We all love watching videos, don't we? Nowadays online tools are making it so much easy to use and to share the content we favour with the others. Long-live YouTube?
Well, brands are now on their way to exploring its opportunities and hindrances. That's when viral videos came along...to spread the word, to get in the limelight of public attention and what's next? How does public interest affect the brand itself?
To be honest I can't wait to share my case studies and let you judge their effectiveness on the brand.
In both cases, the companies were the ones to employ creative agencies in order to launch teaser videos related to either the product, or the campaign. So it wasn't the case of an organic content, posted by consumers. And guess what?
In August 2008, Levi's decided to use viral videos as part of its global "Life's unbuttoned campaign" to get heard in 110 countries worldwide. The first video featuring guys jumping into pairs of jeans held aloft by their buddies gathered unexpectedly 3.5 million hits in just a matter of weeks, having already over 5 million views today on YouTube! I let you see it below:
The buzz was spectacular! Moreover, the company decided to attract a wider audience moving the viral video on TV. Levi's figured it out that a rumour today can spread within seconds globally!
Among the reasons for the video success, Erica Archambault, Levi's Head of PR stated that it was : funny, entertaining, having only a slight Levi's brand feeling behind it. She added that "We didn't want to overtly a brand as Levi's. We wanted people to discover it in their own" (cited by Adweek, May, 2008). And if you look on YouTube to see how many public responses were posted, you'd notice the amount of engagement to it.
Some fresh examples? Samsung used an online storytelling trick to help spread the news about its new HD camera (I8910), making it look as a consumer generated content. In fact, it added to it a flavour of mystery and challenge, generating over 1,03 million views for just a couple of months. The whole idea was a make-up trick, letting the viewers guess on "How it was made?".
I'll just give you a link to the actual video, so that you can easily find Samsung's secret unveiled in the next spot called "YouTube HD Camera Trick - Revealed!". I'd have to say it's a true piece of a genius as the simplicity used is astonishing. Ok, now ready to get into a mysterious witchcraft session? Take a look bellow:
By the way, when you get to see the thanking message from Samsung, you'll probably feel the same admiration for the creative idea behind it, so that the upper step would be to spot on "the next Samsung's trick"?...alhough I couldn't see myself in David Copperfield's shoes, but if you would - maybe the next Samsung's quote would be yours?
Print this post
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Hmm..I understand companies trying to market their products using viral..but how could that translate into sales? Are there any measurement tools that B2B/B2C could adopt?
Sales figures are difficult to attach to each viral campaign, what is available though - is an analytical approach for measuring users' interest and sentiment, which has become possible due to evolving web and social media metrics.
Post a Comment