraged by giving advertisers a TV like platform to buy time slots within a YouTube video and unlike TV, viewer can interact with the Ad and ROI can be correlated directly with the video views.
I shared the same hypothesis to Shishir Mehrotra, Director of YouTube monetization to find the feasibility of following advertising options using YouTube Annotations feature:-
1. Advertisers can buy time slots for FOURS and SIXES. You can find “Your Ad Here” links. It let you compose a message where advertisers can inquire for a time slot. e.g. Castrol can bid for the FOURS as it is a four-stroke engine oil (just for demo purpose)
2. A secret link can be shared with the advertisers, which will enable them to write their copy, brand name right on the video on the exact timeline.
3. After 1st over there is a drink break and advertisers can buy that space to play a video ad (maximum 10 sec).
Note: current YouTube policies do not allow any commercial activity of your videos. Thus, the pointers mentioned above are just a proof of concept. But, YouTube partner channels can join the project.
Now, various other possible advertising options could be derived from the same:-
1. In-video advertising - “A 10 seconds time slot within most viewed videos on YouTube”. Tell me how it sounds?? So, there is a possibility of media buying on youtube.
e.g. Branding of a condom brand within a videos tagged as sex related (which generally get high views), of course with a message for safe sex, where multiple advertisers bid for the same time slot. Kiwi and Cherry Blossom shoe polish brand can bid for a time slot in a highly viewed video of Charlie Chaplin for a scene of “polishing a shoe”.
2. Integrating Google AdSense with YouTube Annotations feature, a revenue sharing model for video publishers where advertisers bid and buy time slots dynamically based upon the tags and description of the video.
3. Improvement of YouTube annotations feature might enable you to integrate images, videos in future.
Let’s see how the face of online video advertising changes!
