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New Fedex Video? What’s the opposite of viral?!

July 20, 2009 by Leave a Comment

 

 

Dear Mr(s). Fedex marketing executive,
1. What were you thinking?
2. What’s the point?
3. Did you test these before releasing them?
4. How did you pick Fred Willard…?
5. What’s the point?

If these videos were created by a local company trying to establish themselves in a tough local courier market I would be inclined to think WOW, these guys put a lot of time and money into this series – good first effort and I’m sure you’ll learn from this one and do better next time. But this is Fedex. A global brand that is struggling financially that should be working really hard at positioning itself against regional and global competitors.

Fedex chose this year to pull out of it’s yearly Superbowl advertising after an 18 year run. I guess they spent the money on this instead. Bummer.

Fedex has created a series of ‘infomercial spoof’ videos that were obviously intended for ‘viral distribution’. These will never be anything close to viral. Fedex has launched a YouTube channel called `Getinfoatained` to house these videos. I am always surprised (and honestly frustrated) when huge international brands with huge international budgets miss the mark on such a grand scale. 

Contrast these videos with the excellent series of whiteboard commercials that UPS developed recently. The UPS videos are simple, easy to understand, represent the company well and communicate very effectively the specific points that each video is designed to deliver. By contrast these Fedex videos are waaaay over the top and Fedex just comes off looking like they are trying far to hard to entertain. I imagine there is some real information in there somewhere but I’d be surprised if recall tests on these ads produced anything more than acknowledgement of Fred Willard being campy. If there is any branding value delivered I would guess it is negative. There is nothing good here to associate with Fedex - they aren`t funny, engaging, shocking, or interesting. Perhaps the worst criticism is that they would have been more effective if they were a little bit worse because at least then more people would have been talking about them.

My recommendation would be to pull them quickly and start over. 

 

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/business/media/20adco.html

 

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

Talyor Guitars benefits from United Airline’s mess

July 17, 2009 by Leave a Comment

 

 

A week ago I posted about Dave Carroll and his band ‘Sons of Maxwell’ getting the run around from United Airlines after the negligent mishanding of his Taylor guitar. Fed up and frustrated with United’s lack of interest  Dave decided to punish the Airline the best way he knew how – he wrote a song about the experience. (Two more songs are in the works…)

At the time of posting the video had an impressive 200,000 hits on YouTube. That was then. A week later the video has been viewed more than 3,000,000 times and the blogosphere is alight with the story. Must be tough sledding in the United PR department.

Sensing an opportunity Taylor Guitars has jumped into the video fray and published (responded with) their own ‘show of support’ video. It’s difficult to estimate but you have to guess the PR value for ‘Sons of Maxwell’ is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and Taylor guitar has probably never been this famous. Like all things viral this will quickly blow over but the entire incident will have left an invigorated Canadian country band, a rejuvenated guitar manufacturer and a discombobulated airline in its wake.

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

Barclay’s new video does great job of positioning the bank.

July 13, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Barclays’ new video delivers what advertisers strive for but so few are able to deliver:

The video has a simple but powerful message, it is memorable and it is very well produced.  Sure,  when you’re the worlds fourth largest financial institution you can afford to invest in quality, but spending money is no guarantee of success. Barclay’s does a great job of positioning itself against the current backdrop of global uncertainty as a pillar of strength, a place to turn that isn’t a house of cards or a financial facade.

Is it true?

Who knows? They bought Lehman Brothers last September and inherited a ridiculous amount of debt. China and Qatar now own (and control) a big piece of the company. But it’s advertising we’re talking about here – it’s perceptions that matter. This ad delivers a very convincing message – Barclay’s is un-fake, it’s solid, it’s there when you need it – when everything else around you seems to be falling apart. That’s  a powerful message.

The production values are incredible. It feels more like a movie than an ad and it manages to build your interest right up until the big payoff at the end. I doubt it will make big viral numbers and it won’t have the same impact if it is cut down to 30 seconds. This would be a great ad to run at movie theatres.  (I hate movie theatre ads too… unless they are really good.)

If Barclay’s reality matches the perceptions delivered in this ad then they are in good shape. If not, they’ve still done a great job at positioning themselves in a turbulent financial marketplace.

Filed Under: Corporate Video Examples, General, Marketing with Video, Video Marketing, video production, YouTube Video Tagged With: , ,

Evian’s brilliant roller babies… but it’s still just water, right?

July 10, 2009 by 1 Comment

It’s just water, isn’t it?

For some reason the French are really good at branding. Who else can get you to spend hundreds of dollars on a scarf or a little bottle of perfume? You would think that water – the ultimate commodity (the ‘air’ market hasn’t fully matured but I’m sure “l’air” will be at the high end…) – would be really, really difficult to brand. The French ‘own’ two of the best known water brands: Evian (owned by Danone – a French company) and Perrier (now owned by Nestle – a Swiss company). The ‘informed’ ask for branded water. The uber-keen insist on it. The well-healed bath in it. It’s still just water.

If you want to maintain position in a  highly competitive, commoditized market you have to remind people how important your brand is – which brings us to the roller rappin’ babies.

This video has ‘viral’ written all over it. It’s clever, it’s surprising… verging on astonishing and it’s fun to watch. Way to go Evian. What do babies have to do with the Evian brand – nothing. You can certainly make the arguement, as Evian does, that drinking their water keeps you young but I can imagine a hundred other brands (Pampers?) who would have benefited more from the visuals in this video.

Does all of that matter? Probably not. Evian benefits by associated itself with a really good viral video (and ad) and continues to keep its brand front and centre.

This video also demonstrates that there are now very few technical barriers stopping video developers from creating ‘virtually’ anything they can imagine. It is possible to make people believe that almost anything is ‘real’ – like drinking special water will keep you young.

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

United Airlines gets smacked by social media

July 8, 2009 by 3 Comments

True story.  Dave Carroll, lead singer for the country group ‘Sons of Maxwell’ watched in horror as United Airwaves baggage handlers tossed around and eventually broke his $3,500 Taylor guitar (Read the full story on the bands website).   After nine months of run-around and an almost comic disregard for the consequence of their actions, United was no closer to taking responsibility for the damage. In frustration Dave promised the airline he would write three (not just one…) songs about the incident. This one is the first.  It has already received over 200,000 views online. The song is sort of catchy.

How could the airline be so inept? Does United Airlines care now? Didn’t they know not to mess with musicians?

Video sharing, social networks and the ability to easily spread your message far and wide are all important factors causing (most) companies to reconsider how they deal with their customers. Up until very recently you had to commit a pretty heinous act against a customer for anyone to take notice. Now anyone with a computer, a video camera and a grievance can cause your company a considerable amount of pain.

Spending millions on generic positioning ads won’t amount to much if you choose to ignore your customers and if you choose to ignore social media.

Filed Under: General, Social Media, The Effect of Video on Your Brand Tagged With: , , ,

Air New Zealand’s naked flight safety tips

July 6, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Air New Zealand has developed an air safety video that has already received over four million Internet views. Given the subject matter, that’s quite remarkable. Sure the people delivering the instructions are naked (except for body paint made to look like airline uniforms) but that’s not what has everyone’s attention, is it?

It’s a great creative concept that is well executed. The video is fun to watch, the production values are very good and it manages, for whatever reason… to keep your attention. Try as you might you’ll see very little ‘skin’ in the video. The video also does something which may be more important than imparting valuable safety tips to its passengers – it positions the airline as a creative and open-minded organization. It’s difficult to imagine a North American airline approving this creative concept – and yet I can also imagine many of those same disapproving business leaders asking ‘why don’t we do something like this?’ around the executive water cooler.

They also follow-up with some bloopers – another smart idea as ‘related video’ material is becoming standard fare for web-based video campaigns. The true mark of success will be if a legion of parody videos develops around this concept.

Filed Under: Corporate Video Examples, General, Marketing with Video, Video Marketing, YouTube Video Tagged With: , ,