When I shared this year’s Honda Super Bowl commercial a few days ago, I mentioned that it was a popular strategy these days for brands to release their Super Bowl commercial prior to the actual game and the actual television airing of the ad. But it’s even more popular than I thought–and far more popular a strategy this year than ever before.

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The Super Bowl Is Dead, Long Live Super Bowl Commercials

This past January was a good one for Hollywood, although it goes to show that year-over-year comparisons for specific months is a pretty short-sighted way of looking at this particular business, which entirely relies on product.  Subjective product.  And whenever Hollywood has a comparatively bad month compared to the previous year, it is always the movie theaters that get blamed.  I could go for a million or so words about that topic, but we’re talking about online video here.  And so far, the views on YouTube have shown somewhat of a trend for how much money the movie will make over its opening weekend. Chronicle Has An Enviable Marketing Blitz Behind It We talked about Chronicle last week .  Fox got some YouTube stars to do some videos for them, and they got Thinkmodo once again to help them out (see below).  The awareness of Chronicle is pretty high.  It’s making a bold move to release on Super Bowl weekend, one of the biggest garbage dump weekends of the year.  First, let’s take a look at the official trailer, which has nearly 8 million views: Click here to watch the video. A 60-second TV spot also has gathered over 6 million views: Click here to watch the video

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Online Movie Trailers For Friday, February 3: Telekinesis, Saving Whales, & Life After Harry Potter

Back in the day, when people actually visited video rental places, movies that either had a short life in theaters or went straight to video basically had to hope the millions of people sifting through the new release shelves would find their video cover and hope that its lack of familiarity would go overlooked.  Those movies have given way to Netflix recommendations, but it’s pretty much the same thing.  Recently, we’ve seen new films that know they have a niche audience advertise on YouTube and go On Demand before the movie even hits theaters.  It’s not new in this day and age, it just has become a lot more common. Tim & Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie and God Bless America Look For A Niche Audience Tim & Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie recently played at Sundance, and then it went to an On Demand service that also includes rental on iTunes and YouTube.  That’s something we’ll be seeing a lot of in the future.  Because frankly, a movie like Tim & Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie has very little chance of being a success in actual movie theaters.  I know in my neck of the woods, this movie is only going to get a special Friday and Saturday midnight showing when it finally does arrive in theaters, and then it will be gone. Here’s the trailer ( warning – it’s a red band trailer, with all the bad language, violence, and dirty stuff ): Click here to watch the video.

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Sometimes Movies Don’t Need A Big Screen, They Just Need Any Screen

Because YouTube has Google money to spend, the online video destination has an attractive place for people who are already in show business or hope to launch an entertainment career.  Recently, the defection of Food Network’s Bruce Seidel to Electus’ unnamed new YouTube food channel , set to debut in July, hit the news wire and it brings up an interesting question.  Are we going to be seeing executives, already entrenched in TV, defecting in large numbers over the course of this year?  With online video sites seeing numbers that rival cable networks in viewership, I don’t think that’s a stretch.

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Food Network Executive Jumps To YouTube: A Sign Of Things To Come?

I have heard so many crazy things about Klout and I am seeing the same myths repeated over and over again. So, I asked some of the leaders in our industry some questions related to the Klout myths I see often

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Klout Myth Busters: Thoughts From the Experts

After YouTube’s latest updates yesterday to the Browse page, many of you probably spent some time casually playing around with it to see what’s new. If you did, you might have come across some of the selections in this week’s round up of the best viral videos

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The Week’s Best Viral Videos & Video Marketing Lessons – Singing Obama Edition

Katalyst Media was founded by Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg in 2000.  It began as a simple film/TV development home; Kutcher’s Guess Who and the company’s most recognizable property, Punk’d , were produced under Katalyst.  In 2005, they added a social media division, and what they specialize in is a form of branded content, the kind for which we’ve praised Red Bull and GoPro recently.  Their work with brands like Nikon and Mountain Dew, and being considered a leader in the field of social media, led to Google offering them one of the 100 YouTube original channels, Thrash Lab , which is targeting a Spring launch. I had some questions prepared for Katalyst Media president, Anthony Batt, but once he started giving me background on the company and what they do, I almost didn’t need to ask them.  It’s clear that Katalyst is serious about making content for brands that eschew traditional advertising methods, that a story comes first before the brand name.  Batt has even moved on from the term, “branded content,” because it’s “too on the nose.”  He thinks of “branded content” as something from the nineties, that what we’re focusing on now is “amazing content,” something that a brand creates for a target audience that is compelling first and foremost.  The brand, meanwhile, gets rewarded for being associated with that content, depending on if they’re reaching the right audience. The ReelSEO Exclusive Interview With Anthony Batt Anthony Batt: Most brands make advertising

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The Future Of "Branded" Content – Katalyst Media Launching YouTube Channel

Hey doctors (that includes you dentists too) do you know where your patients’ first impressions are being made? It is not your telephone. It is not your waiting room

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Doctors, Please Claim Your Google Places Listing!

This week’s online video news was dominated by web series talk. For instance, we have a retrospective on the BMW web series, The Hire, which was way ahead of its time

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The Weekly Online Video News Round Up – Web Series Edition

While at CES I had the distinct pleasure of attending the inaugural International Academy Of Web Television Awards ceremony that celebrated all things online video and included the likes of Felicia Day, Shari Lazar and Kevin Pollack. It was pretty cool and, to me, demonstrated how far we have come in the realm of online video

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International Academy Of Web Television Awards Demonstrate Maturity Of Online Video Industry