We are always concerned when a client begins a conversation about digital influence with viral video. It's just that we want to create a strategy first. There are plenty of good uses of remarkable video. They can serve reach goals and they can sometimes serve engagement goals.
I wanted to take a look at individual videos that are being shared out there. Some I have discovered through my seemingly endless reading (ok, scanning), some came from my very smart students at Johns Hopkins, some from colleagues. This is a simple round up of what works (beyond the obvious grand slam of our Toronto group's success with Dove Evolution).
Entertainment
Getting a talent like Christopher Guest to direct a 2:33 music video - or a couple of them - is a great move. He obviously has a draw amongst a smart, well-educated audience and he embraces the geek in all of us through every movie he has done. This particular video for Intel (a client but we had nothing to do with this) is great - it's funny, dense-enough that you may watch it a few times, lives up to what I expect from Christopher Guest, and it associates Intel with someone/something that is uncharateristically cool. It's at almost 25K views over 3-4 weeks which is not huge. But it is very B2B and huge numbers aren't necessarily the endgame. There are lots of B2B videos out there with tech companies, specifically trying to have fun. Branded entertainment isn't as it easy as it looks. And Christopher Guest is 'A' - level talent.
Good for: Reach & Awareness (not much about it leads to engagement - there is no click-through call-to-action)
How-it-works
I am a big fan of white board How-to's and How-it-works and this one about social networks is particularly good. This format is deceptively simple-looking yet it relies heavily on the "presenter" - either by being compelling or being a great counterpart to the visual story. The visual story is tightly choreographed. I would be surpised to discover that this was not painstakingly rehearsed. This is part of the "in Plain English" series that also includes "Wikis in Plain English."
Here's one from another source that has been around about a year (610K views) and outlines the marketing potential of SecondLife
Good for: Engagement, Thought Leadership
Futurecasting
There have been a lot of compelling videos that portray a vision of the future. This one was shared by Steven Feld, one of my graduate students (and smart guy). Called Prometeus - The Media Revolution (Prometheus?) it paints a picture of the future with enough sprinklings of present fact to be super compelling. And the Italian accent doesn't hurt either. Intel has one called the Intel UMPC Vision Video (again client but not involved in this one)
I am a sucker for future visions. We used to do these regularly at ATT&Viacom back in the early nineties to vision out what ITV might become.
Good for: Engagement, Thought Leadership
Interviews & Notable Presentations
Hearing from someone you admire or who interests you is "of-use." This goes beyond entertainment by offering access to a thoughtleader's POV that you might not normally have access to. Google has an internal series, Authors@Google, which is pretty much what it sounds like. this one features David Weinberger, author of Everything is Miscellaneous and the Cluetrain Manifesto (co-author). So, Google has these on-campus events for the sake of employees and then posts the videos for the sake of everyone. Great move. I have seen David speak and know he is insightful and inspirational. This is a series which features many authors including Christopher Hitchens and Floyd Landis.
Good for: Awareness, Engagement, Thought Leadership ( I have added 'awareness' here as the authors or notables will draw their own viewers thus introducing fans of the author to the sponsoring company.)
John,
Thanks for the Guest post. I'm in IT and had no idea about this - the songs in these videos get some things a bit wrong, but a surprising amount of things right. But then, he is Christopher Guest, a talent I have always found to be very insightful, whatever the subject. I went to YouTube and saw both videos - and the second one is twice as good. Have you seen it? Can you tell me if Guest did these directly for Intel or did he work with an ad agency or web company? I'd like to tell our marketing folks who came up with this. We could use their help!
Steph
Posted by: Stephanie Glazer | August 18, 2007 at 06:15 PM
Not sure who arranged this for them but quite likely it was their ad agency - feels like an agency did this....
Posted by: John Bell | August 18, 2007 at 09:16 PM
John,
They were done by a guy named Michael Jacobs, at an agency called MRM Worldwide. I know because I just read an article about this very subject in the New York Times this morning. Here's the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/17/business/media/17adco.html?_r=2&ref=media&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
I haven't seen the videos yet, though I am of course familiar with Christopher Guest. Does he usually do commercials? I think of him as a film director.
Posted by: Peter Lee | August 18, 2007 at 09:40 PM
Why must people need to admire multiple confirmed drug cheats?
How is Roid Landis life relevant to hard working people?
How does racing on a team of busted and/or confessed dopers (Phonak (13) & USPO (9)) create solid morale for non-pro-atheltes?
Why did Landis threaten Greg Lemond in writing on a public forum and then supervise a cell phone threat of a USADA witness, felony witness tampering?
Why did Landis father-in-law die of gun shot head wound within ten days of his steroid test 'B sample' confirmation?
Why do endorsed dopers always lie? Hamilton, Landis, Basso, Heras, Joachim, Andreu, Armstrong, Museeuw, Pantani, Riis, Ulrich, Zabel, Aldag, Millar, Virenque, McGwire, Bonds, Jones, Montgomery, White, Jacobs, Collins, Gatlin, Romanowski.
Why is commerial marketing never a sport?
Posted by: George Mitchell | August 19, 2007 at 01:17 AM
Folks,
As someone fascinated by the world of viral marketing, I was really enjoying this blog discussion. But Mr. Mitchell's post seems, excuse me for saying this, rather insane. Can someone please explain to me what the heck he is talking about, and how it is even 1% germane to an otherwise terrific conversation?
Posted by: Kay Bawler | August 19, 2007 at 09:33 AM
Not sure that George is really "on topic" here. I merely mentioned that the man he refers to spoke somewhere. I suppose he has a Google Alert set for the man who shall not be named. Still, I am reticent to take the comment down as it does relate to marketing in its own oblique way (the risks of endorsement in sports)
Posted by: John Bell | August 19, 2007 at 02:25 PM
Mr. Bell,
Thanks the the wonderful Christopher Guest Video. Great stuff. As one of the comments on YouTube attests, this is yet further proof that the man can find the "funny" in anything. And for my money, this kind of communication goes a long way towards elevating the "cool factor" of a brand whose marketing image is rather staid.
Posted by: Ebo | August 19, 2007 at 02:54 PM
Who is Christopher Guest?
Posted by: Harvey | August 19, 2007 at 09:12 PM
Great post John - as a video person this will be helpful in assisting my clients with defining what they want their video projects to be/become (some things just won't play in the entertainment category, and some projects NEED to be there!). Aristotle had something going with those Categories, to be sure.
Guest is fabulous - to answer Steph's question, many fine feature directors do ad and industrial work through repping companies. I've read Guest as associated with one of the big names but it doesn't come to mind at the moment.
Posted by: Stace | August 20, 2007 at 02:59 PM
MEMO to file:
All TV mass media sports marketing depends on endorsed drug cheats and/or criminals.
eg: Nike proudly endorses:
Marion Jones
Justin Gatlin
Michael Vick
Barry Bonds
Jasn Giambi
Lance Pharmstrong (LIFE WRONG bracelets)
Tim Montgomery
Regina Jacobs
Kelli White
Tori Edwards
Michelle Collins
LaTasha Jenkins
Kobe Bryant (rape, philandering)
Apparently, only cheaters can follow a winning script for TV theater of the absurd.
That's why Roid Landis must be sanctioned.
Posted by: George Mitchell | August 20, 2007 at 05:52 PM
Dear Jon - Thank you for sharing christopher's video. He is a class-act and perhaps the best humorist I've seen in ages.
Posted by: Design for MySpace | August 20, 2007 at 10:43 PM
I am a big fan of Christopher Guest and believe sing this caliber of talent to make videos in the entertainment category is smart. The question remains - how do you keep the budget down so that it makes financial sense to go in this direction? It's one thing for Intel to hire Mr. Guest once. On the other hand, I think many marketers underestimate what it takes to create a really clever video. Since silly backyard videos can go viral - every one should be able to do it. Shades of "The Player" - the scene where the upstart executive says, "we don't need writers..."
Posted by: John Bell | August 22, 2007 at 03:03 PM
With well over 65,000 videos being uploaded to YouTube every day on average (and that's an old stat), achieving a notable viewcount for a static corporate video (it's viral 'cause we said so) is pretty crazy. Agree 100 percent that creating some level of engagement with a much smalller group of customers is what you need to look for, and if a video helps you do that, great. Problem is sometimes we end up exerting most of the effort thinking up sweet video ideas.
Posted by: will zweigart | September 03, 2007 at 09:52 PM
Great Post john !! Thank you for sharing with us. I am big fan of Christopher Guest. He is a class-act and perhaps the best humorist I've seen in ages.
Posted by: Watch Movies Online | February 19, 2010 at 08:33 AM