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The Geico Gecko goes viral – and risks overexposure.

March 29, 2009 by Leave a Comment

The Geico Gecko has made his way to viral videos. Geico, the auto insurance company continues to gain market share through aggressive and persistent marketing. At the center of it’s marketing activities is the iconic Gecko – the lizard with the British accent that seems to be everywhere. Now he’s on YouTube and Metcalfe and…

The Richmond-based Martin Agency has created a series of viral video promotions that inserts the Geico Gecko in a number of  popular viral videos like the Gecko dancing in the background with Numa Numa guy (27 millions views) or the Gecko as any one of the popular laughing baby videos or the Gecko taking a picture of himself every day for two years parroting any one of the popular viral videos created by people who actually took the time to take a picture of themselves everyday.

Will these viral videos work? I doubt it – for a number of reasons. There is nothing new here. Every time something succeeds as a viral video a hundred people copy, mimic, lampoon, ‘pay hommage’ and otherwise abuse the concept until it becomes a tired cliche. The first time I saw one of the videos of the daily transformation of someone over a period of months I was mezmerised  – it was inventive, interesting and showed a lot of commitment (and free time). Now there are probably 100 versions of this video and it’s lost its appeal. The Gecko version of this video is worse because they didn’t really try that hard – I think they had five or six Gecko outfits (I suppose the wardrobe department had a limited budget) that they repeated so you were bored after the first five seconds. The audio for the laughing baby is great – but you could sync anything or anyone to that laugh and make viewers laugh. The accordion video above - I can’t imagine who would forward that to a friend. “Hey Biff, you have got to see the Gecko on the accordion… he’s eating nachos man!!!”

Viral video is an experiment for most marketers. Geico has the advantage of having a famous icon that is so well known that brand awareness occurs simply by seeing the lizard. To the extent that people actually do forward these videos to other people then they will have succeeded in exposing the Geico brand to those viewers. That said, Geico runs the risk of associating their brand with something that is less than clever and worse, over-exposing the brand icon to the point that the Gecko could start to lose it’s appeal.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , ,

Life-Pattern Marketing and Geo targeting

March 26, 2009 by 3 Comments

 

I ran across an interesting article in Digital Signage Today (the Digital Signage Accociation’s portal) written by Peter Bowen, CEO of SeeSaw Networks. Bowen presents a case for significant growth in the benefits and use of location-based marketing using digital signage. “Life Pattern Marketing’ he suggests allows behavioural targeting to more cost effectively deliver relevant content to specific consumer segments in the context of where they are more likely to be influenced by those messages. Reaching ‘alpha moms’ at specific venues during their day or students in locations where they most likely to be found are examples. Video and rich media content can be tailored to more specific audiences and can address a much more narrowly focused message or benefit based on specific behaviours of those target groups.

‘Geo targetting’ allows marketers to customize their message to a very narrow geographic area in a way that broadcast media like television and radio could never do. Reach and frequency, both pillars of tradional broadcast marketing are becoming less relevant in todays fragmetted consumer world. Mobile advertising, the ultimate form of geo-targetting is the holy grail of advertising. If you can convince a mobile device user to allow geo targetted messages (not an easy task so far) you can deliver specific and relevant content to your target audience when and where it has the most value.

No doubt we will see a significant growth in localized media networks in the next few years – followed by the inevitable consolidation of those networks a few years after that. In the interim you should consider testing these local advertising networks with your geo-targeted messages. One significant advantage to these networks is that it should be easier to measure the effectiveness of your advertising because of the immediacy of the message.

Signs, signs everywhere digital signs.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , ,

Betty Crocker uses How-to videos to keep brand relevant.

March 23, 2009 by Leave a Comment

 

 
In the 1920′s General Mills sponsored a radio cooking show called “The Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air.” Hundreds of thousands of homemakers tuned in each day to learn new recipes and cooking tips. Eighty years on Betty Crocker is still going strong thanks in part to it`s commitment to branded infotainment as a way of reaching it`s core audience.

Today the Betty Crocker brand is being supported by some rather impressive web-based tools and services. On the Betty Crocker website you can download an iPhone cookbook application, you can create your own online recipe box and you can view a wide variety of how-to videos that have been developed in partnership with Howdini- a How-to video site targeted to woman.

Creating how-to, informational and general help videos that support the users and ecosystems around your brand is a smart way to keep your brand relevant and to ensure that your core customers continue to find value in what you do.

If Betty Crocker can keep something as generic and undifferentiated as cake mix top-of-mind for the last 80 years you can probably envision a way to add value to your customers and prospects.

Filed Under: Content Marketing, Corporate Video Examples, General, how-to video, Marketing with Video Tagged With: ,

Denny’s uses in-restaurant video to increase revenues

March 23, 2009 by Leave a Comment

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Mark Chmiel, Denny’s chief marketing and concept officer gave an interview to adweek where he discussed Denny’s foray into in-restaurant video networks that will be rolling out across Denny’s global chain of restaurants.  In the interview Chmiel reveals that they are considering many non-traditional digital marketing platforms including AOL and social networks.  He also explained that the roll out of their new DOOH (digital out of home) network is intended to up-sell products and enhance the guest experience. What wasn’t mentioned in the article was the share of  advertising revenue that Denny’s would receive for agreeing to exposure it’s customers to a barrage of network ads.

Denny’s is using a DOOH network run by Indoor Direct - a company with a large and growing footprint in large restaurant chains.  Denny’s is allocated 6 minutes a day on the newtork to promote it’s own content – the rest is advertising and/or entertainment programmed by Indoor Direct. Advertisers treat in-restaurant viewers as a higher value audience as these viewers are out in the market already and more likely to act on ads they see so the CPM for these audiences would be considerably higher.

Chmiel optimistically characterises the video network as ‘enhancing the guest experience’. Hard to imagine that offering advertising to your customers enhances anything but your bottom-line but I believe this is just the beginning of a new and growing wave of video marketing and advertising. Any wall or surface that can accommodate an inexpensive video screen will represent a revenue generating opportunity for someone. It will also represent a marketing opportunity for you.

Filed Under: Content Marketing, General, Marketing with Video Tagged With: , , ,

Microsoft promotes IE8 launch with video, lots of video.

March 20, 2009 by Leave a Comment
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In order to stop or reverse the continuing erosion of Internet browser market share Microsoft is launching it’s revamped browser IE8 (replete with lots of new bells and whistles) with great fanfare. Firefox continues to gain followers, Google is pushing Chrome very hard and the popularity of Apple products will ensure that a small but loyal group will continue to browse the web with Safari. Microsoft is doing it’s best to maintain a 70% market share (down from over 90% a few years ago). While any Microsoft marketing activity can be dismissed as just another dip into their bottomless reserve of cash it is still instructive to look at how they are spending their promotional dollars. This time around they are spending money on video – lots of it.
 Microsoft has hired or licensed some know and lesser known comedians and Internet celebrities (i.e. Obama girl and Ask a Ninja) to help create some rather engaging content and also to promote some of the new features of IE8 in a series of videos called ‘The history of the Internet”. It’s well done and worth a look. Interestingly you had to install Silverlight (Microsoft’s competing product to Adobe Flash) to view the videos. I couldn’t find the these videos on YouTube so presumably Microsoft is controlling distribution to encourage people to install Silverlight. I’m not sure this is the best way to encourage the viral spread of a video but I’m sure they know what they are doing…
 Aside from the 25 half minute humour clips they have assembled to promote IE8 virally they have also created the following 15 separate marketing videos:
  1.  A 30 second commercial that plays on the homepage of the IE8 Site (This video offers the least value of any of the video’s – no one wants to watch a commercial on the  web… unless it’s really engaging.)
  2. An overview video that summarizes the features and benefits of the new browser.
  3. 5 separate videos that explain the detail of each of the 5 major features.
  4. 3 scenario videos that demonstrate popular use-cases for where the new browser features will be used.
  5. 4 Partner videos that show how selected Microsoft partners are benefiting from the new features.
  6. A detailed ‘case study’ that details in an interesting comparative format how the new browser is as fast or faster than that of it’s competitors – trying to quell one of the big knocks against the old browser.
 This is a smart way to develop video – short form targeted video that highlights a specific idea (feature and/or benefit) to a specific audience. Creating one 30 minute video would have guaranteed that no one watched it. The cost of creating 15 small videos is not that much more than the traditional cost of creating a 30 minute video. Microsoft is obviously committed to using video and sees it as one of the most effective ways of communicating with its online audience.
 
 
 
 
 
Filed Under: Corporate Video Examples, General, Marketing with Video Tagged With: , ,

Corporate Video – new expectations and behaviours

March 18, 2009 by 5 Comments

Last month the Nielsen Company (the company that determines TV ratings) issued their ‘Three Screens’ report which indicated video viewing is on the rise across all three screens (television, mobile and computer/Internet).  While the TV networks saw this as a cause for optimism (albeit short-lived) the important take-away is that video consumption is increasing over time and will continue to increase. The behaviour is changing. How this will affect the TV networks remains a multibillion dollar question.

TechFlash – a Seattle tech news site posted a story about Amazon’s plans to add streaming video to it’s IMDB property. What they plan on streaming could shake the network and online video entertainment industry to the core. Col Needham, founder of IMDb (The world’s largest movie trivia and information site) said the site aims to stream it’s entire database of movies and TV shows (1.3 millions movies). So when you go to look up that bit actor in an episode of your favourite sitcom – you can immediately watch that show or movie.

How do these two unrelated stories affect business marketing? The two fundamental drivers behind all marketing activities – behaviour and expectations are changing quickly for video as a media to deliver content. The entertainment industry is driving these changes – as it does for many things. Video consumption is growing significantly. This behaviour is focused on entertainment today as that is where we have traditionally consumed most of the video we watch. With fast Internet connections, costs of video production decreasing, the advent of user-generated content and the proliferation of video screens everywhere and anywhere the behaviour of increased video consumption shows no signs of slowing.

More significantly in the near term, you will also start to see a change in the expectations of video consumers - again driven by video entertainment. IMDb could have an even larger impact on video consumption that Netflix or iTunes. Imagine going to IMDb and searching for a person, a movie and being instantly gratified by being able to see all or part of what you were looking for. This will become the new standard – instant access to what you want (where you want to consume that information). This won’t happen tomorrow – but it is the direction, the new reality. This change will drive new online expectations.

Just a few years ago a lot of companies couldn’t imagine why they would ever need to be online. (I remember many of these conversations). The next wave of change is going to be instant access to important information for your customers and prospects. A “web presence” won’t help you. You will have to provide real value (not just marketing literature) to your audience before they purchase your goods or services. You will have to engage them where they are (online) and you will have to give up a lot to keep them engaged. If you don’t your competitors will.

Most of this content and value will be in the form of video or some other interactive media because that is what your customers will want. That will be the easiest and most efficient way for them to consume the information, solve their problems and make business decisions – wherever and whenever they want.

Online expectations and behaviours are changing. You need to think of how your comapany will adapt to this new reality.

Filed Under: General Tagged With:

Linux tries their own “I’m a {name here}” – style video promotion.

March 15, 2009 by Leave a Comment

 

 
The Linux Foundation is tapping the open source community and the collaborative masses to submit entries into it’s “We’re Linux” (true, it isn’t exactly ‘I’m a Linux’) video commercial contest.  The above entry is one of close to a hundred videos developed over the last three months. As you might expect many of the videos are silly, bad parodies or just plain strange,  but that’s not really the point. Linux is community driven and this contest is a great way to get the developer  and creative communities to rally around the Linux project.

The Linux Foundation doesn’t have Apple’s or Microsoft’s financial muscle but it does have a worldwide community of enthusiasts and promoters and this video is a great way to energize these groups. That said, I would have liked to see a different approach than employing Apple’s “I’m a {name here}” format. Microsoft was so threatened by the “I’m Mac” that they felt they had to respond with “I’m a PC”.  I don’t think it helps Microsoft or Linux to allow Apple to set the promotional agenda. There are plenty of parody and professional “I’m a Linux” ads (Novell created a good series of these a while back) already.  ”How Linux is changing the world” or “Linux where you least expect it”  or something that highlights why Linux is important could have served them better.

It’s hard not to root for the underdog – I hope this promotion does well for them.

The prize is an all expenses paid trip to Japan!

Filed Under: Content Marketing, Corporate Video Examples Tagged With: , , ,

Why Video Marketing doesn’t always work

March 13, 2009 by 3 Comments

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“We need some flash stuff on our website!” 

Ten years ago web-based flash garnered a lot of attention. Today video is the ‘media de jour’ for many companies – for lots of good reasons. But like any marketing tool or intiative (blogging, brochures, advertsing, events, etc.) you should have a plan in place and some measurable outcomes in mind before you start a video marketing project.

Last week, all on the same day, I had these conversations about using video as a marketing tool:

At a local ski resort. ‘Oh yes, we’re already doing video – check it out on our site!” Having done my homework before chatting with this company I had skimmed through the site and hadn’t noticed any video. I mentioned that to them and they told me where to find it. Point # 1. If you are going to go to the effort of making video feature it prominently (unless it’s really bad – then don’t use it ). Video gets the largest response of any media, keeps people on your site and is a great way to encourage a call-to-action, whatever that may be. The ski resort’s hidden video was less than impressive. It featured a young employee talking quickly about the local ski conditions that day. The video quality was poor and they didn’t show off any of the ski area. Point # 2. Video is a visual media – use it as such.  Bad quality video has the same affect as bad writing, only its sticks with you longer. Say something interesting, show people the benefits of your product or services when you use video and try to achieve a level of professionalism that matches the intended professionalism of your establishment. Bad video doesn’t get a free pass because it is a new media.

At a local educational institution. ‘Oh we’ve tried video but we haven’t been happy with the results.” Not having done my homework on this one (shame on me) I had to defer to that comment and simply asked – “do you feature students in your videos?” The response, after a short pause – ‘oh yes’. The reality after checking the site – ‘not much’. Point # 3. Consider your audience. The site did have a number of videos on it – some institutional corporate videos, a number of the school’s faculty talking about courses and programs and a few students talking briefly about the institution. What was missing were students talking about and SHOWING other students in their voice, how cool and interesting life and learning were at the school. Video targeted at students should consider this critical question – Will students want to share this video? The answer to this question for this instituion was an emphatic ‘no’.

At a local tourist destination. “Yes we’ve been using video for a while now – we have video playing in our lobby”. My first thought was – ‘isn’t that a bit late in the purchasing cycle to be hitting customers with video – they’ve driven up to your destination, you’ve probably already sold them.” Point #4. The context and use of video is critical to the success of your intiative. Of course there are many great uses for in-store/location video such as cross-selling and up-selling and perhpas this was exactly how they were using the lobby video that they had created. Tourist destinations are a prime candidate for web-based video marketing – Why? Because if you create compelling video that highlight the features of your destination – that include testimonials. you might just get your customers to help you sell your services for you. This is the great potential of social marketing and social networks.

Video is great for website-based marketing and in-premises marketing but you should also create the tools that allow your customers and prospects to share your story.

Filed Under: Content Marketing, Marketing with Video, Video Marketing

Federal Trade Commission goes viral!

March 11, 2009 by Leave a Comment

 

What makes this video so interesting isn’t the quality of the video itself – it’s actually pretty good, but the fact that it was created by the Federal Trade Commission (California-based Aperature Films developed this and another Irish folk song styled diddy for the FTC) to compete with a private sector service. Before you raise your anti-government hackles too high you should first understand the context of the video. 

The web is rife with ‘free credit report’ ads which invariably take you to sites that try to convince you to pay for ongoing credit monitoring or similar services (free-ish). The FTC has successfully charged one of the “free credit report ” related companies, on multiple occasions, with deceptive advertising practices. Instead of continuing an endless (and relatively unsuccessful legal) battle with these free wheeling credit report companies the FTC decided to go ‘viral’ and take their fight to the masses.

The fact that a government agency is using social media to spread it’s message is significant. While I don’t expect the Deparment of Homeland Security to be hiring the ‘Light Sabre Kid’ or the ‘Leave Brittany Alone’ person to endorse their next initiative I do expect to see other government agencies begin to engage their constituencies where they are more and more likely to find them – online, sharing information with friends and colleagues.

 The FTC spent approximately $100k on a series of viral video promotions (why they went for Irish music right out of the gate is a mystery) – which is still at least a couple of orders of magnitude less than the other ‘free credit report’ companies spend promoting their services.

Aside from the fact that the US government and private sector services are both competing to offer ‘free’ services it is interesting to hear (albeit in the form of lyrics…) the US government going directly after a commercial service.

We live in interesting times.

Filed Under: General Tagged With:

IBM gives freaky-weird a try

March 9, 2009 by 1 Comment

 

 
Thomas Watson (founder of IBM) must be turning in his grave right now. Big blue seems to have shed it’s buttoned down culture and embraced really questionable ‘viral video marketing’ like a lot of Fortune 500 companies. It’s hard to imagine how this concept (“Mr. Fong” is lost in space and you have to help get him back to earth) made the cut or how this video series might in any way relate to the customers and prospects of the database software it is supposed to be promoting.

Mr. Fong’s adventures were developed by Ogilvy in New York and I can’t help but think they’d like a do-over on this one. Thirteen viral videos have been created to date and it appears that they have been collectively viewed by less than 4,000 people (on YouTube at the time of this post). The video featured above has had the most hits (650) so presumably it is the best of the lot.

Not every marketing campaign is gold and not every dollar invested in promotion pays dividends. But man it’s tough to explain this one – it’s just freaky.

Filed Under: Corporate Video Examples, Marketing with Video, The Effect of Video on Your Brand, YouTube Video Tagged With:
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