I wonder about online video

Sometimes I indulge in thinking out loud.  Not always a safe thing to do -- but probably a lot safer than thinking through a keyboard.  Nevertheless, that's what I'm doing now.  Thinking and typing (which, probably, is a distant cousin to drinking and dialing, but, whatever.)  I need to.  Because an "I wonder…" has been rolling in my head for a while and I'm wondering if a blog about it will help me firm up an opinion.  Since I'm paid for my opinions, I find it helps to have them.

The "I wonder" has to do with the explosive popularity of online video.  I wonder if I can pinpoint the, or some of the, main reasons for its popularity.  Especially, but not limited to, how it relates to advertising.  I suspect the overall popularity of online video has to do with its unique mix of passivity and control.  I can't think of any other tactic that combines the two the way it does.  So I'm going to think and type, and hopefully you'll come along for the ride.

For one thing, I think I know why online video is popular with agencies -- especially traditional agencies making the transition to digital, and especially traditional creatives making the same transition:  It's familiar.  It's not a spot, but it's like a spot.  Easy to wrap your head around.  Trouble is, make it too much like a spot and it tends to fail.  I think Firebrand showed us (or rather, showed itself what some of us suspected all along) -- people like commercials, just not as much as we think.

So, why do people like online video?  Why the Favorites playlist that defies genre, and includes everything from music videos, to sports highlights, to your kid brother skateboarding into the side wall of the garage?  There's something about the medium itself, I think.

The web is complex.  It's not one medium, but rather a host of disparate media that are held together only by the fact that they're all accessible with a mouse.  People use the web for all sorts of things, ranging from getting the news to researching term papers, finding phone numbers to ordering pizza, communicating with friends, buying stock -- you know how extensive it is.  And sometimes (less than agencies think, but more than most people admit,) people use the web for entertainment.

Remember when the common wisdom said your TV would eventually become your computer?  It's clear now that the convergence is, in fact, happening -- only it's happening in the opposite direction. And what's available on this new thing is, well, a lot more than what is available on the old thing.  But more important than there just being a lot more stuff is the fact that users can be a lot more selective.  Actually, that's an understatement.  They can be, and are, completely and totally selective.  The control that comes with interactivity blows away anything that has ever come before.  Even the most die hard TIVO junky has to admit that.

But…watching video, either on a computer screen or a TV, is a passive experience.  Hit play, it plays, you watch.  Fact is, an awful lot of entertainment is passive.  Movies, concerts, theatre, sporting events -- while some may incite emotional and even physical response, the act of being entertained by these things, is essentially, passive.  You've bought your ticket, or clicked (the remote or the mouse) for the very purpose of allowing someone else to do the heavy lifting while you sit back and enjoy.

So if interactivity is the key to popularity, how come videos with hot buttons an annotations aren't always the hottest videos out there?  I think it's because when users are in "entertainment" mode, there's a certain desire for passivity.  Note  -- I'm using "entertainment" here to mean the mode you're in when you just want someone else to entertain you.  Games are the huge exception to this theory.  Games provide a digital experience that is completely active, even if it's not so, physically.  A different thing altogether. Multiple media held together by a mouse, etc. etc.

In a video, I personally (and I suspect there are millions like me) don't want to click the hot button.  When I do, it ceases to be a video, and starts to become a game.  If I wanted to play a game, I'd play a game.  I want to watch a video.  I want you to make me laugh, or cry, or teach me something.  You have a minute.  Maybe two.  Go.

It's the combination of just the right amount of entertainment (passivity) and choice (interactivity via limitless selection) that makes online video popular, as a medium.  (Content, of course, is the critical thing that makes any given video rocket or bomb.)  More, or less, of either passivity or selection, and you're not fulfilling user's quest of the moment.  She moves on -- because she doesn't want to work that hard, right this second. It's too easy to click to something else.

I suspect (but can't prove) that "Will it Blend?" wouldn't be as popular as an online game.  I think the series hit the sweet spot (great content, lots to choose from, click and watch) that makes, not just a great online piece of advertising, but more elemental -- great online video.

It's not that online video shouldn't, or won't, evolve into something more.  It will and should.  But that something more will be something else.  Which should, in my now less cloudy opinion, leave plenty of room for plenty of things that are fun to click, and sit back, and watch.

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Comments

[Josh Chambers]

Hey Ernie. Thanks for joining us this morning.

This post made me think of DVD's when they first came out. Remember when they became "interactive?" You could change the angles on certain views, or click a button and read some back story on a particular scene. I always sort of wanted to want to take some action, but I found I would rather just watch and enjoy the movie.

I haven't scene an "interactive" DVD in quite awhile, I'm guessing that died? The interactive pieces are kept within the "Bonus Features" section.

Even with something like VH1's Popup Video that was so big for awhile, I didn't have to DO anything--I could still just consume...

[ernie mosteller]

Josh, thanks for having us. Good group, good discussion.

And you're right about the DVDs. Bonus material is only a bonus if you see it as a bonus, and not an impediment. I once shot a spot for a Nerf gun that shot darts AND water. It sucked at both. Even the kids in the spot hated it. Just give me a good squirt gun. Or a good dart gun. One or the other, please.