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Web video best practices? – Salesforce.com chooses YouTube

February 6, 2011 By Jimm Fox 2 Comments

Salesforce provides cloud-based CRM tools and is a global leader in web-based services.  With over 1500 videos it’s safe to say that Salesforce is fully committed to web video as a means of reaching their customers and driving new business. If the internet is important to your business the above Saleforce video case study will show you how web-based video can support your ongoing business objectives. Saleforce presented this video at a recent Google B2B Think conference.

The video shows why Saleforce has chosen YouTube to manage their video assets,  promote awareness and drive new leads to the company. Some highlights from the video:

- YouTube is now one of Salesforce’s most important online marketing tactics.
- Saleforce equates their YouTube effort to adding 46 sales reps.
- Interestingly, one of the reasons Saleforce chose YouTube as their video delivery platform was that it was one of the most trusted by users.
- They have seen much greater success with video SEO since using YouTube to host their video.
- They have also tested YouTube Display Ads, Promoted Videos and on video Calls to action.

Many businesses today are considering what is the best option for hosting their marketing video. Obviously Salesforce isn’t concerned about issues such as YouTube being blocked by some sites or the possibility of other videos being shown around your video if you happen to click through to the YouTube site itself.  Should they be?

Filed Under: General, Marketing with Video, Online Video Industry, The Future of Corporate Video, Video Marketing, YouTube Video Tagged With: , , , ,

Top viral videos of 2010

December 29, 2010 By Jimm Fox Leave a Comment

A pub full of beer-hardened British Soccer fans singing a love song – doesn’t get any better than that!

The British online brand magazine Popsop has issued their top ten ‘contagious’ videos of the year. (You can see them all here).  A great selection because it showcases a number of videos that didn’t get a lot of media attention here in North America. Near, or at the top of every list this year is the ubiquitous Old Spice ‘Smell like a man’ series. Another great one to watch is Levis’ ‘The guy who walks across America.’ Check out the ‘making of‘ video as well – they put a lot of time and effort into this video.

But hands down my favorite is ‘The Puma Hardchorus’. I’m a sucker for singing soccer hooligans. The video is simple, the juxtaposition of these rugged soccer fans singing this delicate love song is wonderful and there’s actually a bit of harmony in that song. Nicely done Puma!

Filed Under: Viral Video, YouTube Video Tagged With:

The power of video. A story told well can reach a broad audience.

December 23, 2010 By Jimm Fox 1 Comment

“Rosling believes that making information more accessible has the potential to change the quality of the information itself.” – Business Week Online

Doctor and health researcher Hans Rosling has spent the last few decades of his career making statistical analysis more engaging. In this recent video (an excerpt from a BBC series – The Joy of Stats) Rosling employs animation to demonstrate how the overall health and wealth of everyone on earth has advanced over the past 200 years and more importantly, how developing nations appear to be catching up to the more prosperous western nations. While I can’t comment on whether the oversimplification of such a complex issue as global health is a good or bad thing, I am impressed with the effectiveness of Rosling’s presentation. Almost any message – corporate, educational, or otherwise can benefit from a healthy dose of ‘show me don’t tell me.’ Risling employs a compelling mix of enthusiasm and animation to highlight the important points of his message. At two million YouTube views (remember this isn’t Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber), this video clearly demonstrates that a story told well can reach a broad audience.

I’d also like to believe that the story being told is both positive and hopeful.


Filed Under: General, Video and Education, Video and Government, YouTube Video Tagged With: , , ,

The implications of Yogi Bear’s shocking death

December 15, 2010 By Jimm Fox Leave a Comment

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Warner Brothers has to be impressed, very angry and a little nervous, most likely in that order.

Edmund Earle, a recent animation graduate from the Rhode Island School of Design, developed his own ‘alternate ending’ to the current Yogi Bear movie based on the ending of the movie ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.’ Earle’s video is impressive (especially considering he did it himself) and will no doubt help to launch a successful animation career.  Earle refers to the video as a parody hoping to fall into ‘fair use‘ protection and avoid litigation. YouTube, like Hollywood is rife with ‘Parody’, ‘Inspiration’ ,’Homage’ , and people otherwise copying the style, themes or ideas of others.

This issue isn’t new but because the video is so well done, I believe it could start a much larger debate over ‘fair use.’ The simple claim would be that Earle is not directly making money off of a copyrighted brand, it was intended as a ‘parody,’ so – no harm no foul. WB on the other hand could claim harm and they might have a point. This video might also generate a huge amount of buzz for a movie that is still in theaters. (Wouldn’t it be brilliant if WB was actually behind this as a publicity stunt…)

Regardless of the legal issues or what side of the ‘fair use’ argument you happen to fall on, the implications of this video are significant to your company:

1. How much control do you have over your brand?
Is it okay for anyone to do anything they want with your brand, your copyrighted material and your intellectual property as long as they call it a parody? Most industry observers concede that social media is causing companies to lose control of their brands.

2. How should you react when this happens?
The easy and correct answer is – it depends. How much harm was caused? What are the short and long term implications? Will reacting or not reacting cause greater harm in the future? What are the PR implications to how you react? Do you scream like a petulant child or do you embrace (and therefore co-opt) the transgressor?

3. How does this ‘new reality’ affect your business and your brand in the future?
I believe this is the important consideration in this matter – the question all companies should be considering right now.  A few years ago the technology didn’t exist to allow one talented individual to develop and share something like this. Today it does. All bets are off. This is going to happen again and again, in many different ways with many different consequences.  Companies may or may not be protected by the law (just ask the recording industry), so what should you do to anticipate and embrace this change? Do you build this new reality into your future brand and business planning or do you fight kicking and screaming? Should WB start hiring more lawyers or should they be encouraging animators to develop alternate endings to some of their movies – like this one, while they are still in theaters?

Should you be steadfastly protecting your brand or sharing it with the masses?

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

Is ‘Will it Grill’ effective marketing?

November 14, 2010 By Jimm Fox Leave a Comment

Will this viral video generate revenue? My guess is yes.

Borrowing heavily from the Blentec marketing playbook (see Will it Blend ), the good folks at EZ Grill developed this ‘What Grills Faster?’ viral video to promote their portable/disposable grills.  This video was developed by an agency and there was likely some type of seeding activity to support the video, so while the cost to develop the video was much higher than just the cost of the phones you have to imagine the budget was still relatively low.  At 350,000 YouTube views to date and growing, there are a lot of people out their (myself included) who are now aware of a product they had never heard of, or considered before.

There are also a number of people upset with the blatant waste associated with this promotion – you can sense the palpable anger in some of the YouTube comments.

Why I believe this viral video is noteworthy is that it accomplishes two very important things that most viral videos do not:
1. It makes you clearly aware of the specific product – EZ Grill and,
2.  It highlights one of the key benefits of that product – in this case a portable/disposable grill that obviously throws off a tremendous amount of heat.

Will this viral have the same success as Blendtech’s ‘Will it Blend’? I doubt it.

Will it cost effectively drive awareness of their product and therefore net new sales? …probably.

Have they set themselves up for a series of new virals (like Blendtec did) where they set ablaze any number of interesting items (there’s no end of stuff that people would like to see torched)? Perhaps.

Is this effective marketing? What do you think?

{Note:  EZ Grill is also encouraging customers to send in photos and videos of themselves using the EZ Grill product in exchange for free products. This more ‘tradional’ social media marketing technique is a good engagement technique to supplement the awareness being generated by this viral video}

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

T-Mobile’s next installment in the “Life’s for sharing” viral video series.

October 31, 2010 By Jimm Fox Leave a Comment

Back in early 2009, T-Mobile developed their hugely successful ‘T-Mobile Dance video in Liverpool station‘ (23 million views on YouTube). Then, three months later they delivered the T-Mobile Sing-a-long at Trafaulgar Square video. (4 millions views). A year and a half  later T-mobile has introduced their most recent video developed to support their ‘Life’s for Sharing’ brand message. With this new entry, T-Mobile has delivered yet another clever video featuring great music in public places that captures both inspired performances by participants as well as great reactions from onlookers.

Creating a hit viral video is like creating a hit record – it’s really tough to do. I’m not sure if T-Mobile will ever be able to repeat the magic of the original T-Mobile Dance video, but any video that captures millions of views, as this one surely will, has to be considered a success. All of these videos are uplifting, fun to watch and very well done. I can’t think of a better way to continue to support the ‘Life’s for Sharing’ brand positioning.

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

Inspired Viral Video shows performance is still a big part of the song.

October 17, 2010 By Jimm Fox Leave a Comment

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So what did this one cost to make?

Like any popular song, an inspired video needs a hook. In this case the ‘hook’ is the band substituting their instruments with iPhone aps to play one of their recent songs ‘spontaneously’ on a New York subway. It feels real so it probably is, and if it’s not, it probably won’t matter. Did they do it in one take? Did they overdub some music in the studio? Was any of this really spontaneous? Perception is reality.

The band Atomic Tom delivered on a very simple idea – play your song using iphone aps instead of real instruments… in a public place. The video is certainly helped by good shot planning and structure: Start slow to limit expectations and build engagment as you go; Include crowd reaction shots to build interest and show that you should take notice of what’s going on; Include close-ups of the instruments to demonstrate how impressive (or ‘improbable’ for skeptics) the feat of playing a 4 inch sheet of glass can be.  And it certainly helps that the song they are promoting is a good one.

Like the experience of  Sons of Maxwell, this video will lift the band from obscurity and guarantee them their 15 minutes. The question remains, are they now on the same viral treadmill as OK Go where their future success is tied as much to the quality of their videos as it is to their music?

It’s a great video, and will no doubt inspire a thousand different (and lesser) variations on this theme.

… and yes, Steve Jobs has to be really happy with this video.

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

How web video powers global innovation

September 21, 2010 By Jimm Fox Leave a Comment

video powers global innovation

“I’m convinced that the latest iteration of crowd-accelerated innovation, fueled by Web video, is about to ignite the biggest learning cycle in human history.”

Big statement… with even bigger consequences. Imagine the impact on productivity if it’s correct.  Chris Anderson, founder of Future Publishing and curator of the TED Conference  says the rise of web video is driving a worldwide phenomenon he calls Crowd Accelerated Innovation — a self-fueling cycle of learning that could be ‘as significant as the invention of print.’

True to the vision of TED (“Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world”) Anderson suggests that video sharing sites like YouTube are driving innovation in thousands of disciplines ranging from the ultra-niche to the sharing of truly world-changing ideas.

Today individuals are driving this radical innovation. Organizations on the other hand, still  have to contend with inertia and institutionalized bad habits. They also need to embrace radical openness in order to tap into the power of this growing phenomenon. That’s a big challenge.

The video is thought provoking and certainly worth a look:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/09/18/anderson.youtube.innovation/

Filed Under: General, Online Video Industry, The Effect of Video on Your Brand, The Future of Corporate Video, Video and Education, YouTube Video Tagged With: , , , ,

How to make a great viral video.

March 4, 2010 By Jimm Fox 4 Comments

Making a great viral video is easy… just be inventive, shocking, funny, fascinating, captivating and awesome… all at the same time. (It’s actually really, really difficult to create a successful viral video.)

I’m not the biggest  fan of the music but the video is incredible. Obviously a great deal of time and effort went into the making of this music video for OK Go’s new song ‘This too shall pass”. Captured in a single four minute shot I can’t imagine many people leaving the video part way through. CNN published a good background piece on the making of this video.

Sure, this type of video has been done before, it’s still a great video. Don’t know if they’ll catch up to the 50,000,000 views that their last video received but, way to go OK Go.

Filed Under: Viral Video, YouTube Video Tagged With:

5 Reasons You Should Post Your Marketing Video on YouTube

February 16, 2010 By Jimm Fox 1 Comment

Happy Birthday YouTube.

The LA times just posted a recent article that highlights YouTube’s meteoric rise over the last five years.  Google’s $ 1.6 billion purchase of the site in 2006 is still being debated but few people are betting against Google eventually turning YouTube into yet another money making machine.

All hype and controversy aside, YouTube’s numbers are impressive:

85% online video market share in the US
#4 site globally in terms of overall traffic
#2 site globally for search
20 hours of video uploaded every minute
5 Billion video streams a month
#2 time suck behind network television
…etc.

The folks at ReelSEO posted a great article in the fall that compared the options of ‘Hosting’ your video versus ‘Posting’ (placing it on a free hosting site like YouTube) and considered nineteen variables that should influence your decision. Their conclusion: “Unless your business is dependent on monetization of content (you are Hulu), chances are that the odds will be in favour of posting video.”

The biggest complaint about YouTube is that it is a big messy sandbox where you can’t control how your video is being presented. That’s true, but it’s important to remember that YouTube is more than just a place to post your video for free – it’s also a marketing platform. Here are five reasons why you should place your marketing video on YouTube (regardless of whether you also host them on your own site):

1. Sharing
Yes, you do lose some control over how your video is presented on YouTube, that’s the down-side of social media – the single biggest issue for companies deciding if and how to engage the great social media experiment. The upside however is huge. YouTube was built for the express purpose of sharing. The reality is that your website isn’t as important as it used to be – it’s no longer the exclusive or final ‘destination’ for all things about your products and your brand. More than ever people are discovering content wherever they happen to be (physically or virtually). You need to create content that is intended to be shared and consumed in many different ways and YouTube is the world’s biggest content bizarre – open 24/7.

2. SEO
Google is prioritizing video in it’s universal search algorithm. Every SEO article I read tells me that Google is explicitly looking for video content. Does Google have a bias toward video on it’s own website? It’s hard to say but you know that Google is certainly aware of it’s own video and is reading the meta data that you have tagged on your YouTube channel. Ideally, if you have a video sitemap on your website with proper mRSS feed Google should be able to find and promote your video as well. Why not do both? As well, you benefit from metatagging your video content on YouTube and linking back to your own website to help improve your site’s pagerank.

3. Content marketing and getting noticed
Content marketing will have the greatest potential to influence your brand in the future. Traditional marketers will argue that it’s a waste of time to place their videos on YouTube because no one is looking for them and no one is going to find them. That’s true. No one is looking for your traditional marketing video because it talks about you and your products and no one cares much about you or your products. If instead, you post a really informative video that solves a specific problem that your customers are facing your video will not only get found, it will get shared. ‘Yes, but we can’t just give stuff away,” you might respond. If you don’t someone else is going to.

4. Reach.
The long tail gets longer every day. YouTube has the greatest reach in the world (thanks to Google). Your audience may be huge or it may be very, very small. It doesn’t matter. There is no more cost effective way to reach your potential audience than on YouTube. Sure, the person typing in “Lolcats” into YouTube is not your customer, but the person typing in “North East Bolivian Pitted Kumquat Ripple Delight” just may be. Your customer may not frequent YouTube but I would bet that someone who knows and is trusted by your customer does.

5. It’s free.
Chris Anderson explains in his new book ‘Free – The Future of a Radical Price’ (a great read btw) that free is the inevitable price for many things online – you just have to figure out something else to charge for. Free doesn’t necessarily mean cheap either. YouTube continues to upgrade it’s service every month with things like better support for HD video, interactivity, metrics, mobile integration (i.e. the only easy way to get video on an iPhone at the moment) etc.

Filed Under: Content Marketing, General, how-to video, The Effect of Video on Your Brand, The Future of Corporate Video, Video Marketing, video production, YouTube Video Tagged With: , ,
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