Rocketboom Blasts Into A New Era In Advertising
Published by Bre Pettis on 13 Mar 2006 at 8:25 am.
14 Comments.
Filed under Vlog News.
Today with Rocketboom’s episode 349, the rules of advertising have changed forever. Rocketboom has created a new, spellbinding advertising format.
Rocketboom is an entertaining video-blog with a news-format that hundreds of thousands of people download every weekday morning at 9AM EST. I’ve been staying with them as they burn the midnight oil putting the finishing touches on the internet ad that ushers in a new era in advertising. I’ve watched the team of crackerjack media-makers, Andrew Baron, Amanda Congdon, Mario Librandi, and Kevin Chapados edit long into the night putting the finishing touches on their first episode with an advertisement.
It was only a month ago that they sold their first advertisement package on ebay. The highest bidder, an atm company, gets an advertisement put at the end of every Rocketboom for a week. Rocktboom gets complete creative control and retains the creative commons copyright on it and so if their client likes the advertisement and wants to show it on tv, they have to buy !
Today’s one minute advertisement shows up at the end of their 4 minute show and this is no ordinary advertisement. Normal television ads know that they have thirty seconds to get their message across. They have to rely on simple powerful messages that give a one-two punch to the audience’s reptillian brain.
Rocketboom changes all that. Because they are not limited to television’s thirty seconds, they have added subtlety and intruigue and a great narrative story to the advertisements that will make Rocketboom subscribers sit on the edge of their seats waiting for the next days advertisement. When people download Rocketboom every morning, they have the episode on their computer and the Rocketboom team have taken this advantage and scored a touchdown. They made a commercial where the idea is simple, but the story is full of intruiging and subtle details. If you want to get it, you just watch it once, but if you want to really get it, you have to watch it over and over for all the easter eggs and cool details that lie just below the surface.
Rocketboom can track how many times it’s downloaded, but there is no measure for the millions of times that people around the world will watch this commercial over and over again getting new subtle insights into the clever masterminds of Rocketboom’s creative team.
Advertisers, I speak to you when I say that your day has come. You are no longer bound to make your advertisements fit into the square holes of the old media. With video-blog advertisements your world has opened up and the creative possibilities are endless.
Advertisers, the time is now to go forth and find your favorite video-blog and pay creative people to make provoking narrative advertisements that people will watch over and over again. Now is the time to make the investment in video-blogs and internet media, while it is still fresh and the barrier to entry is low and the playing field is wide.
Crossposted by author from I Make Things
» First $40,000 Rocketboom Ad Online! - Web-Promotion.net on 13 Mar 2006 at 10:13 am: 1
[…] read more | digg story […]
» Vlogvetising changes everything The Blog Herald: more blog news more often on 13 Mar 2006 at 12:08 pm: 2
[…] There was some interesting comments about the advertising today over at We Are The Media […]
Rog on 14 Mar 2006 at 1:11 am: 3
I guess they are a little late this time…
James on 14 Mar 2006 at 1:35 am: 4
For videoblog and vodcast coverage of Rocketboom, visit:
http://strmz.com/SearchResults?search=rocketboom
Earthling - EarthLink blog on 14 Mar 2006 at 6:37 am: 5
Rocketboom Runs Its First Ad…
Do yourself (and me) a favor, and look at today’s installment of Rocketboom. Keep watching for an ad-like thing for TRM at the end. If you want to skip the Rocketboom and get straight to the ad, here’s a link directly to it. But to get the full effec…
steev on 14 Mar 2006 at 8:00 am: 6
Eww. This is kind of sickening and evil. A dark day for internet video. I stopped watching Rocketboom regularly a while ago, but I will definitely steer away from it now. And why are y’all pushing it so hard? Maybe this blog should change its name to “We Sell The Media”, or “We Sell Your Eyeballs.”
Web Jungle » Blog Archive » First rocketboom ad is live! on 14 Mar 2006 at 12:19 pm: 7
[…] As “we are the media” writes: It was only a month ago that they sold their first advertisement package on ebay. The highest bidder, an atm company, gets an advertisement put at the end of every Rocketboom for a week. Rocktboom gets complete creative control and retains the creative commons copyright on it and so if their client likes the advertisement and wants to show it on tv, they have to buy ! […]
duncan on 14 Mar 2006 at 2:35 pm: 8
erm…. it would be great if someone could point out what exactly the good bits were in this ad idea? ’subtlety and intrigue’ and ‘a great narrative story’? c’mon.. you are joking right?
remember longer doesn’t always = better
Bre Pettis on 15 Mar 2006 at 6:39 am: 9
Everyone has their opinion about rocketboom and it’s true that I enjoy it, but that’s not why I wrote this article. I wrote it because it marks a techtonic shift in the advertising model of the future.
duncan on 15 Mar 2006 at 3:17 pm: 10
i agree it may be a ‘tectonic shift’ in the model of ‘advertising sales’, i.e. the ebay auction itself. But in terms of delivery or content? it’s just a short film with added product placement, and that’s been around for a long time!
Digitaler Film » Blog Archive » Internet TV via RSS on 29 Mar 2006 at 4:43 am: 11
[…] Erste Erfolgsgeschichten Internet TV Serien können sehr erfolgreich sein, wie Rocketboom eindrucksvoll beweist. Rocketboom bezeichnen sich selbst als “daily vlog” wobei ich auch hier der Meinung bin, dass es sich dabei mittlerweile schon um ein eigenes Format handelt und nicht mehr um ein reines Videoblog. Gerade wegen des konsequenten satirischen Stils schafft es Rocketboom zwischen 50 000 und 200 000 Showdownloads pro Tag zu generieren. Diese kommen zum großteil von den 130 000 Zuschauern, die die Show per RSS abonniert haben. Mittlerweile haben die Macher sogar ein Geschäftsmodell entwickelt: Für $40 000 produziert Rocketboom fünf Werbespots, die dann an die jeweiligen Episoden angehängt werden. Die ersten fünf Spots wurden an TRM verkauft, die nächsten fünf an Earthlink. Und wenn man die Spots sieht wünscht man sich solche Spots auch im Fernsehen. […]
M1K3¥’s Blog » Blog Archive » Pure Pwnage dudes talk about the rise of the show.. on 2 Apr 2006 at 3:32 pm: 12
[…] Gotta admire these guys. But, have to think that they should be able to follow the success of RocketBoom in auctioning off advertising on their show as a revenue stream, and getting great press for it: It was only a month ago that they sold their first advertisement package on ebay. The highest bidder, an atm company, gets an advertisement put at the end of every Rocketboom for a week. Rocktboom gets complete creative control and retains the creative commons copyright on it and so if their client likes the advertisement and wants to show it on tv, they have to buy ! […]
meta data weblog » Blog Archive » Rocketboom’s Financial Potential on 10 Apr 2006 at 9:07 am: 13
[…] So, how’s Rocketboom doing? I mean, it’s wildly popular with about 300,000 visitors a day, and Amanda Congdon has become the new cover girl for the blogging set. But how is it doing as..well, a business? I’d say pretty good based on comments made by Rocketboom creator Andrew Baron yesterday at the iSummit conference in Toronto. While sitting on a panel about podcasting, Baron said “Rocketboom makes millions of dollars in annual revenue from just two people”. I’m not sure whether he was talking about 2006 or what it potentially make based on their new advertising plans but can you imagine the margins on a business with a small handful of employees and ultra-low overhead? (Note: What Andrew meant is Rocketboom has the potential to make millions of dollars in advertising as it grows and it’s able to charge more for advertising space). An interesting issue raised by the panel is whether subscription fees can work for podcasts. Ricky Gervais is among the pionners trying to make subscription fees stick but the CBC Radio 3’s Steve Pratt dismissed this plan as “doomed because he’s cutting off his access”. The idea of cashing in from podcasts is fascinating because a big part of their appeal, I think, it they are commercial-free, and capitalizing on the growing unhappiness with commercial radio. But like anything, the appeal of free lasts only so long before content producers eventually want to be rewarded for their efforts one way or the other. Rocketboom is a good example with its decision to adopt advertising. That said, it seems Rocketboom wants to eat its cake and have it too (have its cake and eat it too?) by accepting advertising but producing ads in-house and running them after each its three-minute clip - a practice Baron admits that its users like even though advertisers aren’t wild about the idea would prefer to run their ads before each clip. Baron, who’s coming to Toronto again in May for the mesh conference, also talked about whether Rocketboom could launch premium services. He said it might be a worthwhile business idea if 2% to 3% of Rocketboom users were willing to pay a few dollars a month. In any event, Baron and Congdon are sitting on a growing pot of gold. We should all be so lucky! Update: Earthlink’s ads, which were supposed to appear on Rocketboom two weeks ago, have been delayed. […]
meta data weblog » Blog Archive » Rocketboom Blasts Into A New Era In Advertising on 13 Apr 2006 at 10:53 am: 14
[…] Published by Bre Pettis on 13 Mar 2006 at 8:25 am. 13 Comments. Filed under Vlog News. […]