Well hello there, branded content. 15-year-old spaz vlogger Fred — the 3rd most subscribed person on YouTube (>500k) — has cut a promo deal for 21st Century Fox’s new movie “City of Embers.” More from the Wall Street Journal:

The “Ember” effort is different [from other viral movie-marketing campaigns], though, because it uses an already established YouTube star to endorse the film. “They are using the credibility that this guy has with a specific audience,” says Lars Bastholm, co-chief creative officer at AKQA, a San Francisco digital-advertising company not involved with the campaign. “By not being so overt and making it look like he’s discovering the film for his audience, it comes across as less pushy.”

Tips from YouTube comedian Nalts, currently #92 most subscribed of all-time, #22 comedian on YouTube, and self-proclaimed “Viral Video Genius”.

Some of our favorite videos: Farting in Public, Hamster on a Leash, and almost 700 (!) other videos typically involving his kids, pets, wife, or pranks. And now Product Placement:

In light of being passed over by YouTube’s ad-share partnership, Kevin Nalts is now offerings his services. $2K-$5K gets you a custom viral video that mixes entertainment with product placement.

… well hello there branded content.

This could be big: independent producers getting paid relatively small amounts of money to make funny vids with a logo at the end. Don’t bet on 10-million-view “viral” status, but a decent 15k-50k (and possibly more) for a few thousand dollars is a drop in the hat.

Branded content isn’t threatening “legit” ad agencies any time soon, but it does fill in the business model gap for YouTube stars who just want to keep doing what they’re doing (and doing well). Kudos.

Guerrilla marketing ambushes the viewer and grabs their attention when they least expect it. Viral marketing is advertising that you voluntarily pass around because it’s cool, not necessarily because you want to help build publicity…

The reaction to a viral guerrilla campaign is often what defines the whole experience. A well-received viral campaign that is straightforward and obviously trying to sell you something may be moderately successful. But a guerrilla campaign that fools a lot of viewers into thinking it’s not an ad? That tends to tick people off.

And what do ticked-off people do? They tell other people.

– WebUrbanist, Guerilla Marketing vs. Viral Marketing, part of a 6-part series on guerilla marketing.

via elspeth jane

Interactive Advertising Bureau members are responsible for selling over 86% of online advertising in the United States, so it’s kind of notable that they recently finalized standard formats & jargon for video ads, which are still a pretty undecided frontier.

The new guidelines cover three basic forms of online video ad formats: linear ads — interruptive video spots which are typically of the pre-roll variety, non-linear ads — which include the increasingly popular ‘overlay’ ad units, and companion ads — bannerlike ads that appear alongside video as it plays on the Web.

The guidelines… cover everything from how long pre-roll spots should be (no longer than 30 seconds) to specific file sizes, color depths and bit rates for various placements.

via yatta

Beware self-proclaimed social marketing experts – 10 simple rules to tell who you are talking to, from social media stats service Traackr.

#1 stands out. Preach it!

If someone tells you they are an expert in social marketing, they are probably not… The field of social media is still very new and changing at light speed. There have been a few social marketing success stories but not enough to draw definite patterns in such a fast evolving environment. People who tell you they know exactly what you need to do are either taking you for a ride, or worse, haven’t grasped the complexity of what they are supposed to be experts of.

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The number crunchers put out the March 2008 Internet Trends report a few weeks ago. Lots of love for social networks, “a category which didn’t exist 3 years ago.” Their research is largely compiled from comScore, Forrester, and Pew, all quality.

Some slides we found interesting:

More key points, as digested by TechCrunch

* YouTube + Facebook page views > Google or Yahoo page views (and may be bigger than both combined)
* 6/10 top internet sites are social (youtube, live.com, facebook, hi5, wikipedia, orkut); none were on the list in 2005
* YouTube has 258 million users, 50% visit weekly or more
* >50% of Facebook users log in daily, 95% of Facebook users have used at least one third party application
* Skype revenue is $1.67/user/year, up 9% Y/Y
* 14 million photos uploaded daily on Facebook
* Google + Yahoo = 61% of U.S. Online Ad Revenue
* Google: $4.4b ad revenue in Q4, paid out $1.4 billion to partners
* Yahoo: $1.6 billion in ad revenue in Q4, paid out $429 million to partners

“I’ve got 153 million views under my belt… I know what I’m doing.”

Chris Crocker’s dropping a potential deal with “the network” (VH1?)… cuz he wouldn’t be allowed to curse.

YouTube series Break A Leg weighs in on trying to make a living in the world of straight-to-YouTube:

With over 2 million views on YouTube, we’ve received roughly $1,600 from their Partner Program. We also over half a million views at YouTube competitor Blip.tv, worth a whopping $100. Finally another competitor MetaCafe featured us on their front page and with nearly 100,000 views, we made $500 – which is great, except the only way you’ll ever get that many views is if you win a contest (like us) or your show is primarily about how round and pretty the female breast is. Plus a year later, MetaCafe still hasn’t paid us…

So until the Internet can produce any real amount of money for good creators, there’s no way it will ever be the future of TV as everyone in “new media” exclaims

Maybe they forgot to visit the Dept. of Internet Money?