Agreed.  It is simply brilliant. What it does for me is show the importance and endless opportunities of multi-channelled, well synergized ad campaigns. Not to mention the massive viral impact. This integrated approach saw 200 accomplices convince over 1000 unsuspecting Italian football fans to attend a fake opera and poetry event on the night of the AC Milan vs Real Madrid match. The event was also televised on SkySport. It turned out to be a private viewing of the match, but its delivery saw a shift in mood from guys on the verge of revolt, to a feeling of sheer relief and joy, making Heineken an absolute legend. That alone is masterful execution of planning, guerrilla and TV marketing efforts. But what followed is the real genius of this approach.

To sum up the video, 1136 people were coaxed into this stunt, 1.5 million viewers saw them on SkySport and 10 million people heard about it on the news the next day. That’s already a huge amount of free publicity. But the real impact came on the web, with a staggering 5 million unique visitors to the website over the next 2 weeks and an inestimable amount of coverage on blogs, forums, and social networks. Since I have come across the video, I have seen it pop up in several places. A search for Heineken Viral on Twitter will demonstrate what I mean. With each blog comment, re-Tweet, or Facebook ‘like’, Heineken is getting some great free publicity. It will be interesting to see how many views the YouTube video will receive (currently 49,508), but I’m sure this chunk of advertising gold will continue to spread.

The bottom line is that it is one giant notch on the belt for JWT/Italy and another addition to a history of great Heineken ads. This campaign hit its target perfectly and highlighted the notion that men are losing the ability to relax and watch the game with friends.  With a clear respect for the ability of social media and the internet in general to gain mass exposure, it appears this campaign is actually the same as Heineken in one respect: ‘Made to Entertain’.

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Promoted Videos are driving millions of video views per week. Clicks have increased 500% since January and, in a world where 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, Promoted Videos have proven to be an excellent way of distributing that content. The addition of Adsense will enable content producers to dramatically extend their reach and allow publishers to further capitalize on their ad space. The Promoted videos will also replace the Adsense text ads in the YouTube search results, although text ads will still be seen in vacant slots. The ability to purchase Promoted Videos in Adwords should see more advertisers using video ads. Purchased on a cost per click (CPC) basis, these ads are easily purchased, managed, and blended with exiting Google campaigns  This integration could see further growth for the online video market, which already saw 195% jump year on year.

To me this seems a very sensible move by Google. There is obviously a huge demand for online video content. “In January 2009, 147 million U.S. internet users watched an average of 101 videos per person.” Promoted Videos provide content generators with a means to generate traffic (views) and connect their videos with the desired audience. In YouTube search, users are simply provided with more of what they are actively seeking, as sponsored videos will show up instead of sponsored text links. Publishers will also relish this opportunity, as video links will surely get higher click through rates then text ads across the Adsense network. I think Google will see a large increase in income from YouTube and, with an unrelenting growth of online video content, I could see Promoted Videos change the surface of PPC advertising.

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