On Thursday, the United Nations released a 60-second Web video honoring the United Nations Peacekeepers on the occasion of its 60th anniversary. The piece is narrated by George Clooney, who has the official title of "A UN Messenger of Peace."
The video resides on YouTube, other video sharing sites and is being propagated around the Web. It was commissioned by Ted Turner’s Better World Campaign. It was conceived and produced on a pro bono basis by SS+K, an interactive agency.
Beginning on Monday, the segment will appear as a post-roll on all 800 clips in our archive. We will run the clip for two weeks. This may be one of the first times a PSA has been inserted into a video stream. (Please comment below if you know of others.)
Blip.tv, which hosts our videos and manages advertising insertion, is also hosting the Clooney video. This is the first time Blip has inserted a PSA into its many millions of video streams. Beet.TV is the first show on Blip to carry the UN video.
Not sure how much exposure on Beet clips will help raise visibility for the U.N. Of course, the story here is the opportunity and importance of public service announcements inserted into online video streams.
Just as television broadcasters have done for decade, we can hope that online publishers big and small, along with video sharing sites, will provide "airtime" for videos for important causes in the public interest.
While we are carrying this as post roll, we think that overlay ads and even brief pre-show announcements will be viable.
— Andy Plesser
