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Frequency – the next frontier for online marketing video?

August 24, 2009 By 1 Comment

 

 

Much of the attention to date for online marketing video has been around single viral videos that, if the stars are in alignment, spike a few weeks after release with hundreds of thousands of views and then die a relatively quick death.  Reach is good – if your viral video takes off, but that’s no way build or sustain a market.

The ‘Will-it-blend’ series by Blentec was a great example of a well executed series of viral videos that helped sell a lot of Blentec blenders. Had Blentec stopped at the first video they would never have achieved the same level of success.  Which brings us to the Sons of Maxwell…

Dave Carroll – the lead signer for the Canadian band “Sons of Maxwell” promised that he would create three separate music videos to express his anger over the mistreatment he received after United Airlines wrecked one of his guitars and then did not take responsibility for their actions. The first video has received over 5 million views on YouTube alone. United is still reeling from that musical beat-down.

While the second video (above) will never get close to doing the numbers the first video did, it was very smart to create a series of videos to keep the momentum going and to keep his newly acquired fan-base in touch with the band. The second video is rather catchy and it’s fun to watch. The video also serves to showcase the musical range of the band which could help broaden their longer term fan-base.  Video three, when released will undoubtedly be different again, and will further reinforce the name and music of the Sons of Maxwell band.

Frequency of message – always important to the success of broadcast marketing, will start to play a larger role in online video marketing.

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

Is successful viral video always good marketing?

August 14, 2009 By 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: , , ,

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: ,
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