Heavy is essentially a video site that sells lots of display, and it has even spun off the video skin into a sister company -- Husky Media. Husky lets advertisers and publisher take advantage of the skin on their own websites through a small piece of JavaScript. When a user clicks on a video on a site utilizing the Husky Skin, the player darkens the rest of the website and pops out, with the video wrapped in the distinctive skin.
But an interactive video skin isn't the end-all solution for video advertising, and Assaad is quick to admit this. Although the Husky Skin can be wrapped around myriad video players embedded on other websites, including YouTube, he insists Husky isn't an ad network. Rather, he considers it a content network that distributes Heavy's content with a built-in advertising format that lets Heavy spread and share its content, while helping publishers make a little money by including it on their websites.
The breakthrough will come when advertisers start to develop content that looks and feels less like advertising. Audiences are smarter than ever before, Assaad says, and if they see an ad and aren't interested, they will undoubtedly ignore it.
Assaad believes true success with video advertising will come via a structural change in the industry, when marketers move away from making 30-second advertisements and banner ads and understand they don't have to set their minds on traditional advertising campaigns.
"When marketers start to liberate themselves and understand they are as empowered as anybody to finance and produce things that are entertaining to them -- that's when I think you'll start to see a change in the monetization of online video," he says.
"You can actually make a marketing experience that says more than just, 'Here's my message, see my ad, I'm done,'" he continues. "It's actually an experience that people are engaged in, appreciate, and walk away from thinking, 'Wow, that was really cool. I really like that brand.' It doesn't necessarily have to be telling a story. It could be a game, or something with interactivity."
"If you're a truly a brand marketer, take the essence of what your brand is, the essence of what your message is, and find some way to actually create some kind of body for that that can travel and actually surprise and delight your audience," he says.
Let an expert handle your viral efforts
What Assaad describes sounds a lot like viral video, an area that several brands (including Heavy itself) have leveraged for advertising success. But anyone who's ever been sent a link to a funny video knows not every viral hit is a branded advertisement, and not every branded video becomes a runway viral success. Viral is in a sad state right now, according to Assaad. The classic mistake he sees time and time again is when brands and marketers try to develop hits or entertainment, and they turn into an obvious advertisement.
Assad offers two pieces of advice for brands looking to develop content. The first is to not put all your eggs into one basket, because the odds of creating a hit are long. "We've had plenty of misses for me to know we're not going to hit it out of the park every time," he says.
His second piece of advice is to find someone who knows what they're doing when it comes to viral. And he means someone who knows what they're doing -- a company that can show its word-of-mouth successes -- and this may not be your agency.
"The wonder of today's world is that the 17-year-old skate-punk kid has as much a chance of producing a viral hit as does a 20-something creative star from an agency," he says. "Everyone is working with the same set of tools and a good idea can from anywhere."
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