Vishal Sharma
Thursday, March 13, 2008
2008
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Australia
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Branding
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Carnival
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Marketing
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Media
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Service
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Startups
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Technology
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Web
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comments
The 24th participant is Adimade
Co-Founded by Jake Lawton and Nat Graf in 2008, Adimade - is a video-sharing website focused on User Generated Advertising, or UGA. Put simply, Adimade is YouTube for brands. Adimade brings together the talent of the YouTube community with businesses seeking a new way to interact with young consumers.
Nat describes:Adimade runs ad creation projects on behalf of our project partners. Users create videos; submit those videos to Adimade, then users share and vote for the best clips. The project partner selects the best clip from the finalist’s videos, and is free to use that video for any advertising and promotional purposes.
Let us learn more about Adimade and how it is progressing:
Adimade gives the amateur video creator the chance to get paid for the entertaining and clever videos they create. By submitting an entry to one of Adimade’s ad creation projects, video creators have the opportunity of getting paid for their work, funding their next film project and getting their work seen by the people who count.
For brands and project sponsors, Adimade provides the prospect to interact with video creators and consumers in a deep interactive way, with the added advantage of obtaining entertaining authentic video content for their brand at a fraction of the cost they would have to pay tradition profession media agencies.
• How it started?
We had been discussing how, for years, companies have been paying marketing companies massive amounts of money to make ads people hate watching. Not only that, now consumers can avoid watching TV-style commercials with technology such as TiVO and bittorent.
This is happening in conjunction with declining TV audiences and a rapid i
ncrease of alternate entertainment formats such as social networks, gaming and social media. It seemed to us, the traditional 30-second ad was not being utilised in any creative or innovative way to combat these trends.
At the same time we were noticing how the YouTube community had been producing brilliant, entertaining videos on a shoestring budget that people can’t get enough of.
It really wasn’t much more complicated than putting these 2 ideas together to come up with Adimade. The Youtube community has the talent. They need a way to get fairly rewarded for the work that they are already doing. And Brands need a new way to connect with audiences, both utilising existing and emerging online communities and technologies by revamping their traditional conversational efforts, the TV ad.
The founders behind Adimade are:
• How long it took before it was up and running?
We had first started talking about Adimade in May of 2007. After abandoning another start-up we were working at the time, we decided to bootstrap the Adimade idea and see how it would work.
Development of the website began in September of 2007, and was ready to be deployed in November 2007, however, we held back on the launch until mid-January 2008.
• What stage of your start-up is, stealth mode, beta mode or fully functional?
Adimade is currently in Beta stage. We are, at this stage, completely self-funded and in the process of finalising the details for the first client sponsored projects to be run on Adimade.
• What is the main objective/mission behind your venture?
The main objects behind Adimade are to provide a viable platform for the following 3 outcomes:
• What services does it provides it for consumer or customers?
Services provided by Adimade are divided into the services we provide our user community and the services that we provide for out Client/ Project Sponsors.
Users:
Clients / Project Sponsors:
• What is unique about your venture?
• What market segment verticals you are targeting for?
At this stage we are targeting the SME and medium size organizations. Although we are not excluding particular market segments, the main segments we see to gain the most benefit from out services are:
• What type of customers you are targeting?
Users:
Clients/ Project Sponsors:
• What age group of people will be benefited most?
In regards to Users community, the core of online video creators would be in the range of the 14 – 35 year old demographic. So this would be the logical targeted demographic for Adimade.
The target demographic may change depending on the nature of the Brand that is sponsoring the project to include the consumer market segments that use, or potentially use, that product.
For Clients, newer brands seeking low cost exposure and existing brands seeking to revitalise their interactions with consumers would be the main targets.
• How many users are using your services?
Users:
In the month since launching we have had about 2500 visitors to the site, 50 registered users and 15 video entries.
We are in the process of finalising the details for the first client sponsored projects to be run on Adimade.
• What sort of marketing you are using to spread the word?
We have implemented a “bleed” approach to the marketing launch. Rather than launching the website with a Client sponsored project, we decided to put up some of our own cash to run a mock competition. This has allowed us build a base of users, and a stock of original content, so that when we launch our first client sponsored project, there is an existing community base ready to participate with that brand.
The ongoing marketing of Adimade and Adimade projects can be broken down into online and offline efforts:
Online:
Offline:
• How are you measuring the success of your venture? Are there any special mechanisms/tools are in place to monitor the progress?
The main metric of success for Adimade is profitability. This is the key headline stat we will use to ensure we are focussed on delivering services that people want.
With respect to measuring ongoing success and progress of projects, we continue to measure and review:
• What is the monetising/revenue model? Is their any new model, which is being tried?
The revenue model for Adimade is to charge project sponsors a fee to run and host their project on the Adimade site. This model is segmented into two service-based areas:
• Which are the main competitors or major players in this market segment?
The main competitors for Adimade currently operating in this space are:
User Generated Advertising is certainly not a new concept and whilst a few companies in the US and Europe are doing similar things, we believe we have an edge over these offshore competitors. We like what they are trying to do, but sometimes it comes across a little too advertiser focused. We're working more from the video creators perspective, helping them boost their profile and get paid for their work.
• What are the main technologies used behind this start-up?
It’s a pretty straight forward. PHP based page with some propriety code going into managing the database of users and videos. Some Ajax also involved.
• What has been the most easy to use, out of box and helpful technology?
Adimade is set-up more as a business model than a stand-alone piece of technology.
• Are you using lot of open source tool sets for this?
We have used various open source tools throughout the development and implementation of Adimade.
• What is your operating environment (operating system) and what type of database you are using?
PHP based page and utilising mySQL.
• How much money is needed upfront to start a venture?
Our view of capital required to fund a start up is that it can range from zero to millions of dollars. It all depends on the specifics of the industry and nature of the business model.
In this day and age, it is possible for a start-up to kick-off for a couple of thousand of dollars. Site development can be so easy, that market testing can essentially be done in Beta Phases. You have to make it stretch and clearly define the spending and time priorities.
• What are the main barriers in general for people start their venture in Australia?
Main barriers for Start-Up ventures:
Positives for being Australian based:
• What are your thoughts on the future trends of your service and market segment you are in?
Online Video is segment that is going to grow significantly in general terms. UGC Video is already quite a mature process, however the monetisation from a creativity aspect is relatively immature.
The potential for this market segment lies in Business acceptance and willingness to explore the new frontiers to engage with consumers. Branded entertainment, which UGA is a subset of, is tipped to grow by 14% in 2008 (PQ Media, 2007). Sponsored websites and video content is tipped to rise by 45% as brands seek to capture online attention of the younger demographic.
The role that YouTube plays in this market will be significant. Although not an old company, it could be argued that YouTube has not been at the forefront in helping their community monetise their content.
The companies that are going to do well in the future in terms of building successful brands are the brands utilise emerging technology to build brand value. Brands that maker a greater effort to engage the consumer and relinquish control of the conversation and their brand, from product development right down to marketing functions.
• Do you have any advice for people who want to start their venture?
It takes one second to start something. It is most likely that you are not the only person to conceive a similar idea. However, being the one person that follows that idea with passion and tenacity will separate you from the pack.
Thanks to the founders of Adimade , Jake and Nat, for sharing their thoughts. We look forward to hear from them in future on the progress of Adimade. All the best for Adimade and the competition in this carnival.
