Product placement agency targets YouTube

Montreal-based Brandfame has launched itself as a product placement agency for YouTube and other online video sharing platforms, connecting makers of online videos with brands that want to be integrated into the next viral video blockbuster. Advertisers can list products they’d like to have featured in videos, and search for upcoming videos by producers to find a match for their brand. Producers indicate which productions they’re willing to integrate products into, and can search for brands or products they’d like to work with. Once a deal has been made, the advertiser pays the producer, and Brandfame takes a cut. The startup is also working on an auction system for advertisers to bid on product placement in new videos by hot producers. Brandfame is just getting started, and has only signed up a handful of producers and advertisers. But its aim is to become a premier marketplace for product placement in video-sharing websites. As online video’s share of the entertainment market expands, opportunities for advertisers, producers and facilitators like Brandfame are taking off. Watch this space! (Related: Agency for customer-made ads.) Spotted by: Susanna Haynie