Over the last few years, VideoGenie has changed the way brands do advertising by allowing their fans to become a product’s biggest advocates. With a platform for capturing and distributing user-submitted videos, VideoGenie allows brands to let fans promote products for them. It’s been used by some of the largest brand advertisers out there, but now it wants to open up to allow practically anyone to build these types of campaigns.
The idea behind VideoGenie is for brands to use videos provided by fans to help promote their products. Customers use the VideoGenie platform to solicit, manage, and distribute video testimonials that have been submitted. Those testimonials can then be distributed through specific landing pages, in-line display ads, or through other channels.
The launch of VideoGenie Soapbox expanded the technology to rich media ad units, which displays video ads that have been recorded from some fans and then asks users to submit their own videos. And its Masonry Gallery operates kind of like a tag cloud, where the most popular videos appear larger than others that have been submitted.
But not all brands have the budget to create these campaigns hand-in-hand with VideoGenie, and so it’s making it easier for them to do so with the launch of a self-serve option so small businesses can get in on the fun and use the service.
Through the platform, fans become the best evangelists for a brand’s products in part because of their enthusiasm, and also because they then share their video messages with others. Since messages can easily be shared via Facebook and Twitter, users can show their enthusiasm through those social channels.
Since being launched at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2010, VideoGenie has come a long way. The company has racked up big-name clients like Microsoft, Disney, and Hyundai, and has been used in more than 20 different countries, across seven different languages. It’s also been profitable since August, as it continues to catch on with new advertisers.