Business Insider, Cheddar posting ads as content

Business Insider and Cheddar are posting advertising as content by re-editing a television commercial or marketing video by a third-party company, adding some subtitles and music, and reposting the resulting clip to their social media accounts and websites.

Jack Marshall of The Wall Street Journal reports, “For example, financial news company Cheddar posted a video to its Twitter and Facebook accounts featuring the ‘Sock Slider,’ a contraption designed to help people put socks on their feet without stretching or straining. The video, complete with a Cheddar logo in one corner and an ‘as seen on TV’ logo in the other, featured the same footage as a 60-second TV commercial for the product but with Cheddar’s own music and captions, rather than the commercial audio.

“Since it was posted Wednesday, the Sock Slider video has racked up over 130,000 ‘views’ on Facebook alone. On Twitter, pre-roll advertising for other companies was even running ahead of the repurposed Sock Slider commercial.

“‘Our audience on Facebook loves this content. It’s what works in the news feed where people scroll quickly with the sound off,’ said Cheddar Chief Executive Jon Steinberg, adding that videos about ‘gadgets and cool visual tech or gizmos’ perform particularly well.

“Consumers, meanwhile, may never know the video they’re watching actually started as a TV commercial.”

Read more here.