The Web is becoming an ever more commercially-viable outlet for video. Webisodes are catching on, and marketers are finding out how to make it work for them.
Examples of online video programming include “The Burg,” about the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg, which can be watched at theburg.tv; “Meth Minute 39,” a cartoon series, found on channelfrederator.com, a Web site that is part of Next New Networks; and “Roommates,” the first original Web series on MySpace, which is owned by the News Corporation.
The popularity of online video is beginning to draw familiar names. For instance, the producers Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick of “Thirtysomething” fame are creating “Quarterlife,” which can be watched on its own Web site (quarterlife.com) or on myspace.com. Tom Green, the former MTV personality, is now the host of “Tom Green Live” on ManiaTV.com and tomgreen.com.
And comic actors like Michael Cera and Bob Odenkirk are involved in video ventures like “Clark and Michael,” found at clarkandmichael.com, and “Derek and Simon,” available at superdeluxe.com respectively.
“The proliferation, even in the last six or eight months, is where we see our chance, where we see opportunity,” said Craig Atkinson, digital director in Chicago of the OMD media agency, part of the Omnicom Group.
For one client, McDonald’s, Mr. Atkinson and Michael Solomon, associate director for strategy at OMD Chicago, worked with an online video network in New York, Broadband Enterprises, on the sponsorship of a Web series, “The Fantastic Two.”
The weekly episodes follow the hapless friends, Charly and Mitch, and their fantasy football league. There are guest appearances by William Perry, known as the Refrigerator when he played for the Chicago Bears in the 1980s. Here, he is called Fridgie Bear, a riff on the Huggy Bear character portrayed by Antonio Fargas in the ’70s TV series “Starsky and Hutch.”
There are also guest appearances on “The Fantastic Two” by McDonald’s products like Dollar Menu items, which are integrated into plot lines in the manner that, say, Nissan cars are written into the plot lines of episodes of the NBC series “Heroes.”
“This is unique for us in the level of integration,” said Anja Carroll, director for United States media at the McDonald’s Corporation in Oak Brook, Ill.
Besides the products in the episodes, there are humorous touches like animated characters overlaid on screen proclaiming, “Shameless product placement” when McDonald’s food items appear.
“For this target audience, we’re fine with” the tongue-in-cheek tone, Ms. Carroll said, referring to the men ages 18 to 24 who McDonald’s hopes will watch “The Fantastic Two” on a network of more than 400 Web sites assembled by Broadband Enterprises. (The episodes can also be watched on thefantastictwo.com.)