Nomination: best video ad for a book

Random House UK has done a bang-up job of creating a video ad for Chris Anderson's book, The Long Tail. And overall, the marketing campaign for the book has yielded terrific results. The book made the top 10 of the New York Times Bestseller list, although it has since fallen to #14. I'm sure The Long Tail Blog didn't hurt. This just reinforces the data point from our research that says that marketing dollars are moving to online and nontraditional forms of marketing. Said another way, marketing efforts in many specialized niches add up to a large business result. Hey, that's actually a long tail argument, isn't it.....

But it also illustrates a much more mundane bit of data that marketers should remember: books are durable and effective marketing programs. Of all the traditional media at the moment, books are one of the few holding their own against online and electronic media types. Seth Godin did much to create his marketing consultancy by writing the book, "The Purple Cow", and selling it directly to business people. And at the very least, writing a book guarantees you some free advertising from the likes of Amazon.com and Borders.

but kudos to Random House UK for actually spending money to create a video ad for the book and releasing it as Creative Commons components. The Creative Commons license means that others will be allowed to create their own mash-ups of the content, thereby creating a buzz marketing effect. With so many high tech marketers who are always trying to lock up their intellectual property and content, it's terrific to see someone in traditional media who understands the power of letting content be free for re-use. Watch out; book publishers will be entering the free software market next.

Technorati Tags: Books, Buzz Marketing, Free software, Long tail, Marketing, Random House UK