Can social, internet video build brands? Youtube thinks so

Businesses still spend quite a bit of money promoting their brands on traditional television, despite the fact that the medium is losing viewers for new technology choices that are internet-based. It's still common for approximately 38 percent of a large company's advertising budget to be spent on television ads.

There is no doubt that the moving image is a powerful brand builder. The question that remains is how long traditional television will last given the plethora of choices. Youtube is focused on it's demise--hitting the industry where it hurts the most, by trying to steal ad dollars.

Youtube is trying to make the case that big brands are better served with online video. It's goal is to increase the sophistication of it's content--adding more professionally produced videos to it's digital library. By attracting more engaging content, Youtube seeks to pull in the big ad dollars from a more traditional market.

An obvious benefit for advertisers beyond the numbers of capitivated viewers, is that internet video and web-based marketing campaigns can be much more precise in their analytics and performance reporting. Ways of tracking engagement are much more clear and instantaneous. Also, it's easier to connect to transaction or call-to-action gateways from an online brand ad than a traditional television spot.

Despite the fact that ROI and analytics is easier online than off, marketers and advertisers spend much more within traditional venues.

• Advertisers spend $2.2 billion on all online video ads
• A $60.5 billion ad spend for television ads

Still, Google's bread and butter are those little text link ads that appear on the side of your search results screen. But as ad platforms think long-term, web-based video will certainly be a vital and growing line item in advertising budgets world-wide.