For most of the past century television has been the dominant advertising vehicle for most advertisers. While the types of television programming available for advertising have evolved over time form purely network, to network and local, from VHF and UHF, to broadcast and cable, to spot cable, to satellite and now high definition television (my apologies if I missed something but you get the point), advertising on television itself has remain largely unchanged.
In the past, many companies when planning ad campaigns worked hard to insure a synergy between the various elements of their advertising, be it television, radio, print or outdoor. I remember one client years back requesting a research evaluation regarding how specific ad elements actually were received physically by prospects. We called this the right-side/left-side brain evaluation, and there was much information available to write about how the brain processes audio and video messages.
With the growth of the Internet to where it is now represents a major element in the daily life for most people we need to look for new ways to reach out to potential customers. Online, the three most utilized elements are email, chat and search. Any company marketing in todays world should not only have a website, but should look for the best ways to integrate these online elements into their advertising programs.
To create a synergy with offline television advertising, email provides perhaps the best potential. Up till now, sending video via email has been difficult due to both the file size for sending and how email products most often strip out attachments. Many advertisers have sent “links” to video messages IN their emails with modest success. Today, the best way to use videos in emails would be by embedding a video window link, using videos posted on sites such as YouTube or Vimeo. If video is to be used in an email in this manner it is most important that the video itself be succinct and direct.