Here is an excerpt from an article on iMedia today that pretty much nails it:
"...while consumer-generated video offers proven appeal to viewers, advertisers remain passionately unenthusiastic. A great deal of consumer-generated video is far too unsavory, and much of what isn't consumer-generated has been pirated or otherwise obtained and distributed through questionable channels. Either way, the risks associated with online video far exceed the gains for most brand advertisers.
The more visionary and successful online video initiatives, however, will be (and already are) those that:
Traffic in advertiser-friendly and licensed video
Reflect and incorporate a true sense of media history and context
Those who truly understand the complementary commercial aspects of both digital media and television are the only ones who can truly understand that the only way to make brand advertising work in an on-demand world is to get customers to demand the intrusion -- exactly what the early TV advertisers did back in the Golden Age of TV when they owned the programs and thus controlled the entire commercial environment. Of course most advertisers aren't in the position to buy or produce their own video content. But they don't have to be. They only have to control or own the environment where the videos are played.What all of the above suggests is that we are stepping back to the future in a kind of retro-evolutionary waltz. The media future ahead will tolerate only those diversions and intrusions we demand and the branding environments we encounter en route will seek less to sell and more to capitalize on our status as willing co-conspirators in an accelerating and undying quest for more entertainment. It's all about television -- again."
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