Idearc Media Corp./Dallas, publisher of the Verizon Yellow Pages and www.Superpages.com, has introduced a video platform that will enable small and medium-size businesses to play video ads at the Superpages website. The program is available on a beta basis in the Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco markets with a nationwide launch planned for later this year, according to Robyn Rose, VP of marketing at Idearc.
Idearc will use local production companies to make the videos and charge the businesses about $1,000. They’ll pay to play the videos on a cost-per-click or cost-per-call basis.
Thirty or 60 second video ads will be produced at merchant locations. Idearc is calling them “documercials,” because “they’re not traditional commercials,” Rose said. “They’re videos of the owner or the manager of the business explaining the benefits of the business.”
Superpages.com is a search site with users typing in a category and geographic location to find business names. Advertisers who pay the most for their clicks or calls will have their listings appear first. “The higher you bid, the more frequently the ad will appear in the category,” said Greg Sterling, an analyst at Sterling Marketing Intelligence/San Francisco. Rose said the service works like Google, except the premium listings appear in the middle of the page, not to the right.
Superpages syndicates its content to other sites, including MSN, Google and Yahoo, so the video ads it plays are distributed to other sites.
The service will enable small and mid-size businesses to include video advertising in their online phone listings. “A lot of small businesses have expressesd interest in video advertising on cable TV. We want to make sure they have the ability to do it online,” Rose said.
Sterling said Citysearch, a local search site that competes with Superpages, also offers video ads. But the site is geared to bar and restaurant listings, while Superpages covers more categories.
Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell Associates, Williamsburg, VA, a research firm that has projected the growth of local video advertising, said Idearc’s new service is part of a growing trend. “All the traditional media companies with deep assets–newspapers, radio stations, TV stations and yellow pages are rushing in,” he said. “The yellow pages are protecting their business by offering opportunities for video advertising. It’s similar to what the other media are doing.”
Netflix Series “The Leopard” Spots Classic Italian Novel, Remakes It As A Sumptuous Period Drama
"The Leopard," a new Netflix series, takes the classic Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and transforms it into a sumptuous period piece showing the struggles of the aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily, during tumultuous social upheavals as their way of life is crumbling around them.
Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, had the courage to attempt his own version of what is one of the most popular films in Italian history. The 1963 movie "The Leopard," directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
One Italian critic said that it would be the equivalent of a director in the United States taking "Gone with the Wind" and turning it into a series, but Shankland wasn't the least bit intimidated.
He said that he didn't think of anything other than his own passion for the project, which grew out of his love of the book. His father was a university professor of Italian literature in England, and as a child, he loved the book and traveling to Sicily with his family.
The book tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, a tall, handsome, wealthy aristocrat who owns palaces and land across Sicily.
His comfortable world is shaken with the invasion of Sicily in 1860 by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was to overthrow the Bourbon king in Naples and bring about the Unification of Italy.
The prince's family leads an opulent life in their magnificent palaces with servants and peasants kowtowing to their every need. They spend their time at opulent banquets and lavish balls with their fellow aristocrats.
Shankland has made the series into a visual feast with tables heaped with food, elaborate gardens and sensuous costumes.... Read More