Hope you all had a great Memorial weekend. A new Brand20 Index has been posted to the site. This weeks highlight include:

A Sony Ericsson fan uploading another video to promote 2 unknown Sony Ericsson devices. The video was picked up by popular electronics gadget sites like Gizmodo and Engadget and has managed to garnet 160k views in just 10 days. Microsoft got a good push in the views this week, Thanks for this video uploaded by another popular blog, Techcrunch. This video demonstrates the new Touch Wall by Microsoft and was also very popular on tech blogs world wide.

You can check these videos and many more for your favorite brands at: http://www.divinitymetrics.com/charts/brand20/

Weekly Brand20 Index has just landed on our website:Disney had the honor for a week to be on the top of the charts but BMW is back in action beating Disney by a very small margin for this week.Toyota got a decent push from this speed racing fan from Japan who has uploaded a lot of videos for cars on his profile and has managed to get over 250k views in just a few days of the video being uploaded to YouTube. Take a look at this new videos topping the chart for Toyota this week. 

Check out this recent article from Search Engine Guide by Jennifer Laycock on how companies are now scouring viral video sites like YouTube to search for their next viral hit.

Link: http://www.searchengineguide.com/jennifer-laycock/shopping-for-a-viral-video-at-youtube.php

Casio could use this recently uploaded on video YouTube to promote their new camera, Exilim EX-F1

Apple has always been good at marketing their products, be it the iPhone launch or the new Macbook Air.

Lots of people have loved the new macbook and several others who weren’t lucky enough to get one had fun by making a parody of the same.

Even brands like Lenovo couldn’t resist and made an awesome promotional ad for their new X300

This is a direct excerpt from a great article titled, “Rise of an Internet Star - Parlaying YouTube Fame Into Big Business” on ReadWriteWeb.

Someone creates a video that goes viral and generates millions of views, and for some this flashes and fades, but others are parlaying these flashes into commercial success.

Video Sites that Pay

You might not have the time to create a regular series of videos, but if you can find the time to generate even a few great videos, here are some video sharing sites that give a little back to the creators of the videos.

YouTube.com - YouTube has a partner program that is based on cost-per-impression advertising, so the more your videos are viewed the more money you make. It may not be the most lucrative site to post videos on, but it is the most popular. Good for people who produce regular content or for sporadic video submitters.

Revver.com - A lot like YouTube, Revver shares income from advertising revenue with content creators. TechCrunch had Revver close to entering their deadpool, but a recent acquisition by LiveUniverse seems to have breathed life into the site. Revver has paid out more than $1 million to users, beating YouTube to that milestone by a few months.

Break.com - Break has a very simple model: If they choose to feature your video on the homepage you make a few hundred bucks, with the potential to earn up to $2,000. That video showing your roommate drop a hot iron on his crotch would probably do best with the Break audience.

Blip.tv - Blip works similar to other ad revenue sharing sites, but they also allow you to work on selling your own sponsorships on your videos. Blip is best for video series that draw their own traffic and have the potential to find their own sponsors.

AtomFilms.com - Not the easiest place to get your video picked up, but it may have the most traditional media reach. AtomFilms selectively licenses original short movies from amateur and indie creators, and pays them royalties from their ad revenues. If your film is original, entertaining, and legally distributable, you can make real money with AtomFilms.

Metacafe.com - Probably the most transparent of any of the video sites that pay for your content. Metacafe breaks it down to “$5 per 1,000 views.” Another good option for that iron on the crotch video of your roommate.

A lot of times if a video does not do well on an online video site since its not targeted at the right demographics of the content. Some one can take the video and upload it to another platform and generate a lot of views and $.

Brands and content producers are using Scope to monitor these trends in real time across multiple platforms and go just beyond traffic information, what is the community build up around the video? is it spreading virally? What are the trends? These are some of the other important things to consider today while producing and syndicating to online video sites.

The world is yet to recover from the massive cyclone tragedy in Myanmar and a massive earthquake hit China today. Video sites like YouTube, MySpace, Dailymotion and several others have been flooded with tons of videos for all over the world. Some videos are showing the horrible aftermath of these events whereas some are appealing for donations and relief aid. These sites are playing a vital role is quickly spreading the visual information that the masses seek before they make any significant donations to organizations working towards sending relief aid and donations to millions of affected people in these disasters.

These devastating images are uploaded by people and hundreds of videos are rushing in every minute.

Several users (myochitmyanmar, tolimoli) on these video sites have dedicated channels to this disaster in an honest attempt to drive people to donate funds to various organizations that are in position to help those affected by this tragedy.

Donate generously, some links:

Message from WorldVision has already delivered 35 metric tons of rice to cyclone-ravaged areas, along with 18,000 liters of drinking water and diesel fuel to allow generator pumps to continue to pump water. Clothing, blankets and tarpaulins have also been distributed to people living in and around the city of Yangon.

UNICEF focuses on restoring normalcy for young survivors of Cyclone Nargis. UNICEF’s global Chief of Education, Cream Wright, discusses the importance of restoring a sense of normalcy for cyclone-affected children in Myanmar.

The Red Cross today prepared latrine-building and water- purification kits, and the first UN aid transported over land arrived today when two trucks with shelter supplies for 10,000 people reached Yangon, the largest city.

We do a lot of video monitoring of cell phone makers and one of them we monitor is HTC. HTC released a great spot last month of fingers going through various landscapes. Yes, you read right…fingers. The ad spot was for HTC’s Touch cell phone which is positioned as a competitor to Apple’s iPhone. The videos posted online quickly turned into a deathwatch between PC and Mac fanboys:

The great thing about Scope Video is that we can do great research on which ad formats work in this cut throat market. Clearly, this did not do well online and for good reason.

Your wait for weekly fix of the Brand20 Index is over. The new sizzling videos and numbers have just hit the main servers.

BMW was finally trumped by Disney as the top brand for this week, thanks for tons of new videos uploaded by users all around the world. Nike’s got another viral hit at their hands, Thanks to this “Cloverfield” style new Ad promoting their website NikeFootball.com. These are some great examples of Brands embracing online viral video to drive traffic and community to their own websites. Take it to the Next Level Nike!!!

You can see the chart here

Absolut has received some flak for their ads lately, especially the ones south of the border. But here is one that I ran across today during my daily procrastination session and loved it:

Title: Dissection
Client: Absolut Spirits, Stockholm
Agency: TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York
Worldwide Creative Director: Rob Smiley
Creative Director: Lew Willig
Copywriter: Meghan Simons
Art Director: Megan Williams
Producer: Jamie Grady

Production Company: Psyop, New York
Directors: Marco Spier, Chris Staves, Mate Steinforth
Designer: Mate Steinforth
Director of Photography: Martin Ahlgren
Executive Producer: Lucia Grillo
Producer: Nathan Jew
Assistant Producer: Tarun Charaipotra
Live Action Producer: Paul Middlemiss

Visual Effects Company: MassMarket, New York
VFX Executive Producer: Justin Lane
Technical Director: Jacob Slutzky
Lead Flame Artist: Nick Tanner
Flame Artists: Chris Staves, Theo Maniatis
Pre Visual Artist: Damon Ciarelli
Editor: Cass Vanini
XSI Team: Dave Barosin, Jan Bitzer, Andrea Gebhardt, Jae Ham, Bashir Hamid, Andy Hara, Florian Witzel, Miguel Salek, Boris Ustaev, Jason Vega, Lee Wolland
Roto Artists: Leslie Chung, David Marte, Joon Park

Sound mixer: Peter Holcomb, Sound Lounge, New York
Music: Small Sails, Somnambulist