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“Fear is useless. What is needed is trust. As social innovators we’ve got to be tenacious, gritty, and courageous. We deal with cynicism and rejection, especially when what we’re working on is important. So we can never give up. Ever.” Jim Ziolkowski, founder and CEO of buildOn

 

 

    Viral. As a parent, you loathe this word. It means sniffly, cranky kids and overtired adults. You can’t predict when a virus will take over your house, wreaking havoc and turning you into a sleep-deprived shell of your former self. And you can never predict when a video is going to go viral.

Which is harder to create: a short story or a novel? Most writers will tell you a short story is far more challenging. With a novel, you have 100,000 words to weave your tale and meander up to the point. With a short story, you have to get the job done in 15,000 or so. The same is true of a commercial. In 30 to 90 seconds, you need to capture your audience’s attention and deliver your message  — with impact.

We’re not going to bore you with video content statistics… But if we were, we’d tell you that 45% of people watch an hour or more of Facebook and YouTube videos a week. Or that 500 million hours of video is watched on YouTube each day. Or that 87% of online marketers use video. Or that more video is uploaded in 30 days than major US TV networks have created in 30 years.

When did the first television commercial air? Depends on who you ask. Some say 1929, others 1934. We turned to the definitive source, our usual destination for truth, Wikipedia, for the answer: July 1, 1941.