Tadcast is taking a run at bringing product placement to online video by creating a "marketplace" to match interested companies with video producers. The interested company places an ad describing how it wants its product to appear in the video and how much it will pay for it. Video producers who want funding for their independent projects can find a product they don't mind shilling and integrate it into a Hollywood-style product placement.

"We want to prove that user-generated content and independent filmmakers are worthy of having product placements," David Parker, who founded the company last year, told MediaPost.

As advertisers and video producers sign on to the site, Parker envisions a rating system that ranks videographers by the popularity of their videos and viewer rankings, which would allow advertisers to feel at ease about the videographer shooting their product placements. The company is launching a competition to make a video integrating one of three brands participants, Honest Tea, cymbal and drum maker Zildjian, and chocolate maker sweetriot, in the video. The winner of the contest, the video with the most views on YouTube or other video sharing site, will receive $5,000.

Tadcast is not the first player to arise hawking user-generated product placements; Zadby and Storybids both engineer product placement videos, with Storybids model being pretty much identical to Tadcast's.

All of the companies trying to generate revenue from user-generated video product placement are going to have to find a way to survive with thin margins and mercurial audiences. User-gen content has been anathema to advertisers for a reason, it's simply too unpredictable. It looks like Tadcast and similar companies only add a layer of uncertainty to the mix, by farming out the video production. It's not evident how this model thrives in a down-trending market. 

For more:
- see the MediaPost article here [1] 

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