Online video ads more effective than TV ads

This week a colleague made me aware of a study conducted by Nielsen in April which found that online video ads were significantly more effective than TV ads amongst US viewers.

Reported at ClickZ (but for some reason not widely reported by traditional media), the article states that,

The research company conducted over 14,000 surveys evaluating 238 brands, 412 products, and 951 ad executions, and collected data on general recall, brand recall, message recall, and likeability. The results suggest that for each metric, consumers reacted better to ads delivered via online video than they did through traditional TV.

Nielsen says the increased impact could be attributed to the nature of the viewing experiences offered between the two platforms, with online video viewers often more "engaged and attentive" to the content they are consuming.

This wasn't a small impact either - online ads were on average more than 30% more effective per the chart below.

To learn more about how people are watching video, I recommend reading Nielsen's report, How People Watch: A Global Nielsen Consumer Report.

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An open government renaissance in Australia?

With the election over, Prime Minister Gillard has promised to throw open the curtains and let in the sunlight, a more open government than ever before.

With a government consisting of 72 Labor MPs, a Green MP and three Independents, media commentators are saying that more negotiation and consultation will be required than ever before.

This may prove to be Australia's open government renaissance - with corresponding growth in Gov 2.0.

What do people think?

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Understanding internet memes and the language of the net

The other day I came across a couple of experienced communications professionals who were unaware of Lolcats and several other well-known internet memes.

I believe it is quite important to understand the language, trends and traditions of a medium that you wish to use to communicate with and engage your audiences, so in the interests of spreading knowledge, here's a couple of good sources of information.

It is particularly useful for those who are newer to the internet (less than 10 years of use) or who are on the mature side of 40.

And in case you think all this meme stuff is some freaky internet phenomenon - many similar memes exist in traditional media as well - and you probably know them...

Such as Whatcha talkin bout Willis and Jumping the shark.

Know your meme - A great collection of short videos, each explaining a different popular internet meme. Yes there are lots of them. It's very useful for looking up those strange words used by your resident internet junkie, or when they send you to the last page on the internet.

Memesfactory - an entertaining, yet sometimes confronting, journey through the internet's wild west. Gives a great overview of the main internet memes and key terminology. This is designed as entertainment and is best suited to those with some familiarity with memes but little idea of where they come from.

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Innovation's Social Media in Government Seminar - presentations and videos

Last month I gave a presentation to around 100 people at the Department of Innovation regarding the use of social media in Australian government, alongside Todd Wright of Threesides.

With permission Innovation have published the presentations and video over at their Innovation Blog to share the seminar with others across the public service.

I'd love to see other Departments sharing material of this kind (on a variety of topics) on a regular basis, where there's no confidentiality or commercial concerns. It reduces duplication of effort, spreads knowledge and can lead to money savings for the government.

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Independent moderation - optional or must-have for government?

Bang The Table has released an excellent video piece on their moderation system (titled 24/7 moderation), including a part where Matt Crozier (one of their founders) says that independent moderation can be very important for government organisations in order to avoid risks of claims of censorship when they must remove some comments from a forum, blog or other online discussion device.


This part of the video does raise a good question - when should government agencies employ independent (external) moderation and when should they use their own staff.

Matt makes the point that where trust is fractured between a government agency and its constituents there can be increased risks of accusations of bias or censorship if the agency is seen to be doing the moderation. He suggests that an independent moderator could be seen to be less biased and that it removed perceptions that government officials may be moderating a little more than they should.

I think these are good points, which can apply in circumstances where a neutral moderator is both feasible and advantageous.

There are also circumstances where an authentic voice from an agency is required - where officials need to be actively engaging as participants and be seen to be moderating the discussion.

This is particularly important when engagement is occurring through a government-run website, rather than through a separately established or third-party vehicle. Otherwise there can be issues around whether an agency is really seen to be committed or is just engaging in a token effort. Also nuances can be lost where an independent moderator doesn't understand the subject matter at sufficient depth to carry the conversation, particularly in consultations.

Agencies need to weigh up the risks and benefits for each engagement activity, as well as assess them over time as needs change. Where possible I recommend that long-term partnerships with a trusted moderator work better than tendering for a new moderator for each separate engagement as this allows an external party to build an understanding of your guidelines and the subtleties of what may be considered inappropriate comments, rather than having to re-educate each time.

Where staff are moderating they need support as their decisions impact on the integrity and public perception of your organisation. For starters they should have clear moderation guidelines and examples, possibly borrowed and reworked from the experiences of other agencies.

It helps if they have a good understanding of any Information Privacy Principles relevant to their jurisdiction and training in conflict resolution or other engagement-type interactions. It really really helps if they also have prior experience at moderation or participation in online forums and similar mediums which involve moderation activity.

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