Marketing with Video and Rich Media Blog

You are here: Home / Archives for Corporate Video Examples

Is successful viral video always good marketing?

August 14, 2009 By Jimm Fox 1 Comment

“Yes, I’m looking for a new notebook – high def screen, lots of memory and something I can catch with my butt.”

With over a million views on YouTube, this video has definitely gone viral. It’s well done and it’s not easy to tell how they faked it so that alone gives it a lot of viral juice. The matching spandex suits are also a nice touch.

Would I recommend this style of viral video to a client?  No.  Here’s why:

Little, to no brand presence.
I’ve never heard of MSI before – now I have, but only because I actually took the time to follow the link at the end of the video. I would be surprised if one in a thousand people bother. The link sends you to http://xslimvideoevent.msi.com – which is a video contest sub-site for MSI. Considering the 24 video entries on this site are averaging about 300 views each I don’t imagine many of the million- plus YouTube viewers are taking the time to investigate. Would many people understand what www.msi-xseries.com means without doing some research. I doubt it – it’s too subtle. I have to admit I enjoy the ‘viral video producers ethic’ that says it’s OK to show people catching your product with their buttucks but don’t you dare offend viewers by making a viral (intended) video too commercial!

What, if anything, do you assoicate with the brand?
Spandex suits and guys catching laptops with their butts. At some point you have to take a pass on crazy concepts… don’t you? Or is any concept a good one as long as people watch the video?

It’s been done.
Guy catches sunglasses with face was done last year to promote Ray-bans and received over 4 million views. It was fairly original when it was released and it caused a lot of buzz at the time. As soon as someone does something that is successful on YouTube everyone comes out with variations on that theme. There should be a reasonable limit to the number of commercial objects that can be caught with different body parts.

Most (99.9%) of videos that are intended to be viral aren’t. This one is. But just because it happened to go viral doesn’t mean it added any appreciable value to the company that sponsored it. Of course the gonzo marketers will argue that making a million people aware of your product – however marginally - is worth it, regardless of the method, subject matter or consequence.

As a friend put it, maybe these guys were just going for a different type of viral.

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

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

July 13, 2009 By Jimm Fox 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 Jimm Fox 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: , , ,

Air New Zealand’s naked flight safety tips

July 6, 2009 By Jimm Fox 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: , ,

New GM video – a bad way to (re)start

June 2, 2009 By Jimm Fox 1 Comment

“This is about getting down to business. Because the only chapter we’re focused on is Chapter One.”  What a load of crap! Do advertising writers really believe that cliches and slogans are the most effective way to communicate?

You missed ‘electric’, ‘efficient’, ‘quality’ and many other important ’trends’,  you’ve mismanaged one of the world’s largest and most important companies and now you are in bankruptcy protection… so what do you do?

You release a cliche riddled, generic video with predictable imagery that promises a ‘new beginning’, a’ fresh start’. The only thing missing is the waving flag and Bob Seger music. {Note, I watched the video again after posting and realized there is a waving flag, my bad.} 

This is a watershed moment for GM and its advertsing agency and yes, one day after bankruptcy filing is very early in the game, but if GM wants to signal that things have truly changed then the first signal to the market should be in it’s advertising/PR. This one minute ad could have been created five or fifty years ago, for any company. There is nothing genuine, informative or interesting in this video, nothing to signal to the world that things really are changing – it’s just more of the same.

GM will emerge from bankruptcy protection – it has to. It will be smaller and will have blown out many of the questionable lines it once supported. It will be leaner and perhaps meaner. It will also have to start communicating in a very different fashion. Informative may be a good place to start. Honest is good too. Inspiring would be ideal if that were possible.

Note: Blocking comments on YouTube is also a really bad start.

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

Channel creates more video (film) art to promote their brand

May 21, 2009 By Jimm Fox Leave a Comment

 

When you own a premium brand you have to spend premium dollars to support it.

Channel has just released their newest commercial / mini-movie and as before, have done a wonderful job. Last time it was Nicole Kidman in a three minute short film (or a three minute long commercial). This time around Audrey Tautou – one of France’s national treasures – graces the screen for Channel. North Americans might remember her as ‘Amelie’ in one of the few French films to get theatre time back in 2001. The Director of that film – Jean-Pierre Jeunet directs this commercial and was given a free hand in creating Channel’s newest filmette. Naturally he cast his favourite actress (it didn’t hurt that Tautou is also playing Coco Channel in the recently released film ’Coco Avant Channel’ in France) in the lead role.

The story (not that it matters a whit) centres around a chance encounter on a train to Istanbul. Tautou spends the remaining two minutes waiting and hoping to hook up with the handsome stranger. A sudden romance on a night train to an exotic destination – ya, it`s cliche. Romance and mystery and the promise of adventure – that`s what you buy when you drop $100 or more for a little bottle of purfume – the promise of something exciting. That`s exactly what Channel is selling, and they are quite good at it.

You have to give Jeunet top marks for his direction. He spared no expense (watch `the making of` to see what kind of coin they dropped on this little video) at creating some asbolutely stunning sequences. He`s come a long way since his last big North American film - he directed the last Alien film (I think it was called Alien Abomination). Like the perfume Jeunet is selling, this video won`t be for everyone  but for those who it targets, he hits the mark perfectly.

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

t-mobile creates another viral ‘event’.

May 6, 2009 By Jimm Fox Leave a Comment

A few months a go it was a flash mob dancing in Liverpool station. This time around it’s a sing-along in Trafalgar Square.

T-Mobile continues to embrace event-based promotions to support their Life’s for Sharing  marketing campaign. It’s working well for them. T-Mobile enticed a large crowd (mob) to gather in Trafalgar square to take part in a massive ‘dance activity’ -  like the Liverpool stunt, but bigger. Instead of dancing (selected) people were handed microphones and the mob was encouraged to belt out a fourteen thousand strong version of Hey Jude. Multiple cameras throughout the audience captured the love.

The video makes you smile and I have to imagine that Sir Paul approves (legally or otherwise). While it is different in structure from the Liverpool Station video it is similar enough in approach that I don’t believe it will create quite the same buzz this time around. It’s still better than most viral videos in that it directly and obviously supports a specific market positioning – ‘Lifes for Sharing’, it is very well done and it is very engaging (very shareable). I imagine T-Mobile will  be back at it in a few months with something even ‘newer and fresher.’

The back-story around these events is almost as important as the events themselves. Pink was in the crowd to perform a few songs and to work the crowd into a performance-ready pitch. There are as many “I was this close to Pink” camera phone videos as there are “This is me taking part in the song” videos on YouTube. This participatory approach is very smart as it promotes viral and social engagement .

It’s interesting to wade through the criticism of these types of events: “It’s fake”, “It’s staged”, “It’s just a big ad for T-Mobile”. Sure it is, so what? All those people and cameras… and Pink…  didn’t show up on their own. One blogger commented that she refused payment to promote the event on her blog and was torn about even mentioning the video. I’m surprised that people still don’t realize that video seeding and PR and a million other promotional activities are an integral (essential) part of the ‘viral’ success of these videos.

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

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

March 23, 2009 By Jimm Fox 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: ,

Microsoft promotes IE8 launch with video, lots of video.

March 20, 2009 By Jimm Fox Leave a Comment
   microsoft 
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: , ,

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

March 15, 2009 By Jimm Fox 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: , , ,
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »