ChasNote

Late Thursday night, video-podcaster (and FM partner) Ask A Ninja rolled out the first episode in a series of nine that will be sponsored by Ask.com as part of their recent re-branding campaign. At the end of each episode, the Ninja invites his viewers to go to Ask.com (by clicking on an Ask.com banner alongside the video window, or by going straight to Ask.com) and to enter a made-up word. The Ninja tells viewers who do this that they’ll get either the definition of “ninjuice” (via a custom video skit by the Ninja), or — so threatens the Ninja — a sword in the head.

The campaign is smart at one (very simple) level in that it ties together banner ads with integrated, co-branded messages in the video programming. At another level, it’s even smarter in that the Ninja (the featured act) rather than Ask.com (the marketer) makes the call-to-action.

The data from the campaign’s first 20 hours are astounding. One out of every twelve viewers of the Ninja’s “Ninja Sayings” video skit went to Ask.com, queried “ninjuice” and watched the bonus video that the Ninja produced especially for those “certified search ninjas” who completed the assignment. An 8.3% rate of conversion. For comparison, imagine a conventional banner that delivers a terrific click-through rate, say 0.4%. Then assume a whopping 25% of those clickers actually test-drive the product. Even that record-breaking performance would add up to only a 0.1% rate of conversion. The team effort by Ask.com and Ask A Ninja did 83 TIMES better.

Digital marketing has become a martial art!

This concept was a collaboration of FM’s James Gross and Ask’s Sean X Cummings.

More coverage at GigaOM’s NewTeeVee, Clickz (twice) and AdRants.

Update 5/28/07: Ninjuice has made its way to Wikipedia.