New Standards of Viral Video in 2009

We all know how much of an impression videos, and more imporantly viral videos, have made on the worlds of Boston Marketing Agencies, and also Boston Advertising Agencies recently. What we may not know is that these agencies are going to have to tailor their video strategy in 2009, as standards are changing. Click here to view a great post from 451Heat and read all about it.

The Evolving Marketer

Check out a great new post from AJ Gerriston about the evolving marketer, and how social media is changing the world as we know it.

The Evolving Marketer - More Transparent or Better Concealed?

The Possibilities of Video Game Advertising

I have been recently reading a lot of interesting articles about the emerging video game advertising industry, and thought I would take some more time to explore it today in this post.

To put it simply: Video game advertising is using computer and video games as a medium to deliver advertising. Great, but what does that mean? What so many people do not realize is that by utilizing video game advertising techniques Boston Advertising Agencies are able to reach a typically difficult to reach demographic: young affluent males ages 18-34.

Did you know that video games have the 4th highest reach for teens and heavy gamers (following TV, internet and radio), and a recent article published by cnn.com stated that 97% of America’s youth play video games in some form? I didn’t either – but knowing that, just imagine the possibilities that this mostly undiscovered industry holds.

What this all means for Boston Advertising Agencies is huge market potential. The video game industry itself is growing at an unprecedented rate, with global sales rising from $6.6 billion last year to 14.4 billion by 2012.

To make things even more interesting; the latest forms of in game advertising allow Boston Advertising Agencies to tailor their message to geographic location, and further to time zone, allowing for the delivery of time sensitive messages (think TV shows and movie premiers).

In terms of evaluating the success of a video game advertising campaign - information can be sent back to the agency from the player’s machine in order to calculate how effective the advertisement placement is for the viewer.

The market is growing at a fascinating rate, and is presenting a huge amount of opportunity to be taken advantage of by Boston Advertising Agencies. The potential here is amazing, and it will not be long before agencies start emerging that specialize in solely this form of advertising. It is definitely a very interesting industry that should be definitely be watched and paid very close attention to.

451Heat from 451 Marketing

451 Marketing, The Leader in New Media Communications, announced their new blog 451Heat this week. There is some really great information up there, check it out: www.451heat.com

Great Info...

For all you new media fanatics out there - check out this great presentation that I saw last night given by AJ Gerritson of 451 Marketing:

http://www.slideshare.net/guestd8c007/acgboston-presentation-706075/

A virtual community, for our purposes, should be described as a meeting place for consumers. It is a place where consumers go to meet with peers and communicate via text, audio, video, or all of the above. One of the more popular and better known is Google’s Gmail application. Essentially, it is just yet another way for people to communicate and connect, very similar to social networks.

I won’t go into much more detail about what the community is, but more about how one could use it for business. Much like social networking sites, people spend a good amount of time in their virtual communities, making them a common form of communication. This means one very important thing for businesses: because it becomes a primary form of communication, a great deal of information is viewed and passed along.

Some Boston Advertising Agencies are starting understand how important and effective this is, and are beginning to use it to their advantage. Take Gmail for example: have you ever noticed when you are emailing someone about restaurants, for example, ads for restaurants in your area appear on the right hand side of the screen? Google uses geo-targeted ads to reach consumers in an extremely effective manner, and Boston Advertising Agencies who are taking advantage of this are extremely far ahead of the curve.

There are many other popular virtual communities such as YouTube and SecondLife, both of which utilize many of the same tools and technology as Gmail. The opportunity for Boston Advertising Agencies to take advantage of this is huge, and its benefits are only beginning to be discovered and utilized to their fullest capability.

Going.com: The Social Media Website for Having a Social Life

As we know, with the rise of Web 2.0 came the introduction of social networking. The more popular social networks including Facebook and MySpace have a variety of features and share a similar primary purpose of brining together friends from all across the globe. We also know that websites like these are creating great opportunities for Boston Public Relations Agencies to get their messages out to mass amounts of people almost instantly.

In addition to the few general social networking sites that everyone knows, there are many more specialized sites that appeal to certain groups of people. One such website is Going.com, which focuses on places to go and things to do in the city of your choice. On Going.com, members create personal profiles with their city and list their different interests. Next, you can either search through events in your city of choice or post new events of your own. Search categories include nightlife, culture, music, bars, restaurants, museums, galleries, etc…. You are able to click on events from the categories you like, see who else is attending them, invite friends, write about your experience there, and also rate the event in general.

The purpose of Going.com is to make people more aware of what is going on in their cities, and to take advantage of all it has to offer. We all know that everyone has very busy schedules, and that finding something to do on the weekend can sometimes be a challenge, but in this new social network no one will ever have to struggle when it comes to a social life.

Websites like these mean great things for Boston Public Relations Agencies, as it allows them an entirely new and unique medium to reach people. One of the greatest aspects of Going.com is that it sends out email alerts to its subscribers about upcoming events… talk about a quick and easy way for Boston Public Relations Agencies to publicize their events.