Melissa: Thanks for taking the time to participate in our eChat on video marketing. How do you use video marketing at your companies? Can you offer some examples?

Alex: We are a digital ad agency, so we use it all the time for our clients, [which include] Toyota, Sony, Universal. For our entertainment clients, we have been using video for many, many years. But larger, more traditional brands (like Toyota) have just started to adopt the usage of videos. For Toyota, we work quite a bit with Scion (its youth brand). We have used it mostly as a lifestyle branding tool.

Steve: We use several approaches. We tape and circulate presentations from guest speakers -- like [business guru] Al Ries, [commentator] David Weinberger and [Internet critic] Andrew Keen -- and we also tape segments for our clients as well as promotional pieces for ourselves. Grabbing eyeballs is the second part of the equation.

Joslin: We use online video specifically to a) address a couple of unique marketing opportunities (reaching geographically displaced fans; reducing fan myopia); b) promote our games, players and licensed merchandise; and c) call to action (e.g., "tune in tonight to see ... " or "visit Shop.NHL.com").

Marwan: First off, a quick introduction to eBillme. We are a payment option on the Web that enables consumers and small businesses to shop online and pay directly from their online banking. It works just like paying a phone bill. Given that we are a Web-based payment option, we do a lot of work leveraging social media to generate market awareness. So we use video for marketing in different ways. One way is brand awareness and advertising. For example, check out www.shopandconfess.com. People submit videos of things they have bought and kept secret. Then, they go to this site and confess about these purchases or indulgences. [We then choose winners.]

We also use videos as icebreakers with prospects; for public relations, promoting the contest in the local media where the winners are; and for SEO and link building.

Steve: Alex, are you buying space to place those videos or marketing virally -- depending on "free" circulation?

Alex: At Toyota Financial Services, we have used video-based tutorials for customers to orient themselves within a site, its features, etc. At Scion, we have done most of it here: www.scion.com/broadband. We designed and built this location initially as a place for all of the video [Scion was] naturally amassing over the past few years, but it became much more. And we then turned to licensing and production of content for the "channel" itself. Ultimately, we will be integrating this broadband video site into Scion.com.

Steve: We also use the video on social-networking sites -- to support entities that we develop for companies. We had a very successful summer with Genny Golf -- a female golfer who was the mouthpiece for Buji, a consumer products company targeting the golf community [with poison ivy protection and relief products].

Marwan: All our videos are user-generated/submitted. They are all based on YouTube, Facebook and Flickr at the moment.

Alex: Marwan, what are the instructions to the providers of that content?

Marwan: Thirty-second to one-minute videos. They are usually confessions about things they have bought and kept secret. Content is video-based plus text submissions plus pictures. We have all kinds of stories submitted. Some of the videos made it to the front page of YouTube, and some were picked up by national media.

Alex: That is great. Who determined the winner? The audience or did you have a panel?

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