Word of Mouth
Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 09/27/2008 - 11:37.
The Studios’ Use of Internet Marketing is on the Rise
By Dyan James
Once a business novelty, video has increasingly found its way onto the World Wide Web and, over the next two-to-three years, no business will effectively compete without it. Movie studios in particular are reaping benefits by using the Web as a means of marketing their films within movie communities via video clips and trailers, and the positive buzz these clips generate is an invaluable marketing tool.
Enter Fliqz, the Emeryville, California-based provider of white label full-service plug-and-play video solutions known for easy customization, deployment and integration. Started in 2005, Fliqz aims to keep momentum strong and audiences excited between film releases by working with online communities, such as Flixster, RockYou and Rootclip.com, that foster interaction and discussion around film properties. Such online movie communities utilize Fliqz to post trailers and movie clips, allowing visitors to see, rate, discuss, and share them with their friends. The chatter these video-viewing communities generate can reach far beyond any advertisement or even the studios’ own Web sites. And competitively speaking, video adoption for Web-based businesses of all kinds will soon be a necessity.
“We’re at the very early days of what’s going to be a tremendously accelerated adoption curve,” says Benjamin Wayne, chief executive officer of Fliqz. “We’re in the beginning of this huge tidal wave of the video market. Once the first few guys get it, everyone has to get it. As long as we continue to make it cheap, easy, and support the online brand, I think we’ll continue to see massive adoption in the marketplace.”
Flixster, a site dedicated to a social movie network, uses the Fliqz platform to drive trailer views— recent trailers available on Flixster include Mamma Mia, Pineapple Express and Swing Vote—and is getting an abundance of streams. By putting their trailers and movie clips onto destinations like Flixster, studios foster ongoing interest and conversation around their films without spending an exorbitant amount of money in marketing.
“We help studios drive word of mouth and engagement around movies,” says Steve Polsky, president and chief operating officer of Flixster. “You come to Flixster and you can rate, review, share, and watch trailers. But most importantly that’s shared with all of your friends. That word of mouth is promotion you just can’t buy. It’s so much more valuable than a banner advertisement or display ad, and that’s the kind of interaction Flixster drives.”
One of Fliqz’ newest clients is RockYou, which provides widgets and applications on the social Web. RockYou’s SuperWall application for Facebook allows people to stream video clips within the Facebook application within the RockYou extension. “In that sense the audience isn’t movie-specific or specific to the subject matter, but rather they’re taking one of the largest aggregations of social demographics and leveraging a player there to distribute film information,” says Wayne.
The adoption of video not only opens dialogue among movie fans, but also opens doors for amateur filmmakers, stirring creativity with video through viral distribution and taking the art of filmmaking to a new level. Fliqz has also formed a relationship with Rootclip.com, which does a collaborative filmmaking exercise in which the audience participates in and contributes to the creation of a film. Fliqz allows the audience to upload videos to the Rootclip.com site to add to the film-in-the-making.
“When we were kids we had those ‘choose your own adventure’ books, and this is kind of the film equivalent, where the audience can choose how the film develops through each scene,” says Wayne. “Whether or not this turns into predictable filmmaking or actually turns out to be something really interesting, I think the jury is still out. But it certainly is an interesting experiment.”
While there’s still only a small number of Web sites that have adopted video, that number is perched on the edge of rapid growth, as those sites will soon drive every other site to adopt video. Web surfers will abandon the site that doesn’t have video in search for the one that does.
“If I’m looking to date someone and I go to a dating site that doesn’t have video, and I know I can go to a site and see video of people I can date, guess where all the traffic is going to go,” says Wayne. “Even thought penetration is small, it’s going to force competitively every other site in that vertical to adopt video because if they don’t, it’s going to be a non-starter from a competitive perspective.”
Fliqz www.fliqz.com
Flixster www.flixster.com
RockYou rockyou.com
Rootclip.com rootclip.com
By Dyan James
Once a business novelty, video has increasingly found its way onto the World Wide Web and, over the next two-to-three years, no business will effectively compete without it. Movie studios in particular are reaping benefits by using the Web as a means of marketing their films within movie communities via video clips and trailers, and the positive buzz these clips generate is an invaluable marketing tool.
Enter Fliqz, the Emeryville, California-based provider of white label full-service plug-and-play video solutions known for easy customization, deployment and integration. Started in 2005, Fliqz aims to keep momentum strong and audiences excited between film releases by working with online communities, such as Flixster, RockYou and Rootclip.com, that foster interaction and discussion around film properties. Such online movie communities utilize Fliqz to post trailers and movie clips, allowing visitors to see, rate, discuss, and share them with their friends. The chatter these video-viewing communities generate can reach far beyond any advertisement or even the studios’ own Web sites. And competitively speaking, video adoption for Web-based businesses of all kinds will soon be a necessity.“We’re at the very early days of what’s going to be a tremendously accelerated adoption curve,” says Benjamin Wayne, chief executive officer of Fliqz. “We’re in the beginning of this huge tidal wave of the video market. Once the first few guys get it, everyone has to get it. As long as we continue to make it cheap, easy, and support the online brand, I think we’ll continue to see massive adoption in the marketplace.”
Flixster, a site dedicated to a social movie network, uses the Fliqz platform to drive trailer views— recent trailers available on Flixster include Mamma Mia, Pineapple Express and Swing Vote—and is getting an abundance of streams. By putting their trailers and movie clips onto destinations like Flixster, studios foster ongoing interest and conversation around their films without spending an exorbitant amount of money in marketing.
“We help studios drive word of mouth and engagement around movies,” says Steve Polsky, president and chief operating officer of Flixster. “You come to Flixster and you can rate, review, share, and watch trailers. But most importantly that’s shared with all of your friends. That word of mouth is promotion you just can’t buy. It’s so much more valuable than a banner advertisement or display ad, and that’s the kind of interaction Flixster drives.”
One of Fliqz’ newest clients is RockYou, which provides widgets and applications on the social Web. RockYou’s SuperWall application for Facebook allows people to stream video clips within the Facebook application within the RockYou extension. “In that sense the audience isn’t movie-specific or specific to the subject matter, but rather they’re taking one of the largest aggregations of social demographics and leveraging a player there to distribute film information,” says Wayne.
The adoption of video not only opens dialogue among movie fans, but also opens doors for amateur filmmakers, stirring creativity with video through viral distribution and taking the art of filmmaking to a new level. Fliqz has also formed a relationship with Rootclip.com, which does a collaborative filmmaking exercise in which the audience participates in and contributes to the creation of a film. Fliqz allows the audience to upload videos to the Rootclip.com site to add to the film-in-the-making.
“When we were kids we had those ‘choose your own adventure’ books, and this is kind of the film equivalent, where the audience can choose how the film develops through each scene,” says Wayne. “Whether or not this turns into predictable filmmaking or actually turns out to be something really interesting, I think the jury is still out. But it certainly is an interesting experiment.”
While there’s still only a small number of Web sites that have adopted video, that number is perched on the edge of rapid growth, as those sites will soon drive every other site to adopt video. Web surfers will abandon the site that doesn’t have video in search for the one that does.
“If I’m looking to date someone and I go to a dating site that doesn’t have video, and I know I can go to a site and see video of people I can date, guess where all the traffic is going to go,” says Wayne. “Even thought penetration is small, it’s going to force competitively every other site in that vertical to adopt video because if they don’t, it’s going to be a non-starter from a competitive perspective.”
Fliqz www.fliqz.com
Flixster www.flixster.com
RockYou rockyou.com
Rootclip.com rootclip.com
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