TheFARM has launched its first social media campaign for The Smith Family, since winning the account for the charity in August.

As part of The Smith Family's Christmas Appeal, the Facebook campaign aims to expose the impact of disadvantage on the lives of more than 605,000 young Australians living in jobless families today.

The interactive video uses Facebook Connect to give users the opportunity to experience the effects of disadvantage for themselves, bringing their own Facebook friends into the narrative to highlight the isolation and loneliness that often accompanies children who grow up in families with financial difficulties.

Chief Executive Officer of The Smith Family, Lisa O'Brien said, "Social media a great way to help bring our cause to life and to connect more Australians to the issue. TheFARM has created a personal, informative and engaging piece. With 1 in 10 Aussie kids living in disadvantage this Christmas, it's a very important message to spread."

The application was created, designed and built on TheFARM, and is being supported with Facebook ads and wall updates. While donating is a huge aspect of the campaign, sharing the message of The Smith Famliy through social media and growing the community of committed fans on Facebook is the priority.

"Working with The Smith Family has been very rewarding and we are hugely proud to be helping them get their important message across in social!" says TheFARM Managing Director Chris Pile.

TheFARM and The Smith Family encourage everyone to watch the video and share this important message. https://www.facebook.com/TheSmithFamilyAustralia?sk=app_277474692289207

In their study on The Australian Online Video Market, Frost & Sullivan report there has been an explosion of online video viewing in Australia over the past 3 years with 2 billion videos streamed in 2007 to 11 billion this year. Australians are now averaging 10.2 hours of online video per month and this has been attributed to more & cheaper bandwidth, higher data caps, internet capable TVs & great choice of content. In addition to this, the ever increasing uptake of portable devices (smart phones, tablets & laptops) has lead to an increase in viewing of video on the go and at the office.

Correspondingly, Frost & Sullivan predict that Australian internet TV advertising will grow by 476% over the next 5 years. With an under supply of advertising inventory (long form content being the most popular) and an ever increasing demand, online video advertising which forms only 2% of total online ad spend will continue to accelerate.

While internet video viewing is on the rise, free to air and subscription still remain high. For brands the opportunity lies in supporting their TV spend with and online video investment which has proven to postpone the reach & frequency plateau. A recent Nielsen study on the effect of TV & Digital on the Personal Care sector demonstrated a 4&% recall of brand message for those exposed to online video & TV vs only 17% for those exposed to TV only. Another opportunity for brands is to spend 100% of their TV spend on internet video to achieve optimum reach & frequency when available marketing budgets are too small to support an extended period on TV. Due to the much lower average CPM of online video versus TV advertising, smaller budgets can achieve greater longevity & reach online. According to a cross-media effectiveness study run by TNS Australia on a beauty brand in 2010, internet TV can be just as effective as TV for all stages of the purchase funnel (promted awareness, top of mind awareness & intent to purchase).

Lastly - we love infographics here at TheFARM so I had to share this one: Cutting the Cable: The State of Internet Based TV (these are US stats but relevant none-the-less)

Parklife (an Australian music festival) announced to its 50,000+ Facebook fans on Friday its launch of the Ridiculously Expensive Ticket. Coming complete with a slip n slide entrance to the Festival, your own personal drinks caddie, a cocktail named after you to be sold to be sold at the festival all day, your own portable VIP area and lots lots more - the super exclusive, one of a kind ticket will set you back at whopping $7,000. Parklife crowd sourced the inclusions via a series of this vs that questions on their Facebook page pitching crazy options such as 'what would you prefer: your own private drinks caddie or a publicist for your entourage?' against each other. Each question averaged 25,000 impressions with over 1,500 votes overall and was considered so successful that Parklife turned the most popular responses into the Ridiculously Expensive ticket upon whose sale all profits will go to Heaps Decent (a charity dedicated to brining creativity to underprivileged and Indigenous young Australians). Kudos to the event organisers (Fuzzy)!

Hot off the press today is the news that Nielsen has released their newly approved multi-screen metric enabling them apply TV-style measurement to online advertising. While digital champions may not necessarily agree that TV metrics are relevant to online, those working with traditional marketers will understand the importance of talking a language familiar to them. If online advertising can be measured in a way that is comparable those mediums that have been in existance for 50 years, we are then in a position to demonstrate the value of digital and what it can add to the channel mix. It appears this methodology may focus TELL communications (TV, banner ads & online videos) and potentially doesn't cover the spectrum of digital (social, e-commerce, search) but is another step in bridging the knowleget gap & understanding of the benefit of online media. Exciting times!

Burberry is the second of the major luxury brands to announce a social sampling campaign this year offering samples of their new body frangrance (set to launch in September) exclusively to their 7.6 million Facebook fans. Burberry took the unusual step of having their Chief Creative Officer announce the sampling campaign via a youtube video shared on their Facebook page. Similarly, earlier in the year Oscar de la Renta launched its first scent in 10 years exclusively via Facebook - exhausting 25,000 samples and growing their fan base by 40% in just 3 days.

Perfume companies and luxury brands alike have long known that sampling to consumers on what is such a highly involved purchase is vital for sales. Evolving this concept by bringing the sample to fans rather than forcing fans to come to them is a clever way to generate earned media through genuinely engaged customers.

But can the same precept apply to mass beauty brands - particularly those that are a less involved purchase such as a body moisturiser bought in a grocery store? Initial results for recent sampling campaign we did for Aveeno bode well with many recipients returning to the Facebook page to thank the brand for the product, share their love for it and confirm they have already or intend to purchase both the body moisturiser but also other Aveeno products on their next grocery trip. In doing so they have generated countless earned media impacts into the newsfeeds of themselves and their social circle.