Our media strategies editor provides useful advice when it comes to planning advertising around online video.

Online video is the next, next thing. In fact, online video is the now next thing.

The subject makes regular appearances in the headlines of nearly all of the trades these days.

There are now millions of streams and downloads of video content every day.

According to comScore, 33.3 million people watched an online video in the last seven days.

Google's recent $1.65 billion purchase of YouTube would seem to leave little doubt that the era of digital platform video has arrived.

What this portends for marketing and advertising as it seeks to associate itself with new patterns of media consumption is profound. The implication of platform-independent engagement of the world's most preferred media format (i.e. sound + image + motion) both excites and frightens marketers, agencies and media companies across the industry spectrum.

But the meaning of platform-independent programming and the need for real cumulative media effectiveness measures across platforms for the sake of planning are subjects for another time.

Today, I want to propose some ideas as to how platform-independent programming as a medium can be planned (for this exercise, I am focusing solely on online video).

What is the currency?
In print, the media currency is circulation. Broadcast, it's ratings.

For online, the media currency is impressions.

When planning to use online video, do impressions matter?

For years I have struggled against the tyranny of the impressions, arguing that what should be of paramount concern is audience. After all, impressions don't buy things, people do.

When planning online video, persons effectively communicated with should be the currency. This means Reach and Frequency (or a like proxy for effective communication with enough of one's targeted audience) are once again important.

Given the technology available now, there is no reason why this can't be determined by the sites or properties and used as the particulars of a media buy. Speaking of…

Audience, please
It is amazing that with as sophisticated as the technology is, data regarding the specificity of the audience being reached is still so hard to get. Don't buy online video just because it is online video. Know who the audience is, not just of the site, although that is the place one must start. The video content might just be engaged by an audience different than that of the site that video content is found. YouTube might attract a lot of young people in general, but the hundreds of thousands who watched Bill Clinton's meltdown on Chris Wallace's show were not teen-agers.

If you want action from the audience, ask for it
A good deal of online media continues to be executed against a direct response objective. Online's accountability continues to be both the biggest boon to those using it and the biggest bane. But as a boon, advertisers are therefore looking for audiences to respond to their ads and judging that advertising's effectiveness based on how often those audiences did so.

If you are looking for your online video to elicit response, it needs to be made to solicit action. The warm and fuzzy branding spot repurposed for online is fine if you are looking to create warm and fuzzies.

But if you are looking for your audiences to take action in response to your video ad, then you'd better ask your audience to do so with some call to action.

Media Strategies Editor Jim Meskauskas is vice president and director of online media for ICON International, Inc.,  an Omnicom Company. Read full bio.