Since Turner’s VeryFunnyAds.com opened for business Aug. 23, the video site has delivered more than 7 million streams of, well, funny ads to more than 900,000 unique visitors. These aren’t you-know-who numbers but even at this nascent stage it strikes me as one of the more successful viral efforts by a traditional media outlet on its own site. The site is a spin-off from a successful annual “funniest commercial of the year” show and summer special on TBS, which uses “very funny” as its branding line. Ken Schwab, SVP-programming for TBS and TNT, said it seemed like the “perfect short-form broadband content to put out there.” In the near future, TBS plans to add advertising of its own to the site, Schwab told me, moving it beyond promo vehicle to revenue stream if all goes as planned.
TBS provided the international content—all of it airing with permission-- while Turner’s New Products group finessed the tech side. E-mail sharing, links, ratings—all included. Also included: instant stats via Omniture. Schwab has even logged on from home to watch what happens after a promo airs on TBS.
The actual number of streams served so far is more than 7.7 million; I’m deducting 663,000 streams—that’s the number of times comedian Kevin Nealon’s brief spiel explaining the site has played. We can’t tell how many of these were actually viewed although we can see which ones were rated and Omniture says that at least 244,000 shares have taken place via email and link. One other aspect makes it difficult to quantify some of the plays—every time the front page is loaded, Nealon launches into his spiel and the eight featured ads on the front page play in succession unless the player is paused. That was added after the first day.  Another 75 ads are on the way. One sign of success: being offered an ad for use on the site instead of having to ask.
Some other numbers:
-- The average visitor spends more than 11 minutes on the site.
-- When I first got the stats Tuesday morning, the number of plays for the top ad—a Hansaplast Condoms commercial entitled “Mom,” had been played 437,680 times. That was up to 456, 700 when I just checked. The second most-popular ad is an Isenbeck commercial entitled “Ballet,” which had been played 409,599 times. and is now past 424,000. A Napster UK commercial called “Striptease” is drawing some attention with more than 156,000 plays.