The Mike Abundo Effect

YouTube InVideo ads have been running in the States for a while now, but this is the first time I’ve seen one in the Philippines. Hey, Philippine advertisers, if you’re sick of local TV stations squabbling over ratings, give YouTube a try. It’s huge in the Philippines.

YouTube InVideo, in particular, offers quite a few advantages over other ad formats.

CTR on YouTube InVideo ads is five times that on YouTube page display ads. YouTube InVideo ads can be targeted by age, gender, genre, time, and/or location… Ad videos can be any length, since viewers can dismiss and recall them at will. By adding a second layer of airtime possible only inside online video, YouTube has completely bypassed the traditional time limits of TV ads.

TV’s overall unique audience is down and ratings are down. Many of our clients are looking at the middle of February and knowing they are going to be significantly behind in terms of delivering [ad impressions]. We are looking to make that up in digital. If we can get the impressions on television, we want to stay there, but we are at a point where we are going to have to make some calls, take some dollars back and reallocate them.

That’s ad buyer Andrea Kerr Redniss telling us what she’ll do in the face of falling TV ratings. This is why I really don’t give a shit about the ugly little GMA/ABS ratings kerfuffle. They’re fighting over a shrinking pie, and their petty squabbling is turning off their shrinking audience.

Before she became an idol, Japanese-Canadian Maria Ozawa did a commercial. Here she is in a 2002 ad for Morinaga Dars chocolate, portrayed in a love triangle with Japanese pop duo KinKi Kids.

Personally, I much prefer her more recent work.