This is what makes the transition from producing TV commercials to creating social videos as difficult (and as funny to watch) as the transition from silent films to the “talkies” was in the musical comedy Singin' in the Rain.

Gene Kelley from Singin' in the Rain

And according to new research released today by video technology company Unruly, market leaders in the alcohol sector are being left behind in social video marketing because they are not optimizing their content for the social web.

If Hollywood were to make a movie of today’s transition from TV commercials to social videos, far too few alcohol advertisers would be playing the part of Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly), and far too many would be playing the part of Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen).

The Unruly report, called Untapped Potential: The State of Sharing in the Alcohol Sector, found that despite enjoying significant growth in the first quarter of 2013, 97% of the “shares” across the social web came from just four ads – which is fewer than 1% of the social videos released by alcohol advertisers in 2013. (Unruly defines “shares” as the number of times a brand’s social video is shared on Facebook, Twitter, and blogs.)

The four ads include Budweiser’s runaway Super Bowl hit, "The Clydesdales: Brotherhood.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Meanwhile, market leaders such as Diageo and SAB Miller are lagging behind. Wine brands remain the slowest to embrace social video, attracting less than 1% of the sharing activity in Q4 2012 and Q1 2013.

Beer brands, which historically dominate alcohol advertising on TV, were also impacted by spirit brands in Q1, lowering beer brands’ share of voice from 97% in Q4 2012 to 75% in Q1 2013.

The key findings of the Unruly report were:

• Four ads drove 97% of the video shares in Q1: Budweiser, Neft Vodka, Carlsberg and Heineken;
• Underdog brands lead social video in the spirits industry, which is outstripping sales growth of wine and beer at 3.7% CAGR;
• Alcohol brands accounted for almost half (47.1%) of total FMCG/CPG shares in Q1 2013, helping to drive a 78.2% quarter-on-quarter increase in the overall sector;
• AB InBev increased video shares from 8% in Q4 2012 to 59% in Q1 2013;
• The top 10 alcohol ads were an average of 2 minutes 16 seconds long;
• Of the top 10 alcohol videos in Q1 2013, only one - Beck’s Sapphire - was 30 seconds long.

Ian Forrester, Unruly’s Insight Director, says, “The research found that some of the big alcohol brands – and subsectors – are vastly underperforming in social video.” He adds, “For wine and spirit brands, the opportunity to increase brand awareness and sales conversion rates through social video is huge, as there has been very little mass movement from these brands in creating shareable video content. Additionally, leading brands like Diageo and SAB Miller that have very strong market share are lagging behind competitors when it comes to social video share of voice.”

The research, which evaluates social video success in the alcohol industry, found that overall video sharing in the alcohol sector increased 1,593% from Q4 2012 to Q1 2013. To download the full report, click on Unruly White Papers.

What Can Top Advertisers in the Alcohol Sector Do?

So, what can the market leaders in the alcohol sector do to keep from being left behind in social video?

Well, they could conduct some focus groups to get feedback on early versions of their new social videos. Although, if they aren’t really sure what works and what doesn’t, then those focus groups might end up looking like the test screening of The Dueling Cavalier.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Or, per the suggestions in Unruly's white paper, they can turbocharge their video content marketing strategies by:

• Not depending solely on humor when seeking to create an emotional connection;
• Combining hilarity with surprise and be careful not to confuse viewers when seeking to create a ‘prankvert’;
• Being realistic about the impact of celebrities in videos;
• Ensuring content is consistent with brand values and does not damage brand equity;
• Producing long-form content specifically for social video.

Now, I don’t have a horse in this race. But the Hollywood version of what the market leaders in the alcohol sector do next will be a whole lot funnier to watch if they just conduct some focus groups.

What other media channel can compare with this?

Consumers are rapidly adopting mobile devices and behaviors and spending an average of 2 hours per day on smartphone devices. We are rarely separated from them, and we check our phones every 6.5 minutes (or 150 times daily). 

MOBILE advertising grew by 88% in 2012

While MOBILE ad/media spending is only 1% of total media (vs. 10% share of consumer media time), MOBILE advertising grew by 88% in 2012 (from $2.4B to $4.5B). MOBILE ad spending growth to-date has been limited by marketers/agencies challenges in creating MOBILE ads designed specifically to take advantage of MOBILE devices. Chia Chen, SVP Mobile Practice Leader at Digitas indicated their client's mobile ad spending grew by 400% (4X more rapidly) because their ads for Amex, Taco Bell, M&Ms and other clients treated smart phones as "small TVs" and incorporated richer media, and more native creative palettes.

Global Tablet Advertising Study - Results Presented

Beth Doyle, Innovation Director at Vivaki, revealed the results of a 14-month global industry study of 20 million global tablet users (sponsored by 12 advertisers including P&G and Coke and 12 media companies) titled The Pool: The Tablet Lane - TABLETS RISING. This study tested 35-40 tablet advertising formats and yielded 3 STD Tablet ad formats being proven as meeting consumers' needs: (1) let me drive; (2) more for me; (3) "tablet-ize" the user experience; (4) no guessing games - keep it intuitive and simple. Clearly, with MOBILE (smartphone and tablet) ad standards emerging, marketers are well on their way to utilizing this new medium in unique ways not available through other previous media channels.

MOBILE's Big Differentiators

MOBILE is a one-to-one media channel and LOCATION is MOBILE's big differentiator. These devices give consumers the ability to find anything they need in real-time and for marketers (with opt-in permission) to find their best customers and prospects when they are in active shopping/buying mode. 40% of consumers already utilize MOBILE devices as their primary (exclusive) online research channel and 60% of mobile shopping converts to purchase (with 75% of sales take place in-store).

Todd Morris, EVP of Mobile & Marketing at Catalina indicated mobile-assisted grocery shoppers buy 8%+ more and over 1M+ consumers are already spending over $1B+ in mobile grocery shopping where items are scanned, store discounts/coupons are applied, and orders are delivered or picked up without waiting in checkout lines.

Trish Mueller, CMO at Home Depot indicated mCommerce grew 129% in 2012 and sales from MOBILE are projected to exceed $650M by 2016. Home Depot has developed a MOBILE web and apps which make it one of the top 10 retail sites creating "an endless aisle" where consumers can access 400,000 SKUs as well as product information and peer reviews at the point of purchase. One of the most innovative apps is "Find A Pro" where consumers can take a video of a problem, send it to Home Depot, and they will connect consumers with "Pros" who can bid the job.

Winston Wang, Global Director - Strategic Innovation at AB Bev, demonstrated "beer and MOBILE go hand-in-hand" indicating beer is the original social network and MOBILE is helping Sales & Marketing along the entire purchase funnel as well as in the loyalty/advocacy areas after purchase. Winston shared MOBILE apps for Stella Artois (9 step pouring ritual, LeBar finder), Beck's and Bud Light.

Announcement: A New MMA Initiative To Address The Mobile Talent Gap

MMA-NA has launched a NEW Mobile Talent Task Force (Jeff Gundersen - Co-Chair) and the first open Committee meeting was held at the MMA-NY 2013 Forum. All parties (marketers, agencies, media companies, technology providers, educators, training & development companies, and other interested parties) are invited to reach out to Jeff Gundersen for a copy of the "Strategic Framework" and related mobile talent research studies pertaining to this new Committee.

In today’s world of constantly connected consumers with ever shortening attention spans, online advertising’s mantra “Right time, right place, right person” is more resonant than ever.  The ability to reach those consumers who are most likely to purchase your product or service at the time and in the context to which they will be most receptive is the magic formula for turning browsers into buyers, and video advertising has proven itself as one of the most powerful tools for not just reaching, but engaging those consumers.

Even more than display advertising, online video offers marketers a wealth of options for delivering their message creatively, whether the content is funny, touching, powerful or straightforward. Some marketers have begun the transition from television to digital by repurposing their 15- and 30-second TV spots. This is a promising start, but only a hint of what online video can do to capture consumer attention. It’s time to take it to the next level, creating and repurposing video that’s relevant to the user throughout the decisioning cycle.

As in all forms of online advertising, relevance is key when it comes to getting people to not just view your video content, but actually click through and buy. However, there are a few different levels of relevance that marketers can consider.

Real-Time Relevance: reflects the events happening at that exact time in the consumer’s offline world. Oreo’s highly successful “You can still dunk in the dark” Tweet during the 2013 Super Bowl blackout is a great example of this; it was both clever and resonant because it reflected what we as a consumer culture were experiencing in the world at that exact moment.  It was heavily re-Tweeted and was a great way of underscoring Oreo’s fun brand reputation and highlighting their cultural awareness.

This kind of relevance does rely heavily on social media simply because it is the most “in the moment” of the digital channels, but the principles apply across the board. Combining real-time relevance with the visual impact and interactivity of online video advertising is extremely powerful when it comes to strengthening brand awareness and loyalty.

Personal Relevance: Knowing the consumer and what she wants is another key to keeping messages relevant. Once a marketer understands who the audience segment is via demographics, behavioral data or other sources, it’s possible to choose which video appears with which call to action, and/or which product should be featured in the ad. This is the real power of online video and one of the many reasons why simply repurposing TV spots fails to maximize the digital channel. There is so much more information online that can be leveraged to deliver truly relevant video content that results in more immediate engagement.

Contextual Relevance: A third level of relevance zeroes in on where the consumer is in the offline world and what he is doing while engaging with media. Whether he is watching television, shopping online, researching stats at work or using the navigation on his iPhone to find a business location, he is in a particular state of mind. These different states of mind are indicative of various levels of receptiveness to advertising, and that information can be leveraged to tailor the video’s message and call to action - or to determine whether it should be shown to that consumer at all. To illustrate, the guy using his navigation app may want to know where he can get a cup of coffee, but probably won’t engage with a video ad. In contrast, the shopper is probably very open to brand messaging. The marketer can use data to determine the consumer’s state of mind and drive cross-screen engagement.

Each level of relevance must be present in order to deliver the most ROI, but tying them together at scale and making that useful requires in depth data analysis.  Success in digital video advertising is about making nuanced messaging relevant for millions of consumers, so marketers must take a data-driven approach to understanding their consumers and targeting them with the most appropriate content.

In the early days of online video advertising, placements were based largely on page context, but we’re now seeing an evolution in relevance, from targeted media to targeted creative. We believe that this real-time relevance will be the new driving force behind the growth of online video. What this means is not only targeting video ads to consumers based on their demonstrated interests and where they are in the digital universe, but also creating a wealth of video content that can be tailored specifically to each consumer in real time. This can be achieved by personalizing the messaging that is layered on top of the video content, or personalizing the creative itself. This means that instead of 95 percent of online video content being repurposed TV spots, we will see a shift to the larger majority of online video being specifically created for the channel.

This is where we envision the world of online advertising heading in the not-too-distant future. With the combination of creative, data and technology, always relevant video advertising can be a reality that benefits both advertisers and consumers.  In the weeks ahead, we’ll dive deeper into these three themes on relevance to drive a better understanding of how they work in concert to make video advertising more effective.

In the pre-digital days there really wasn’t a need for brands to produce more than the ads that went on traditional media. Now they need to produce an almost constant stream of fresh content to keep up with digital channels and social media. For most companies it’s a pretty tall order because making content is a completely different business from what they know. And it gets even harder when so much of the content that they now need is video.

Since cheap bandwidth has made high-quality video so easy to get, people want more and more of it. Projections have video representing over 85% of all Internet traffic in a couple of years. So brands need to make lots of videos. The problem, of course, is not just the quantity, but how does a brand make videos that are good enough to stand out? While cameras and equipment are cheap and easy to get, creativity and know-how are still in short supply. Of course, what makes a video good is in the eye of the beholder, but most of us know bad video when we see it, and the last thing any brand needs is to be spreading bad videos.

So the challenge is for companies to put in place the capability to produce lots of “good” videos, consistently over time. The problem is that because the budgets are much smaller, it’s not like producing TV commercials, which brands have a lot of experience with. According to the 4A’s, the average cost to make a TV spot is over $300,000 -- but for video content, that may be your entire budget for the year.

The big question is -- do you try and do it in-house or hire pros? While you may need a lot of videos, you may not need enough to justify the large expense of hiring a full-time team. So another approach is to hire an in-house video producer whose job it is to put together freelance teams for each production. This is not a creative person, but a video project manager, and you still need to be doing enough work to justify a full-time person.

For most brands the answer is to hire pros. The advantage, of course, is the wide range of talent and capabilities you can access. The problem is how to keep the costs down. Most agencies focus on developing the creative, and then hire a production company for the execution. As a result, the costs mount quickly. Some TV production companies do creative, but their focus is really on the production and they are rarely able to develop the creative or the strategy for the video, which is critical. So that leaves companies and agencies that specialize in video content for digital channels.

The ideal is to have digital content strategy, plus creative, plus production under one roof. A company that can do all of that -- and that is set up to produce a lot of video content over time, cost-effectively -- has found the perfect solution. Of course, the videos still have to be good in the eye of the beholder, which to start with would be you.

Click to view on SlideShare

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• Relevance – To the time, place, device and intent. Mobile rewrites the book on relevance. There are three types of relevance in mobile: Event-based relevance, personal relevance, and contextual relevance. These, respectively, relate to what’s going on in the world around the user, who and where they are, and what they are doing at the time you message them. All are key to engaging users successfully.  As an example, reaching out to a 32 year old hockey fan in New York City at 6:30 PM on a weeknight and offering him half-price wings during the Rangers game at a local sports bar is probably going to drive some positive results.

• Surveys – Want to get instant feedback and better interaction rates? Include a survey or quiz at the end of your video. For example, a survey at the end of a video for a self-serve frozen yogurt store might ask users what their favorite mix in/yogurt combo is. Surveys can be used to crowdsource: Like our video about the new Chevy? What feature would you most like to see in the new model? What color should we introduce this year?  They can also be used to learn about audience demographics and preferences: Did you like the trailer for the upcoming season of Mad Men? With which character do you identify most? What other shows do you watch?

• Social Sharing /Feeds – The best way to put your video ad on the path to viral super-stardom is with social sharing. Videos that are in the vein of the latest Old Spice ads or carry a strong political or humanitarian message can quickly gain momentum in the social space. Consider the devastating Kony 2012 video, which has over 97 million views to date. How could anyone watch that and not share it, really?  On the other side of the spectrum, Kmart’s “Ship My Pants” has garnered over 15 million views over a two-week period, and Dove’s touching “Real Beauty Sketches,” has earned over 28 million views in about 10 days. Enabling social sharing is an easy way to increase interaction and viewership of your mobile video. Similarly, including social feeds within your video is evidence that your video ad is share-worthy and invites viewers to join in the conversation.

• Think beyond the click - Depending on the nature of your video ad, there may be other interactions that drive interaction. For example, if your ad is for a retail chain, you may want to include a store locator and/or map.  A car video might include a local inventory search. Brands may want to include a call to action that allows consumers to input a phone number or email address to receive coupon via SMS or email.

Of course, whatever tactics you choose, you’ll want to be sure that your mobile site is up to snuff. For many mobile advertisements, the next step for consumers is visits to the site; make sure yours is optimized for a good mobile experience. If you’ve gotten them through to your site, the last thing you want to do is disappoint them there!

Mobile video opens up so many new opportunities to advertisers in terms of engagement and multi-dimensional calls to action. Be creative, and think beyond the link! Smart, innovative choices could drive engagement rates beyond expectations.

Released in open beta today, Unruly Analytics is based on the company’s proprietary technology, which has tracked seven years’ worth of historical video sharing data across YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere. The cloud-based dashboard has been beta-tested by some of the world’s biggest advertisers and measures content from 1,300 brands across all verticals.

Unruly Analytics Social Dashboard

In a press release announcing the launch, Irène Labus, Analytics Director of Havas, who has been beta-testing the product, said, “Unruly Analytics is super easy to use, has a sleek user interface and offers beautiful data visualization which updates in split seconds.” She added, “What’s most valuable about the product is that the real-time data tracks such a broad spectrum of branded video content, across paid, owned and earned media.”

The real-time dashboard is available in two versions. The Benchmark Edition is used to effectively measure a brand’s social video footprint against its competitors, while the Campaign Edition provides real-time insight into a specific campaign’s performance and ROI.

Unruly Analytics provides:

• Cloud-Based Access: Advertisers can login wherever and get real-time insights into video performance to quickly pull reports, measure success and inform future strategies. The data is collected every 60 seconds so you can always have an accurate picture of what’s happening;
• An Enterprise-grade Software Platform: This robust, stable product is based on seven years of research and development;
• Data Visualization: Advertisers can create a variety of simple and elegant visual representations of vast sets of data in seconds. They can present them in an wide choice of classic and cutting edge visual analytics – including pie charts, bar graphs, polar charts and even streamgraphs;
• Historical and Real-Time Analysis: Advertisers can capture data from specific timeframes e.g. last quarter, last year, and the past 24 hours;
• Competitive Analysis: Advertisers can benchmark a brand’s social video performance to outsmart the competition;
• Granular Metrics: Advertisers can track a broad variety of metrics, including total shares, shares by platform, views, views by platform, comments and likes;
• Ease of Use: The dashboard is easy to use and requires no training.

In the press release, Matthew Cooke, CTO and co-founder of Unruly, said, “We are seeing an explosion in the social video market and brands are struggling to keep pace with how to measure the medium and report the success and ROI. Four billion items are shared on Facebook every day and 700+ YouTube videos are shared on Twitter every minute.” He added, “Unruly Analytics bridges the gap between the big data deluge and the ability to pull actionable insight from video content tracking. Brands can now benchmark the success of their individual video campaigns or calculate their total share of voice versus their competitors.”

Unruly has tracked over 329 billion video views and tracks 1.6 million videos in real time. Some of the data used in Unruly Analytics also powers the Unruly Viral Video Chart, which has been used since 2006 by advertisers worldwide to track their video content.

Many platforms don't begin tracking content until users have identified the content and asked for it to be tracked by entering it into the database themselves. However, Unruly Analytics is already tracking 1,300 global brands and counting. This is the reason why users are able to access historical data and competitive intelligence as soon as they log in to the dashboard, with no set-up required.

Predictions are that global online video advertising spend will rise to $10 billion by 2015, with internet ad spend expected to account for 59 percent of the growth in total ad spend between 2012 and 2015. In such a fast-paced environment, it is critical that brands have access to up-to-the-minute statistics.

Unruly Analytics is the latest in a line of Unruly products released in 2013. It completes Unruly’s capability to provide end-to-end campaign support to its clients, from creative solutions and content evaluation, through video distribution, social tracking and now customizable benchmarking.

We also found that stations are increasingly using online video to reach their audiences online. Today between 58%-70% of local TV station’s budgets (depending on market size) are allocated to online video advertising and fully 85% plan to use online video ads to support their tune-in efforts in 2013.

Local TV stations understand that “today’s audiences are not only online, but are increasingly spending a large portion of their online time watching video. TV broadcasters are uniquely positioned to take advantage of this shift and reach viewers with online video advertising. TV marketers already have engaging video content, daily topicals, social media strategies, promotions, co-op programs, and skilled creative resources at their disposal.” This makes online video a no brainer to extend the reach and frequency of their on-air promos.

Travis Brower, Manager of Promotion & Production at PHL17 says it best, “Including online video advertising in a station’s promotional mix is no longer an option, it’s a requirement.”

What are the best ways for stations to create engaging and effective online video ad campaigns that drive viewership?

The basics:

1. Use your existing on-air spots.
2. Lead with daily topicals to drive immediate spikes in viewership.
3. Ride the coat-tails of popular prime time shows by using a split-start frame where the left side of the display ad features a popular network show and the right side features a topical for the 11pm news. Or split the video spot itself between two shows.
4. Personalize the ad by local call letters and logos to drive engagement rates up to 27% higher and view rates up to 30% higher.
5. Entice viewers to watch by clearly showing that the ad is a video. Include a still image of the video framed in a player (including control buttons).

A more advanced collection of best practices can be found here: TUNED IN: 2013 Tune-In Advertising Market Research.

It wasn’t about story-boarding or scripting, it was about asking questions, getting answers, and weaving content together to produce an interesting and useful story. The benefits of combining the approaches of traditional journalism and brand storytelling seemed obvious. It’s something we’ve called “brand journalism” since day one, and it’s picking up speed as the new-media world continues to evolve, along with consumers’ habits.

Businesses are using social media, web video, and digital publishing to speak directly to consumers. It’s a way for brands, big and small, to use the approach of professional journalists to create, curate and share expert content in the form of blogs, articles and video. Brand journalism is obviously not as impartial as journalism, but it’s a way for a brand to engage an audience with relevant and interesting material. The content must be factual, and keep “relevance to the viewer” top of mind.

Marketing strategist David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR, says “brand journalism is winning over direct marketing and PR attention-getting techniques.

“I'm convinced that those with the traditional skills of marketing, public relations, and copywriting are not the right people to create brand journalism content. Instead you need the skills of a journalist.”

Brand journalism is about facts and balance. It’s about telling an engaging story, and the goal is to educate rather than blatantly market. This way, readers or viewers are informed, and they become engaged with your business and it’s mission.

Home Depot is one major brand that has been creating expert content and useful do-it-yourself advice for a while, and it’s reaping the benefits. The content, whether it’s in the form of blog posts or web video, generally doesn’t try to sell anything directly. Instead, it keeps the focus on education.

Cisco is another example. On its blog, most of the articles and videos don’t mention the company at all. Its plan is to create a conversation and to position itself as a leader in the industry it represents. The company’s digital lead, Karen Snell, has said: “The goal was to generate engaging content to spark a conversation ... If we can make people understand what Cisco is doing, then we’ve been successful.”

Boeing is often mentioned as a successful adopter of brand journalism. “When brand journalists think of what’s interesting to their audiences and create engaging content, they generate stories that can really take off,” writes communications director Todd Blecher. “This story is about testing the brakes on our new 747. It involves speeding an airplane down a runway, hitting the brakes just before takeoff. It ends with the brakes on fire, which is eye catching, to say the least.

“We’ve had millions of views, and our key messages about safety and durability reached more people through our website, YouTube channel, and Facebook than we would’ve ever reached with a traditional news release.”

There are huge benefits to providing content that educates and informs, and it’s easy to measure the return on investment. How many hits did it get? Was it shared? Did it spark conversation? As the public and businesses become increasingly “social,” brand journalism can make communicating with consumers more interesting, while setting a company apart from outdated "push" marketing approaches.

Businesses that do it properly can create a huge competitive advantage, while increasing their credibility and relevancy in the marketplace.

Lisa Ostrikoff is a TV Journalist & Anchor turned creator of BizBOXTV -- a Canadian Online Video Production/Advertising + Social Media Marketing Agency. You can find her on Twitter and Facebook.

So while the speed of technology is increasing, it’s interesting to note that one of the hottest trends in online marketing might just be the age-old art of story-telling.

What does this mean? To cut through the clutter, businesses need to stop annoying, and start telling stories.

Story-telling has evolved from ancient rock markings to the current age, where brands are able to effectively tell their stories via Web video, blog posts and social media platforms. Despite technology’s effect on the methods we’re using to tell stories, the basics remain.

If you ask the experts, they’ll tell you the same story they’ve been telling for years.

“Marketing is storytelling,” says author, entrepreneur and expert Seth Godin. Writing on “ How to tell a great story,” Mr. Godin says that “first impressions are far more powerful than we give them credit for,” making it important to ensure your story does what you need it to do the first time someone reads, hears or watches it.

“Your products and your service and your people are all part of the story,” Mr. Godin adds.

Peter Guber, chief executive officer of Mandalay Entertainment Group and co-owner of the NBA's Golden State Warriors, also has a take on the importance of story-telling.

“Simply put, if you can’t tell it, you can’t sell it,” he writes in Tell to Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story.

The first chapter is entitled “It’s about the story, stupid.” You can read it by downloading it here.

“Our brains still respond to content by looking for the story to make sense out of the experience. No matter what the technology, the meaning starts in the brain,” writes Pamela Brown Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center, in The psychological power of storytelling posted on Psychology Today. She notes that there are several psychological reasons why story-telling is so powerful.

So, what’s your story? Ask yourself what messages you are trying to get across to your audience. Is your story authentic and interesting?

All businesses and business owners have a great story. 2013 is the year to tell it, on purpose.

Lisa Ostrikoff is a TV Journalist & Anchor turned creator of BizBOXTV -- a Canadian Online Video Production/Advertising + Social Media Marketing Agency. You can find her on Twitter and Facebook.

Just for grins, I decided to see who else was enamored enough with this concept to say something in the vlogosphere. It doesn’t take long to see that the Taco Bell corporation has its own video channel on YouTube, which is garnering more than 11 million total views, much of it devoted to the trending taco product. However, I started wondering to what extent that represents real mind-share for the brand, Taco Bell, among potential consumers versus the plethora of other video apps or platforms out there. For example, Twitter’s Vine is the number one video app download (number two overall Free), and according to Apple’s app shop, that’s close to 25 million users.

The other problem I noticed about Taco Bell’s YouTube-centric video strategy is that the icon link off the main digital brand property, www.tacobell.com, takes the visitor out of its controlled brand experience and back to the Taco Bell channel that is a subdomain to www.youtube.com. Also, if you search Google for “Taco Bell video” with the Video search button, the first page of returns is almost all postings to YouTube or third party media sites like ABC or CBS, nothing owned by the main TB corporate domain.

So, you’re the digital media guru for Taco Bell, you’re driving cross-synergies between your fast food retail store and your snack food brands, and you have at least 11 million consumers loyal enough to check out your video content on YouTube. What, then, should your video strategy be? Vine is a video-based social network designed to drive more traffic for Twitter. YouTube is a broadcasting platform designed to aggregate eyeballs for Google’s ad-server business model. What should be Taco Bell’s objective with video content? Help Google and Twitter make more money? Entertain? Merely maintain a presence in the Twitterverse? How about treating its customers as a media audience?

What that means is creating a branded video interface that is multi-screen capable (web, smartphone, tablet, TV, telepresence) which not only aggregates video content that can be repurposed, i.e., TV commercials, but also takes a concerted approach to producing compelling, original content that’s integrated with the customer experience. For example, if I’m a loyal viewer of TacoBell.tv, a branded media player that lives within the main corporate domain, www.tacobell, why can’t that content follow me all the way through my customer experience?

Why not equip Taco Bell retail stores with an iPad at every table, so that I can log into my video profile, which has the last 5 orders I made so it’s easy for me to reorder, or a full customizable item-by-item order-entry menu with original video content from the chefs who cooked up the recipe, along with other user reviews, adjacent to those menu orders? Once the order is taken, the interface would allow me to immediately upload a video comment that could either be for the benefit of internal Taco Bell customer advocacy, or if appropriate, posted to the Live User Comment channel on TacoBell.tv. Here’s an even crazier idea: how about a Secret Menu channel of celebrity favorites (ode to In/Out).

Another version of TacoBell.tv would be available as a smartphone app.  My TacoBell profile, using GPS and sensor-presence techniques, knows the exact store I’m entering, the last 5 meals I ordered, and can authenticate my profile, complete with my favorite video content, to the iPad embedded in the table I choose for dining.  I can also in real time open a Google hangout session with my cousin in Florida to see if he shares my same tastes in Taco Bell food and video content!  While you’re at it, why not reward me with a video coupon for a free desert or combo meal on my next visit?  Also, I probably wouldn’t mind if TacoBell.tv asked my permission to opt-in to other video offers personalized to my consumer persona. (The current TB app in the Apple app store gets only a two and one-half star rating, so it could benefit from a few more bells and whistles.)

Short message:  powerful consumer brands like Taco Bell must start thinking and acting like media companies – controlling their own brand experience with entertaining, pervasive video content and a compelling user experience across any consumption format or platform – and by so doing, converting their physical assets, like capital-intensive brick-and-mortar storefronts, into working digital capital!

Yeah, it's kind of a big deal.

1. VIDEO IS WHERE YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE SPENDING THEIR TIME

• YouTube alone has over 4 billion views per day, and it’s the second largest search engine next Google, which owns YouTube
• 78% of people watch at least once a week and 55% watch everyday

I should just end the article here. Game, set, match. I win. Everyone is watching video. You need to be making ads, promos, branded entertainment, web series, video blogs, funny viral videos, videos of your cat, your dog, your cat riding your dog... whatever style and format best reaches your customers.

2. VIDEO IS ALREADY HELPING YOUR COMPETITION

• 81% of senior marketing executives now use online video content in their marketing programs, up from 70% in 2011, (MarketingProfs)

This is also known as “the cold war approach.” Scare them with the knowledge that their most hated arch rivals are escalating their video marketing programs and are way ahead of them. Convince them they need to get with the program and escalate quickly before it’s too late.

3. VIDEO IS VERY SEARCHABLE

• Video results have appeared in almost 70% of the top 100 search listing on Google in 2012 (Marketing Week)

Consumers are looking for your products and services. How are they looking? Most likely, online search is one of the top ways. Social media can affect organic Google search results as well as be an entry point to your website, microsite or promo page. YouTube is the second largest search engine, meaning videos get ranked high in Google results. photos, graphics, LinkedIn, Twitter, Quora, and other networks are also searchable.

4. VIDEO IS SHAREABLE

• More than 500 years of YouTube videos are watched every day on Facebook
• Over 700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter each minute

Video sharing is a huge part of social media and social media is a huge part of our lives. Get your product or service message out there in a fun and shareable way!

5. VIDEO LEVELS THE PLAYING FIELD

• Online video production will account for more than one-third of all online advertising spending within the next five years. (Borrell Associates Annual Benchmarking Results)

Video has created an even playing field where brands, business and organizations can compete. The advantage is still with larger, more established brands, simply because they have bigger budgets for video seeding and media buying, but the trick is just to keep being more creative and do a better job of targeting, to reach your consumers.

6. VIDEO ENTERTAINS, EDUCATES AND INSPIRES

• More than three out of five consumers will spend at least two minutes watching a video that educates them about a product they plan to purchase (MarketingCharts.com)

They used to call them “moving pictures” for a reason. Video is way better at moving viewers to laugh, cry, get mad, learn and take action than photos, text or audio. Video is a great story teller and keeps consumers glued to your site.

7. VIDEO ALLOWS FOR REALTIME FEEDBACK AND INTERACTION

People love to comment on videos and that’s where you can learn more about your consumers. Comments and response videos help you redirect your fire based on their feedback and needs. How cool would it be for fans to leave comments on a video, then find themselves mentioned by name in the next video? Answer: Pretty cool.

8. VIDEO IS MEASURABLE

Analytics are so accessible, and they do a great job of telling how successful your videos are. No more guesswork! Measurement can help your boss, partners and you determine which videos and surrounding social media activities are leading to increased sales and moving your marketing in the right direction.

9. VIDEO LIVES FOREVER MAKING IT MORE COST EFFECTIVE OVER TIME

Videos stay online and in Google results for a very long time and typically require an executive order to be removed. This can be both good and bad, depending on what kinds of videos you’ve made. You may consider an initial media buy or video seeding to promote your video, but unlike TV ads that get taken down once the rent isn’t paid, video content stays online, working for you and reducing your overall per-unit spend over time.

10. VIDEO IS ONE CLICK AWAY FROM THE BUY BUTTON

• 34% of apparel shoppers are more likely to purchase after viewing an online video ad, versus 16% after watching an ad on TV. (ReelSEO)

If you’re watching a TV ad you can’t just “buy now.” You have to go somewhere else like your phone or laptop. Properly set up and executed, consumers should never be more than one click away from the opportunity to buy the product or service you are selling. You can put direct links in video descriptions, surrounding text, banners, or overlays that let viewers click directly on the video.

11. VIDEO IS SELLING, NOT JUST PLAYING AROUND

• Shoppers who viewed video were 174% more likely to purchase than viewers who did not. (Retail Touchpoints)

Far too many “video marketing experts” are wasting clients’ time and money playing around with videos that are either so boring they don’t get shared or so vague they don’t connect viewers to the products or service and don’t sell anything. Make it clear to your boss or partners that video is a way of selling more products and services, not just entertaining for the fun of it. Video initiatives and the surrounding activities should revolve around clear objectives and calls to action, to create an environment where consumers know what they’re supposed to buy and can easily purchase it.

12. VIDEO IS MOBILE

• Online video now accounts for 50% of all mobile traffic and up to 69% of traffic on certain networks. (Bytemobile Mobile Analytics Report)
• 30-second mobile video ads have an 88.3% completion rate. (Rhythm Insights)

Over 85 percent of marketers have reported that they plan to increase their mobile advertising budgets in the near future (Association of National Advertisers and MediaVest) People take video with them on their phones and watch it because they’re interested in a certain topic (see searchable) or just entertaining themselves. With mobile video you have the potential to be in people’s hands, understanding everything about what you offer, and one click away from their buying your stuff... which is the whole point.

Armed with these talking points you can convince anyone of the value of video marketing. If you need backup, give me a shout!

We’ve all seen our fair share of websites where the publisher’s primary video player was a YouTube player, and it’s easy to understand why. YouTube is free, can be quickly embedded, and tracks audience views. Either you’re a publisher that doesn’t own any video content and you’re simply embedding videos from someone else’s channels, or you’re the producer who uploaded the video and you want a simple video solution for your own properties. Whatever the case may be, using a YouTube player as your primary player means you are not making monetization your top priority, and unless you’re a brand or a viral video production house, monetization really deserves to be high up on your priority list. For publishers who don’t own videos, fixing the problem is easy – use an alternative service that could provide you with video content, as well as monetization. But let’s talk about the producers that end up weighing their YouTube views higher than making money from those views.

Producers that are serious about video would be wise to consider a video player where they have full control of monetization, whether they have their own ad sales team or use ad networks. Producers should still use YouTube, but it should just be one of many publishing channels in their arsenal, not their entire publishing platform. At the end of the day, getting the most out of advertising is going to be much more valuable than watching your YouTube view count rise.

Monetization is more than just getting views

It can be exciting to watch your view count go up each day (or hour, depending on how much traffic your videos command), but that counter has little to do with your actual ROI. YouTube’s advertising solutions are not for everyone. Channel owners have the option to become a YouTube Partner and have ads shown on their videos for a profit. However, these payments average out to $2 per 1,000 views at scale. Psy made an impressive $4 million on Gangnam Style, but he also had more than 1 billion views. I’m going to go out on a limb and say the Psys and Justin Biebers (yes, he was discovered on YouTube) of the YouTube world are few and far between. Additionally, requirements around having a sales team, selling at a minimum price, and operationally managing ads on YouTube make it difficult to sell into your own content. It is possible to earn money from YouTube, but treat it as one of many revenue streams.

YouTube still matters

With increasing audience fragmentation, it’s becoming more important than ever to reach audiences at as many touch points as possible. You should take advantage of YouTube’s viewership of more than 800 million unique users each month, watching 4 billion hours of video. Every video producer should have a presence on YouTube and be seen as a relevant contributor; it just shouldn’t be your primary video publishing tool. YouTube should be one of many thriving publishing channels you manage. Regularly upload content to YouTube that audiences will want to watch, market your YouTube content across your other channels, and use YouTube to drive users to you or your partner’s properties. Media companies that successfully manage their YouTube channel but keep it separate from the video technology they use for their other publishing channels and relationships will be able to enjoy watching their YouTube view counts increase, while maintaining full control over their video monetization efforts.

Controlling your turf matters, more

YouTube is a consumer-centric video platform focused on its community of viewers, and you’ll see this across most of its features. When you embed a YouTube video on your website, video recommendations appear in the player after the video is finished, and they won’t necessarily be for your content. This enables YouTube to keep the viewer in its world, exploring YouTube’s content. Anyone who is familiar with YouTube knows how easy it is to get sucked into the maze of videos. I’m sure you know someone (if it isn’t you) who watches one YouTube video on a site, and 10 minutes later, ends up knee deep in YouTube.com. Here’s the catch – the site and the content owner that got you started on this path are usually long forgotten by the time you’re watching piano playing cat videos. If you were a producer and the audience was on your site, wouldn’t a player that lets you recommend only your videos and keeps the audience exploring the content within your channels be preferable? Even if you’re just publishing other people’s content, wouldn’t it be equally be valuable to keep audiences exploring the content on your site for longer than having them jump ship to YouTube. Granted, YouTube does a great job with relevance at the content and user levels, but there’s more to it when you start thinking about monetization and engagement with your brand.

Here’s a quick list of the 10 most important things to get you started, along with the smart and stupid approaches to each:

1. GOALS AND EXPECTATIONS

This is where it all starts. What do expect from the videos? Are you trying to raise awareness of and interest in something? Everything? When you’re sitting in that Monday morning meeting defending your use of video, what will you say your video did? Did it help sell more product? That’s how you’ll ultimately be measured, so set realistic goals up front.

Stupid: Expect one video to put the entire marketing campaign on it’s back and single handedly outsell all other mediums.

Smart: Put everything through the filter of selling more product at some point. Pick one or two specific things you want to happen from each video. If you need more things to happen, make more videos that fit into your wider campaign strategy, or make different versions and promote them in different ways.

2. CALL TO ACTION

What do you want people to do after they watch the videos? Do you want them to share, click, sign up, buy now, tell a friend, buy later, make a response video, enter a contest, download a game, a new app, subscribe to something, get free tickets, pre order?

Stupid: Let viewers decide on their own and do whatever they want to do, as long as it gets lots of views.

Smart: Guide them towards what you want them to do. Again, pick one or two specific things you’d like them to do, with eventual product sales in mind. Views will mean nothing against a crappy sales report.

3. INTEGRATION WITH THE WIDER CAMPAIGN

How are your videos being integrated into your wider digital and traditional campaign strategies? Have you thought of shooting videos, TV ads and PR promos together at the same time? Can the TV ads serve as a call to action to watch more videos across your social media channels, leading to engagement, sharing and sales? You’ll save on creative and production costs too.

Stupid: Video is a separate thing. TV ads and PR are separate too. So are billboards.

Smart: Look in the mirror. Now punch yourself in the face. Everything is digitally connected now, and has to be integrated or you’re missing big opportunities. Even billboards.

4. CREATIVE

What kinds of video ideas does your brief call for? Branded entertainment? Viral? Product? Promo? Explainer? Web series? In all cases, have fun and be different. As long as you’re not threatening or overtly offending anyone, take the gloves off and go for it.

Stupid: Make the videos so lightly branded that nobody knows who they’re from or why they just watched. For all the others, put in so much message so they get bored. Keep the topics vanilla safe, and don’t be edgy.

Smart: Give viewers something of value. Whenever possible, make them laugh or learn something. Go the unsafe route, stir up some controversy, and get all that free extra media attention. Focus on what you want viewers to do after they watch the videos and worry about that more than selling to them at this point. Be entertaining or informative and build in reasons for them to share.

5. PRODUCTION

This part depends 100% on what your creative concept calls for.

Stupid: Shoot videos with an iPhone because the videos are supposed to have been shot by he guy in the video’s iPhone. Spend a million dollars on commercial production.

Smart: Pay for good video production and direction. Match the production quality to the concept requirements. Production costs have come down, but you still need really good casting, talent, direction and editing.

6. DISTRIBUTION

Brand videos can’t make themselves viewable any more easily than TV ads, radio ads print or billboards... initially. You pay to play. The difference is that once they’re out there, they can be shared easily and it’s all free.

Stupid: My brand is amazing and the videos will go viral as soon as we post them up on the YouTube.

Smart: Seed the videos via blog and publication outreach, influencers and build social media support.

7. SOCIAL MEDIA SUPPORT

Is your social media strategy optimized for video? Will your videos live on YouTube and be embedded on Facebook? Are they searchable? How will you handle comments? Where else will the videos live and be shared? Are you concerned with lots of views on one video or an aggregate of views on the same video across several video sharing platforms? How will social media play into your “call to action?”

Stupid: Post to YouTube, embed on Facebook, tweet it once and walk away. You’re job is done.

Smart: Design a flow chart that shows your social media sharing strategy across Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Tumblr and decide how often you’ll share the videos in different ways. Seed the same video out to other video sharing sites as well and optimize for search. Reinforce your “call to action” frequently to remind viewers what you’re selling and what you want them to do about it. Prepare for handling live comments!

8. PR SUPPORT

Are you planning a press release that features the videos prominently, or are links to the videos down near the bottom as an aside to the wider campaign announcement? Will there be blog and publication outreach to both top tier and niches specific to the videos?

Stupid: Pitch only the top tier blogs and publications and casually mention the videos about three quarters of the way down the pitch or press release. They’ll care so much that they’ll wade through all the other stuff to get there.

Smart: Give the videos their own focused spotlight. Include links right at the top and let writers know exactly what they’re clicking on, why the videos are relevant to their readers and why they should be excited about sharing them for you.

9. BRAND IDENTIFICATION OR RECALL

After watching the video, what percentage of people remember what the video was for? What was it selling them on? What was it letting people know about? If the videos are intended to get people to take an action, it may not matter. Otherwise, what will viewers remember about what they watched?

Stupid: Make the brand relationship so obscure that nobody remembers who made it. Conversely, make the brand relationship so obvious that viewers see it as an ad.

Smart: Make the creative so unexpected and memorable that they won’t care how heavily branded it is. Go for transparency, but make it good and shareworthy.

10. ANALYTICS, REAL TIME FEEDBACK AND ADJUSTMENTS

How will you measure success? Will it be by views, social shares, mentions online or contribution to the overall campaign? Have you allowed for adjustments based on viewer and online feedback, or is this a “one and done?”

Stupid: Measure based on video views alone, look at analytics and live feedback as a threat and if the videos don’t increase sales immediately, stop doing it and don’t ever do it again.

Smart: Use analytics and feedback to learn what’s working and what’s not. You’re marketing to a moving target so you also have to keep moving too. Experiment. Take chances, Have fun.

However, an important stat to consider is that 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. That means your video is competing for attention against many other videos. Therefore it's important to understand that in order for YouTube to work for your company, you need to do more than simply put your videos on there. You need your videos to be found by your target audience. If people can't find your video then it's not going to get many views and will become a wasted resource.

One way to ensure lots of views is to get it ranking top for important keyword searches that your target audience will make. Following these simple steps will boost your videos rankings and help your business harness the power of YouTube.

1. Keywords

Before you do anything you need to know what keywords you want to target with your video. These need to be related to the video itself but also link into what your target audience are going to be searching for. I would recommend a maximum of 6 words to target.

2. Title

Once you have decided what keywords you are going to target, you need to include them in the title of the video. The keywords must be related to the content of the video otherwise people are going to stop watching early, give it the thumbs down and your video will slide down the search rankings.

3. Description

You also need to mention the keywords in the description, but don't keyword stuff. You only want to have a light sprinkling of the keywords in the description text and the first line should include the most important keywords. It's advisable to also have a link to your own website in the description.

4. Tags

Make sure you make use of the tagging feature in Youtube. Again input your keywords and I would recommend only using 6 tags.

5. Location shot

If you are looking for your video to appear in location searches on YouTube, one trick I have found useful is to use the video location feature in advanced video settings. You simply type in the location where the video was filmed, which will result in a map appearing and all you need to do is select the exact location on the map.

6. User engagement

Now you are optimised to compete against the right keywords, appearing higher than all the other videos targeted at the same keywords will depend on user engagement. This includes metrics like total number of views, likes, time spent watching, how many shares it gets etc. Try to encourage as many people as possible to view and like your video.

7. Links

Another important aspect of the ranking system will be the number of quality back links you have to your video. You want to get your message out there and tell people about your video to encourage them to have links on their websites to the video or embed it on their pages.

Modernity, however, is a fickle mistress, and as times change so do user preferences. With the rise of tablets, smartphones, and streaming media, television consumption has gone rogue. And so, Nielsen, the staunch overseer of ratings, has had to hop-skip from the staid television set to a whole new array of hardware, recording the behavior of viewers who prefer streaming video through on-demand services such as Hulu.

The reason, of course, has been the increasing popularity of the tablet. NPD DisplaySearch projects the number of tablets to grow from 374 million units in 2012 to 809 million in about five years with Apple’s iPad, even in the wake of recent slips, still holding on to a 48 percent market share. With this boost in tablet sales there has been a corresponding rise in online ad spending. Not only that, but users’ viewing habits are influencing the kind of advertising we’re seeing.

This has led to an increase in ads with interactivity and video. According to recent data, between 2009 and 2014, online video ad spending is estimated to swell from $1.97 billion to $5.71 billion. Forrester Research released a report in October, 2012 known as “The Digital Media Forecast 2012 – 2017,” which predicts that video ads will be the fastest growing sector of advertising, growing by an average of 26 percent a year until 2017. By 2014, Forrester forecasts that at least 40 percent of the online display ad market will take on the video format, effectively eliminating the static banner ads and archaic click through rate attempts of old.

Thus far, these video ads seem to be more effective. According to a 2012 report from leading ad management and distribution platform, DG , and its online campaign management solution, MediaMind, the click-through rates (CTR) for interactive online video is about 27.4 times that of standard banner ads and almost 12 times that of rich media advertisements. Furthermore, according to the study, people globally are 10 percent more likely to watch an interactive video ad to completion than a rich media ad that simply contains video within it.

Nielsen’s part in this unfolding drama is to provide accurate measurement tools. While there is plenty of competition in measurement in the digital space, such as Comscore, Google, and Quantcast to name a few, Nielsen has an incredible advantage in the video streaming space for one very good reason. It is the measurement tool in television. As the bulk of ad dollars are spent on TV the buyers will look to Neilsen as they begin to test spending on video streaming. Buyers will want one solution that tells them how their ad performed across TV, tablet and mobile. It is an incredible advantage as dollars shift from TV to tablet.

The streaming media game will finally give the powers that be a transparent look into the behaviors of users gobbling up content on their own time; free from the clutches of scheduling and cable programming. The result: a new channel of revenue and exposure for brands and advertisers looking to allocate their spending habits in a previously untapped market.

While it may have been fashionably late to the game, Nielsen might just be the scrappy sidekick that helps the tablet achieve the advertising dominance within its grasp.

1. TMI! TOO MUCH INFORMATION You started with a funny, crazy idea but got worried that there wasn’t enough “message” or “call to action” so you kept adding and adding. You wondered why the video got less and less entertaining. Congratulations, you made an infomercial. At the very best, you made an ad. Most people run away from ads unless it’s Super Bowl season or from a brand that consistently makes good ads, so don’t count on them sharing your video too much. One of the main purposes of a “viral video” is to build awareness of and/or interest in something. Leave the messaging and selling part of it for the areas that surround the video and the wider conversation,  and let the video do it’s job of going viral.

2. YOUR VIDEO’S NOT FUNNY, THRILLING OR SHOCKING ENOUGH It all starts with the big, creative ideas, and ends with the brass having the balls to push the limits of acceptability and do something completely unexpected and memorable. Videos that go viral all have one thing in common. People are thrilled by them, the cover their mouths in surprise and have the sudden urge to show them to other people. Lots of viral videos are just real life events that happen, but many of them are obviously produced for brands, and as long as they’re good, viewers don’t mind a bit. When you’re producing a video with the intent of going viral, you have to tap into those feelings of excitement, amazement and if at all possible, make it funny... really funny. Not vanilla funny with a side of mild humor. I can't think of a single brand out there that can’t do with some funny, and in the right hands, anything can be made hilarious.

3. LACK OF PAID MEDIA SUPPORT People can’t laugh at, be amazed by and share something they can’t find. In almost every case of branded entertainment, you need some form of paid media buy to jumpstart the process. You know those brand videos you see in the top viral charts, the ones that got there on sheer amazingness? Yeah, not so much. They do have to be amazing, but they also need a big, paid push at the start. It’s done all the time and is no less ethical or purist than paying for TV audiences, radio airtime or billboard space. Paid media support can come in the form of video seeding, paid ads, promoted content on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, paid placements on blogs, publications or paid influencers.

4. LITTLE OR NO BLOG, PUBLICATION AND INFLUENCER OUTREACH Aside from, or in addition to, the paid tactics, there’s the earned media approach. This consists of pitching bloggers, writers and influencers and making them  care enough to share your video with their readers and viewers. This tactic is very effective provided you’ve satisfied #2 and are ready with #5.

5. WEAK SOCIAL MEDIA SHARING STRATEGY Viral videos live and die on their ability to be shared. So grease the skids. You’ve made a great video, paid for initial support, tapped some awesome bloggers,  writers and influencers to help push it along but you didn’t develop a social media strategy that goes from the initial activity you've bought or earned, to your social media channels and current fans of your brand, out to new fans. For example, when that awesome influencer blasts out to their one million Twitter followers, are you prepared to capitalize on it and push it further? How about the videos your fans are starting to create (on their own or because you suggested it) based on your video? Do you have systems in place to make them into rockstars and promote their content? Viewers will see their videos and want to make their own, but first they’ll have to watch the original.

Changes can be unsettling, whether they're potential or actual, positive or negative. You may be gearing up for a promotion/new position, staring at a wide-open field of new prospective clients, or launching new products and services. Or you may be hunkering down in the face of outsourcing, downsizing, mergers/consolidations, takeovers, and local or global competition. 

Consider the Changes Taking Place at Yahoo!

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has certainly unleashed enormous, untold passions about how, when and where people should work at Yahoo.

The recent, now infamous, change requiring Yahoo employees to work in the office instead of telecommuting from home has been likened to the shot heard round the world.

No less than a great war has ensued and Marissa Mayer has been villainized and vilified by some and verified and validated by others.

It is no secret that Yahoo has been struggling to keep pace with the likes of Apple, Facebook, and Google, all of whom have strong in-office cultures and not coincidentally, strong revenues to match.

In Our Opinion...It’s not about trusting people to work at home, it’s about Mayer’s challenge in the turnaround of Yahoo regardless of where people are working. Mayer has to build a new corporate culture of trust in the infinite possibilities of what the Yahoo organization can create together.

However, as we are hearing, this change process is creating considerable stress for Yahoo employees.

How We Respond to Change

Do you respond or react to change and do you know the difference? As soon as something nudges you out of your regular routine, or challenges your understanding of how the world works and where you fit into it, it will likely trigger a deluge of feelings including; fear, anxiety, overwhelm, excitement, distraction or denial.

How Does the Way You Respond to Change Impact Your Brand?

These feelings can manifest in your behavior.  You may, unconsciously, act out with behavior that is not a brand match for you, or your communication style alters, both at work and at home. You might feel compelled to push yourself and others to overwork, or take the opposite approach - which most do - and procrastinate, avoid the work that's on your plate and get sidetracked with misconceptions, assumptions and gossip to changes that may or may not happen.

On a personal level, your self-care may suffer and you may reach for unhealthy substances, get less sleep, skip meals or overindulge. You might cut yourself off from friends and family, and spend more time alone or with other people who have unhealthy habits or attract people who are in the same place as you.

The Impact

Dealing with change requires flexibility, resilience and an ability to think on your feet. Unfortunately, when you're caught up in your reaction to change, these mental abilities are affected as well. When you're preoccupied, worried and focused on the future instead of the present, it's much harder to concentrate and apply your brainpower to what's in front of you.

Great leaders are admired for their serenity and confidence even in the face of uncertainty and upheaval. For many of us, though, when change is afoot, serenity is far from our reach. Instead, emotions are much closer to the surface and can flare up at the most inopportune times. Whether you lash out, cry, or pound on your desk behind closed doors, it's incredibly uncomfortable to feel so out of control.

Consider, also, the impact on the people around you. Emotional outbursts, whether at work or at home, can irrevocably damage your effectiveness, your reputation and your relationships.

Successful Strategies for Dealing With Change

Here are five strategies to help you remain flexible and resilient in the face of change:

1. Take care of YOUr body. Eat well, sleep well and refrain from harmful habits like indulging in caffeine adrenaline behavior, excessive drinking, or other risky behavior. Work out whatever that is for you!

2. Take care of YOUr mind. Stay in the present moment. Challenge your negative thinking and keep things in perspective; when the doom and gloom sets in, ask, "How important is this, really?"

3. Take control of YOUr emotions. Find reasons to smile and laugh, even when you don't feel like it—especially when you don't feel like it! Funny movies, blogs or videos can help. Vent your negative feelings by exercising, banging on a drum or pounding on a pillow.

4. Treat others well. Strengthen your good relationships so you can draw on their support and work at your challenging relationships so they don't add to your stress.  In fact, this may be a good time to remove them from your life altogether.

5. Take charge. Be proactive and prepare the best you can for the changes that might come, but then accept the reality of the moment. Think back to other challenges that you've come through and remind yourself that everything will work out okay this time, too.

This is why for publishers, perfecting their pitch is critical. Being able to articulate the value they bring to brands, along with using data to prove it works, is vital to publishers’ success.

So how can publishers improve their pitch right off the bat? Here are some key recommendations:

1. Don’t default to traditional data. When making the case for why brands should advertise on your site versus a competitor, it may be tempting to rely solely on data from traditional media tools that describes your audience size and demographics. This information is a critical component to your site’s composition, and would typically make advertisers and agencies happy, but publishers can deliver so much more value to brands beyond audience size and demo today.

2. Pitch behaviors. Armed with the right data, you can differentiate your brand and digital assets to make your case by leveraging contextual and behavioral relevance. You can show what types of audiences are engaging with video on your site, when, how long, what they do next, and which audience segments typically evangelize content. On the content side, you can show which content is consumed most, shared most, and drives the most social dialogue. Brands want to be at the center of the conversation, both in terms of content and audience, so all of these behaviors provide incredible value to brands.

3. Go beyond their target. Pitch “social lookalikes” to your brands – audiences that exhibit similar social behaviors and preferences as the brand’s target audience. These audiences could be just as valuable to the brands as their original target.

4. Know where your audiences are. Brands frequently run location-based campaigns, so it’s imperative that you can deliver geolocation data.

5. Focus on audience interests. Brands want to be associated with and own mindshare for certain audience interests. Leverage data to identify the interests your audience have that could be connected with brands.

Armed with all this information, do you think you could land an IO in 60 seconds with your pitch?

What personal characteristics do we look for when hiring for Private Equity?

How can you assess if you have the “chops” to work for private equity? Is your personal brand a match for private equity? What can you expect and what is expected once you are hired, in terms of the operational differences, compared to working for a large, publicly owned company?

If you are considering a career opportunity in a private equity financed business, then check out the top 5 qualities and characteristics to better understand if you really are ready, willing and able. 

1. PE firms want to work with entrepreneurs.

Private equity firms have been started by investment bankers, successful corporate executives and entrepreneurs with a proven track record of building wealth by risking capital and building businesses entrepreneurially. In selecting a CEO, COO, or other C-level executive, private equity firms want to see proven entrepreneurship in the executive’s prior career steps. Has the candidate successfully started and built a business from scratch? Has he or she turned around a troubled business? Does the candidate have the proven track record and hands-on leadership profile to build confidence among others in the organization (including strategic alliance partners)? You need not apply if you do not have “entrepreneurial DNA" and passion, plus prior success implementing a business plan involving significant change (i.e., not managing a “steady state" business).

2. PE investors want “hunters" not “farmers."

While they tend not to manage from quarter to quarter, like so many public companies, private equity investors are looking for—and expecting—mega-growth of a business over a five- to seven-year window. The expectation is that the returns on capital are multiples of the original investment once the business is sold (usually to a strategic buyer) at the end of the investment period. Hunters have the fearlessness to compete in the marketplace on a daily basis, and their hunting skills are usually directly tied to an ability to increase the top-line revenues. In addition to growth via acquisition, most private equity investors evaluate revenue increases in the base line (“same store") business. This almost always leads them to hire a new Head of New Business—and it always needs to be a “hunter." We recently completed four executive search assignments nationwide for this type of position, most within the first year after a private equity firm has made an investment.

3. PE firms hire "doers" with a strong bias for action.

In LBOs and buyouts of privately held businesses, there are typically major issues that need to be addressed immediately: the prior owner/parent company/CEO may have failed; growth in the business may be stagnant; and investments or changes in the business were deferred because it was deemed a “non-core" asset. This is one reason that private equity investors like to hire “doers" with a bias for action – because typically so much needs to be done – and very quickly. Consider the GM turnaround and the three months the Board gave the initial CEO before making a change. As Jack Welch has said numerous times, a non-decision is sometimes the worst decision a CEO can make. If you are a procrastinator, stay away from private equity.

4. PE investors are reasonable until they become unreasonable.

Private equity investors typically resist hands-on involvement in the day-to-day operations of a business. They will typically put two to three of their own people on the Board of Directors and will remain minimally involved as long as the business moves forward according to (and in alignment with) the corporate business plan. They may come to Board meetings to listen to the CEO (and others in senior management), and they’ll work on complementary activities related to expanding and growing the business, such as additional acquisitions, or capital investment to increase manufacturing capacity. However, when/if the CEO and senior leadership begin missing the milestones, and the business turns south (even slightly), they are back with a vengeance ready to make changes in the senior leadership team (i.e., trade out the CEO, hire a strong COO with a sales/business development background, etc.) Working with a private equity-backed firm is potentially good for executives who (1) under-promise and over-deliver, and (2) are good at developing and implementing realistic business plans—and keeping the company on track and ahead of the key milestones outlined in these plans.

5. PE firms want an accelerated pace of change; be prepared to “ride the rapids."

While many C-level executives express frustrations at the slow pace of change in large corporations, many are unprepared emotionally to work in the rapid waters of private equity. You can expect almost 180 degrees the opposite environment once you switch over to a private equity-owned business. When you meet with the partners of these firms, invariably the first question they will ask you is, “If given this job, what would you do first?" and “What would be your plan for growing/fixing this business?"

Know what works best for your personal brand before jumping in!

It is extremely important to be prepared, and to do your homework, especially if you are considering one of these types of opportunities. For some true entrepreneurs, those unafraid of operating without a safety net, it can be exhilarating and highly rewarding (equity stakes and payouts are usually much higher than stock options earned inside a public company). However, for those executives lacking the necessary risk-profile and DNA, this is a career step to be avoided altogether.

If you have worked for a private equity firm, or have considered pursuing one of these opportunities, please write to us and share your experiences and perspectives.