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}

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.

.

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.

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.

Unlike most other forms of marketing, viral video makes a claim that it can almost never live up to: It will be so compelling that people will want to share it.

Client: “We’re thinking we’d like to do a viral video… like “Will it Blend” except instead of blenders, we’d feature our product”
Me: “Will Network Policy Enforcement Software blend?”
Client: …Okay, how about the “I’m a Mac thing? I know a guy in the lab who would be perfect to play the Mac guy… no, the PC guy, he’s the bad one right?”
Me: “A skit?”
Client: “Exactly! We want it to spread virally to millions of people.”
Me: “Who is the target audience for this video?”
Client: ” Senior Network Managers in mid-sized health services companies.  That’s our sweet-spot.”
Me: “There’s millions of them?”
Client: Well, there’s about 900 of them in North America. The other views would come from YouTube I guess.”
Me: Do you have a budget for this?
Client: “Viral is free, right? We’ve taken a couple thousand out of our cleaning budget to cover the production costs.”

The term ‘viral’ means different things to different people. In theory any video has the potential to be viral as long as you can reference it and/or share it online. The challenge is getting people to share it. Some say you can’t call a video ‘viral’ until it has hit the ‘million view’ mark. Others simply call a video ‘viral’ because it is intended to shared virally – much like calling a video ‘amazing’ because it was intended to be ‘amazing’. Whatever your definition of viral there many factors that can mitigate against the success of your video project.  So why do viral marketing projects fail?:

Great Expectations: Creating a hit viral video is like creating a hit record. It’s really, really difficult. Of the hundreds/thousands of viral-intended videos created every year for businesses only a handful truly go viral. Unfortunately these are the ones we hear about and therefore these are the ones that clients reference. Will it Blend?, T-Mobile Dance, or The Evian Roller Babies are all incredible but it is highly unlikely that anything you do will come close to this level of success.

Viral video is free and easy! No it’s not. It takes time, expertise/talent and facilities/equipment to develop a good viral video. Having more is always preferred in all three of these production resource categories (in spite of the ‘do less with more’ mantra.) ‘More’ costs more, always has, always will – just ask James Cameron. This comment from an article in Inc. Magazine says it all: “Even a company on a shoestring budget, using just a basic camera and simple editing software, can produce an entertaining demo that reaches thousands of prospective customers.” Yep, it’s just that easy!

Viral videos promote themselves! No, usually they don’t – they need help. ‘Video seeding’  is a common practice now for large scale viral videos where companies will help seed the market with videos by encouraging or paying influential bloggers, PR outlets and other influencers to promote a viral video. There are a growing number of companies that offer this service. Most popular corporate viral videos had a significant seeding component that contributed to their success.

Viral video is not risk free. Just grab a Flip and start posting your video online, right?  What if your video is embarrassing or just plain bad and it goes viral anyway? Would Apple or Coke or Nike allow this to happen? Does how you present your company to the world matter?

It is very difficult to measure success of a viral video. Is 167,000 YouTube views a success? Are any of those viewers your audience? Did they associate anything in your video, in a positive way, with your brand? Will that video affect their behavior or attitude towards your brand? Can you measure any of this?

The ‘viral’ label is a distraction. “…and we’d like the video you’re going to create for us to be viral as well.” I hear this quite often now. Clients want any video they do, regardless of the market, message and purpose to have a “viral component.” The way to create a successful viral video project is to start with that purpose in mind – the video is so compelling that people will want to share it. You can’t throw in ‘viral’ as an add-on to the project. Not only will the video not be viral, you may take away from the primary purpose of the video by trying to amuse, shock or bewilder people.

The term ‘viral’ is misused. I have read a number of recent articles that interchange the terms ‘web video’ and ‘viral video’ as if they refer to the same thing. A web video is any video (here are 42 examples of web videos) that is consumed on the web. Viral video is a specific type of video that is intended to be so entertaining, or remarkable, or shocking that people will be inclined to share it with their friends and colleagues.

There’s a fine line between selling and entertaining. If no one remembers or associates your brand with the video then you’ve wasted your money. Conversely, if the video looks like a two minute product demo no one is going to share it. A great example – Coke does a nice job (as usual) in straddling that fine line between promoting the product – the whole video is about a Coke Machine!, and entertaining – brilliant.

To truly succeed viral videos have to be great. There is extra pressure on viral videos to be really entertaining, or shocking or… something. Some of them are great and some of them are just plain awful. A viral video has to great in order to spread virally. Good usually isn’t good enough. The advantage of promotion through disruptive advertising (TV) is that your television commercial can be absolute crap and people will still watch it.

There’s a big difference between ‘Ineffective’ and ‘Awful’.

‘Ineffective’ just means you spent a bunch of money and received very little benefit in return. Most viral videos ads fall somewhere between ‘Somewhat Effective’ and ‘Totally Ineffective’ usually because the video just isn’t that good or because there was no proper promotional/seeding program to help it get noticed.

The good thing about bad television advertising is that it seems to quickly go away – the negative impact is limited. On the web bad ideas live on. Not only are the following videos not effective, they cross into the negative side of the ledger where their existence most likely has a detrimental effect on the brand.

1. ‘Funny’ Lenovo Ad – W700ds

Company: Lenovo
Why this video is awful. This video is crass, not particularly well acted and just not that funny (even though the title suggests otherwise). Lenovo, the Chinese company that purchased IBM’s PC division really missed the mark with this approach. I doubt 13 to 24 year old males with limited social skills are a big market for this really expensive laptop but I can’t imagine who else this video might appeal to. And the ending is pure gold: “Man, that thing is huge”…“That’s what she said.” (Calling this an ‘homage’ to The Office, or a satire, or a parody doesn’t excuse it).  If you are a global brand trying to compete with Apple, Dell, Sony and HP you have to do much, much better than this.

2. Launch Party

Company Microsoft
Why this video is awful. You have to know who your audience is. I have no idea who Microsoft thought this video might appeal to.  It’s difficult to tell whether Microsoft made this video really bad on purpose, or whether they really don’t know how awful it is. If they were going for parody/cheesy they failed. If they made it bad on purpose to generate buzz – as some bloggers have suggested, then you really have to question this being a viable marketing tactic. As I mentioned in a previous blog, hurling farm animals off the roof of your corporate headquarters will also generate a buzz – but not necessarily a ‘good’ buzz. Is the old saying ‘any coverage is good coverage’ true? Perhaps if you are a B-list entertainer trying to rekindle a career, but if you are a global company competing with well respected global brands like Apple and Google, quality and consistency in your messaging  is critical.   Ten years ago when Microsoft was at the peak of their monopoly this video wouldn’t have mattered. Today it does.

3.Track Packages with Mobile Solutions by FedEx

Company Fedex
Why this video is awful. Unlike the previous Microsoft Launch Party video you know that Fedex intended for this video to be campy/funny. It just isn’t. Fred Willard is an interesting/inspired/bizarre/amazing/questionable choice for presenter but this video (and the others in the series of viral videos created) just don’t work. They are not funny or clever enough to be of interest, they don’t impart enough information to provide any real value and nobody is watching them. Like Pepsi, Fedex chose not to advertise in this year’s Superbowl. Pepsi has reallocated funds to launch a social marketing initiative that looks to have huge promise. Fedex, on the other hand took their SuperBowl savings and created this series of viral-intended videos. They aren’t viral.

4. Chevy Volt Dance

Company GM
Why this video is awful. (Note to GM Marketing team – it’s not the 60′s!) GM’s YouTube channel describes this video as “GM’s official dance routine performed at the LA Auto Show and set to the official song ‘Chevy Volt and Me.” An official dance routine? This marketing program was created to promote the single most important car the company has ever launched. The ‘Volt’ is the future of the company and GM should be knocking us back in our seats with how remarkable this car is and showing us (the whole purpose of video) why this is the vehicle that is going to change the automotive world. Instead GM delivers a high school dance routine. Will this video appeal to potential  car buyers willing to spend $35,000 to $40,000 on a hybrid vehicle? Everything GM does right now has to be excellent – nothing less.

{Full disclosure: I want GM to succeed – they are a critical part of the North American economy and now we are all shareholders… but man, it’s frustrating when you see this stuff. My reaction should be “Wow! not, “Are you kidding me?!” Perhaps being ‘too big to fail’ renders all of these discussions moot.}

5. Microsoft Songsmith Commercial

Company Microsoft
Why this video is gawd awful. This video almost crosses the line of being so bad it’s good… but not quite. If nothing else, the YouTube comments are fun to read:

“I just threw up in my mouth”,
“I can’t believe I watched the whole thing and didn’t kill myself”,
“Epic Fail”,
“WTF – I think Microsoft is serious” etc.

Did I miss one? Is there a viral intended video circulating that will probably do more damage than good. If so, let me know.

{Added Jan 14…}

Follow this link below to see how Toyota, one of the most trusted brands in the world ,  stumbled horribly with video and social media:

http://mumbrella.com.au/how-saatchi-saatchis-toyota-social-media-disaster-unfolded-14257

BMW or Mercedes, I can’t remember which, has  successfully pushed ‘engineering’ as a key brand attribute for years.  Volvo has wrapped it’s brand around ‘safety’ for decades. Toyota is the king of reliability.  Volkswagen is going for fun. Why not? Fun is a great thing to associate your product or brand with. (Unfortunately ‘bankruptcy protection’, ‘restructuring’ and ‘didn’t require bail-out assistance’ are terms  that don’t seem to resonate with car buyers.)

Volkswagen’s European ad agency DDB Stockholm have developed a series of viral videos which are getting good traction. The concept is simple – How do you make ordinary things more fun. (Having fun driving a car, ultimately being the end game in all of this.). As viral videos go these are well structured:

1. Video Production. The quality of the video is excellent. It’s not too glossy, has a natural feel to it and doesn’t rely on much more the action in the video – no motion graphics, minimal in style and the audio is subtle. It doesn’t feel over-produced.

2. Focus is on human response. Not all viral videos focus on human interaction/response but the ones that do, and do that well tend to be able to capture genuine emotion associated with the subject matter. In this case it’s easy to put yourself in the place of the people in the video and share the intrigue, excitement… and the fun that they are experiencing.

3. Branding is subtle. There are obvious exceptions (Will it blend?) but for the most part successful branded viral videos downplay the brand in the video – either including a logo at the end or subtly including the brand in the video itself. No branding is pointless unless you can sell tickets to see the video, but there are diminishing returns on how prominent your branding can be. By comparison, paid ads with prominent branding are simply the (disruptive) cost you pay for viewing content. People are more likely to share content that isn’t obviously promoting a product (unless, of course if the ads are exceptional.) Is the branding too subtle? Perhaps.

4. Brand association is direct and the message supports the brand. More than anything Volkswagen is associating it’s brand with fun. This takes a lot of money to do well and to support over time but all things being equal, fun is a great brand attribute to aspire to. This certainly isn’t a stretch for the brand. The Volkswagen Beetle in it’s old an new incarnation have always been associated with fun. By comparison, the benefits to any brand of say…  catching a computer with your butt or herding electric sheep might not be as apparent to the viewer.

5. The video is very good. Not just the video production quality, which is very good, but the concept, the execution and the ‘pass-on-ability’ of the video. This is a video that many people will want to share with friends.

6. A series of videos with ‘teaser’ videos to support the campaign. Creating one viral video is a good start – if that video is successful. But even if it hugely popular it will still have a shelf life measured in weeks. Reach is important for getting noticed, but frequency is what changes behaviors. Volkswagen has developed a series of videos to support this campaign and is even creating teaser ‘coming soon’ videos to let people know that more are in the works. As video slowly begins to replace text (let the impassioned discussions begin over this idea) it will become more important to develop complimentary and overlapping videos that work together to tell a broader story.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

Good effort…  but the execution is off the mark.

Like every tourist destination in the world, the State of Florida is looking for new ways to attract visitors during tough economic times. They engaged  Spark - a Tampa agency to help them build a ‘social video campaign’ to spread the word and ‘Share a little sunshine.’

The promotion began with the above video which is basically a call to action to all Floridians to help boost tourist trade – an integral part of the Florida economy. So far so good.  {Unfortunately the campaign got off to a bumpy start as many YouTube posts complained that the poster board concept (which goes back to  Bob Dylan’s 1965 Subterranean Homesick Blues Video video) was ‘stolen’ from a very touching YouTube video entitled Mark by Ben - a plea by a Florida boy to help find work for his father.}

A website and promotional campaign was created to encourage keen Floridians to pass along the good word. The website includes one of three commercials – ‘Romance’, ‘family’, ‘friends’ that participants are encouraged to forward with the promise of a chance to win valuable prizes with each new email sent.

 The State missed a huge opportunity here. Offering a prize for emailing these videos to friends and family is a good idea but I don’t think it’s enough. Sure it’s easy to do and sweepstakes and contests will always guarantee a certain amount of interaction. I just don’t believe that the recipients, if they actually watch the commercials, will care. If someone sent me an email with a tourist commercial from their town I may start watching it, but it better be really good, or have a compelling message or story. These videos were obviously created on a very tight budget and certainly don’t reinforce all of the beautiful stereotypes of the Sunshine State. These stereotypes,  (Eiffel Tower, Venetian Canals, Manhattan Skyline, etc.) are one of the main reasons people choose travel destinations. Yes, reminding people of important social hooks (friends, family and romance) is interesting but there is limited direct connection to Florida other than the fact that someone from the state may (or may not) have forwarded it to you.

There is a place for high quality video and a place for lower-budget video. The problem is that the lower quality video better have something else going for it or it won’t get noticed.

A better option would have been to create or purchase a lot of excellent quality b-roll video and encourage Floridians to create their own tourist videos using as much of the supplied high quality b-roll video as they wanted. The uptake might have been more limited but the viral potential for these videos would have been a hundred times greater – as would the impact.

A contest to forward commercials is not a social marketing campaign, it’s a contest – that’s it. Give people the incentives (the contest and the ‘Help support your state’ video) AND give them the tools to create compelling videos with themselves in the video – now you have the potential for some exponential growth in both viewership and impact.

Some videos would be great – especially if you give the people excellent source material to insert in the videos and some would be pretty bad. But even the bad ones would be good because they would have real people in them and these people would want to forward these videos on to their friends and family and their family and friends would want to watch them and forward them on to other people.

Unfortunately, this campaign results in the worst of both worlds – lower budget commercials with limited social uptake.