Advertising Media—Video

• Pages: 27-28

Page 27

Video advertising can be an effective avenue for reaching an audience. The term video advertising is used, here, to refer to all full-motion visual presentations of information. Most such presentations include audio and text elements but what differentiates video advertising from other forms of advertising is its full-motion video aspect. The use of video advertising has grown with the proliferation of video-ready equipment in American homes—televisions, cable channels, VCRs, DVDs, and computers connected to the Internet via broadband or high-speed connections.

In the past, video gave advertisers the ability to reach primarily a broad audience and was, therefore, oriented toward consumers. This has begun to change. The market for video advertising is growing as high-speed connections to the Internet make video viable online. Many new technologies are making video presentations viable in unexpected places (AdsOnFeet, wearable flat-screen LCD TV vests) and on small new devices like video cell phones, iPods, and rCards, a credit card size media player. These increased outlets for video advertising both increase the size of the market and increase the advertiser's ability to target a message to a very particular audience.

Ongoing developments with video advertising are making this form of advertising ever more useful to the small business. When video was primarily used to reach a broad consumer audience, it was not idea for a small business or one operating in a niche market. With the ability to focus the message and the distribution of the message through new video advertising outlets, small businesses can put video to use effectively. Although video advertising can still be very expensive, by focusing the message for a well-defined audience it can also be very effective. There are several video options that can be used effectively by small businesses of modest financial means.

TYPES OF VIDEO ADVERTISING

Network Television

Network television reaches the largest audience of all advertising media. As the Small Business Administration noted in Advertising Your Business, most small businesses use "spot television," which is an ad "placed on one station in one market." Placing such a spot ad on one of the national networks can be rather expensive, depending on the size of the audience...