ThePeloton.tv; A Rallying Cry.

ThePeloton.tv were fortunate enough to film the B2B Marketing Summit this week. We have worked with the team at B2B Marketing for some time and jolly decent they are too.

While capturing wonderful content from various delegates extolling the virtues of their various marketing concepts, our business cards were being ripped out of our hands (at one point a fight broke out between up to 10 middle aged marketing managers, keen to get their hands on our contact details). B2B marketing is getting mighty keen on video.

We have been working in the B2B marketing sector for a couple of years and there lies the rub. We are always happy send over our recent work to new contacts which of course we will... really happy if it wasn't so...erm.....dull.

Now, please don't look upon this as a reflection on us. We try and push people to be more creative and spend a little more than we are usually offered as they will get better production values and a more engaging film by doing so. The B2B sector however is (fair enough) enormously budget conscious and often accepts the norm of getting some middle aged experts - some with tie, some without - to talk about their chosen topic.

It looks OK and is technically sound... it's just really boring. That's the problem, boring film = bored audience = little gain is made. Just because this has become the norm in the market, it doesn't mean this is what you should be doing.

Our rallying cry therefore is this: B2B marketing sector you can make great gains in thought leadership if you start getting more creative with your video (and that doesn't just mean infographics). Take a look at news and business TV channels. Similar features can be written and be highly thought provoking. Every business has an interesting story to tell and potentially beautiful pictures to go with it. Let's start telling the tales and using these pictures.

jon@thepeloton.tv
www.thepeloton.tv

Feeding the Family.. And their Subjects.

You are about to have 4 days off work, the country has turned extremely patriotic, the nation's high streets are a dazzling red, white and blue. So, when you have your friends around this weekend, what do you cook them? ThePeloton.tv's friend will be getting spaghetti bolognese as that's all we can cook.
But William Sitwell at John Brown has come up with a very classy alternative. He's been working with top chefs to develop the Jubilee dish for 2012, Jubilee salmon, click on the link below to see how to impress all and sundry. Naturally, the filming was carried out by ThePeloton.tv. The crew can vouch for the recipe, they got the chance to try it out for lunch.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJLfUkpCSU4

Content Connection

It is very apparent that brands, like Waitrose, are now content creators and they're distributing their stuff through YouTube channels, customer publishing, Facebook apps etc. What are publishers doing about this? Brands are now stepping into their space and, in more than a few cases, beating them to it. ThePeloton.tv wants to know more.... Can they live side by side? Will the user buy into branded content as independent? We think a gathering is needed to get to the bottom of this and we're going to host it. Clear your early September diaries, we'll be sending out invites soon

jon@thepeloton.tv
www.thepeloton.tv
 

The Peloton Visits Google

We are often asked to give our thoughts on digital video. It's mainly because we're really good looking and say things like zeitgeist.

No less than Google invited us into their offices and, of course, when Sergey and Larry ask (well kind of) who are we to thumb our noses. We were taken up to the best conference theatre we have ever been near and asked to take our seats (on our way, we walked through the canteen and someone was eating mussels in the staff canteen... And it was free, served by their own chef!!).

The great and good of the advertising industry made their way to their seats, high-fiving and piss-taking each other as they went. This was looking pretty scary.

Google has launched its new player technology that essentially allows users to view just the first few seconds of the pre-roll ad (the often overly long TV ad you get before content starts). We were asked to debunk the myth of TV advertising. Mostly about cost and the rest about process.

We reeled off examples of TV advertising producers charging oodles of lolly and then having no money to distribute and we generally cocked a snoop at some of the more outlandish extravagances that are not required when creating a digital video ad. Then we showed some of our perfectly formed but inexpensive ad work and aired some thoughts on how ads should be produced with the new Google technology in mind.

No-one hit us, no-one booed and all in all a thoroughly enjoyable time was had. (Adrian was the best, Matt talked too much and Jon, didn't really say anything of any use).

We still have the presentation somewhere. Get in touch if you would like a copy. Otherwise, we'll see you in Cannes xx

jon@thepeloton.tv 
www.thepeloton.tv

The Peloton and the B2B Marketing Summit

The Peloton will be filming the B2B Marketing Summit on June 14 at The Brewery in London. Why should you attend and what's it all about...well read on.

Social media marketing.

Do you know that you can generate an additional 18% of traffic to your website if you let customers share reviews of your products in social networks? Just one good review on Facebook can pull in 2.5 times more visitors than all ‘Likes’ collected per month.

Good feedback can do wonders for your business.

The latest research has revealed that positive reviews in social networks are the second most popular deciding factor to buy from you. One in three people are more likely to make an order after reading through good reviews of your brand whilst 38% still consider the price the most important criterion.  

It’s good to have bad feedback, too.

Surprisingly, a negative review is not as bad for your sales as you think. Seven out of 10 customers trust online reviews more if there’s both bad and good feedback available in social networks. Moreover, 38% tend to read only negative reviews of products before making a purchase and 95% will still buy a product or service despite negative feedback. And finally, what one B2B customer considers bad can be a positive thing for another one. You never know!

There’ll be a lot more valuable information on social media marketing at the B2B Marketing Summit held on June 14. The event will be filmed by the highly reputable ThePeloton.tv and is going to cover 4 hot topics: content marketing, social media, data insight and lead generation strategies. You can find more about the summit, presentations scheduled and bookings here at www.b2bmarketing.net/summit2012 . It’s time to go social! 

www.thepeloton.tv

adrian@thepeloton.tv

 

Paid for Comment, Part Fifteen.

It's all change in Publisherland.

We hot footed it over to the PPA Conference at the rather grey Hilton on a rather grey day to hear some thoughts, plans and tactics underway at some of the UK's leading magazine and digital publishers.

When listening to publishers you get the feeling that life hasn't been that kind to them over the last few years. You also get the feeling that they are (in general) trying to do something about it. Publishers have had to cope with revenue disappearing on both fronts - reader revenue and advertising revenue. This has led to heavy cost cutting and generally defensive measures. But this year there was a sense that if you did a good job you were likely to see the results.

Traditional publishers have generally been useless at riding the internet wave. They are stuck in a print model and find it difficult to break out of it. Last year there were one or two exceptions to this. This year that list has expanded.

The Economist talked about the rise of the intellectual trend and clever ways to reach them.
Haymarket and Dennis showed off some some jolly good apps.
And Future talked up the tablet.


We got the chance to interview some of the great and good at the PPA Conference. Here's the CEO of Future talking about the exciting challenge of creating video content.

We also finally heard from senior people that their teams are making branded content solutions and this was to be an important revenue generator. Hoo bloody rah. We've only been saying this for 3 years but there you go.

So as well as patting ourselves on the back for being right all along and generally quaffing as much wine as we could at the free bar, we left Bauer's Mark Frith to answer what his favourite TV programme is and wandered into the rain soaked streets of London with a realisation that Paid for Comment has done its job and it's time for a new series.

So keep an eye out for the first instalment of Video Click - it's all about interactive video don't you know.
jon@thepeloton.tv
www,thepeloton.tv
 

Paid for Comment, Part Fourteen

Two recently published studies have rather shaken the foundations here at Peloton Towers. We aren't usually ones for hyperbole and take surveys with a pinch of salt as they always tend to favour the businesses and associations that commission them. It's like when Adrian of Peloton fame announces that East Dulwich has been voted the number one area for young families in London. When you drill down to the facts you realise that the only people polled are on the East Dulwich forum... and his cats.

Anyway. First this turned up from Reelseo..... http://www.reelseo.com/embedded-youtube-indexed-google/.... For some time web video peeps have been bandying around the fact that video on your web page makes you lots of percent more likely to appear on front page rankings. However what that didn't say was that you have to be a tagging SEO king to make that work (and many of them couldn't).

According to Reelseo all this has changed. Google are now indexing video, and not just video that appears on YouTube. Therefore, when searching for example for The Peloton, two of our video thumbnails appear beneath. This is big news and, given Google's push for YouTube as being their growth revenues, maybe not so surprising.

Secondly, we have been swaggering around claiming that we have been in content marketing for more than anyone else ever. Not strictly true of course. However it has to be said, as video makers, we think that well made video can replace gaudy sales messages and unsubtle advertising as the route to the nation's hearts and minds. This study from Emarketer seems to confirm that this content marketing trend is on the rise.... http://www.reelseo.com/embedded-youtube-indexed-google/

So c'mon kids. Jump on our bandwagons. We're driving and what were once dirt tracks are now nice smooth re-laid b-roads.

jon@thepeloton.tv
www.thepeloton.tv
 

Click-to-Buy Video is the new Black

OK it's been around for a while, but click-to-buy video is finally finding its feet. Retailers, in particular fashion brands, are waking up to the potential of this technology that allows viewers to gain more information about a product by hovering over the item and then clicking through to the e-commerce site to buy the chosen product. For example Tommy Hilfiger has launched a series of clickable videos that generate product information and link to its e-commerce system. And Gucci has hopped on the bandwagon and just released this video.
http://www.gucci.com/us/worldofgucci/shoppable_video/shop-this-video-cruise-spring-summer-2012

Click-to-buy video and fashion are a perfect fit so what's been holding it back? In the past the technology was clunky, users were maybe not ready for it and retailers found it expensive and difficult to manage. The whole experience was not a cool one so what's changed? The commissioning of video has come down in price and video makers are getting more creative. Instead of just adding hotspots, they are integrating the technology in a myriad of imaginative ways. Take this example for the Only fashion brand.
http://onlybecausewecan.com/

So what's next? Well, no doubt we'll see more of it as brands take on board interactive video as a new sales channel and as success stories are shared. To date a lot of this technology has been developed in flash. The advertising community is snubbing flash now due to the incredible rise of mobile devices. Therefore it will take a smart company with what is already a great interactive product to develop that product in HTML5.

So does anyone know any smart video content companies with a great flash product that could develop it in HTML5 by early Summer? Hmm I wonder...
www.thepeloton.tv
The Video Content Company

adrian@thepeloton.tv