I've previously discussed TV events like the X-Factor, Eurovision and the Obama Inauguration in highlighting the trend for social TV, but these have been based around people discussing programme content rather than the ads around that content.
In certain cases TV ads have successfully become branded content that people want to watch again online and share with their friends (the Cadbury Eyebrows as an example), however the unique production budgets (and consumer anticipation) around the Superbowl ads means that we can judge ads side by side and use social interest as part of the effectiveness measures around these spots.
With 30-second ads selling for between $2.5m and $2.8m around Superbowl 2010, having ads live on through the internet is not just desirable but vital for the ROI equation too. The quest for further engagement online has prompted some advertisers, like GoDaddy, to (successfully) use creative to drive viewers directly to their sites to see further footage - or in GoDaddy's case the content that was 'Too Hot For TV'. However, no advertiser took the plunge on pushing a social Destination like a Facebook page or Twitter account via a Superbowl creative and bloggers like Jon Burg think this was a missed opportunity - especially as whether they like it or not, ads are living on and being discussed in social spaces.
Visible Measures have used their TrueReach technology (that aggregates total content views from multiple sites) to identify this years winners / losers from the Superbowl ad fest and have now published their results (based on social video viewing performance between Sunday, February 7, 2010 and Sunday, February 14, 2010.)
- In total the 2010 Super Bowl ads have been viewed 90 million times in social video. The ads have spanned nearly 3,000 total unique video placements across more than 30 video-sharing networks and have generated more than 60,000 comments and 90,000 ratings.
- Doritos, who ran four user-produced ads during the 2010 SuperBowl broadcast, had the #1, #9, #10, and #15 most-viewed ads in social video. Taken together, these ads have been viewed over 16 million times – or 18% of all social video views in the study.
- Two of the more controversial campaigns attracted high numbers of comments with Audi's Green Police ad in second and the Focus on the Family spot fourth.
The full list of the 'Social video views top 20 - Superbowl 2010' can be seen below:
SuperBowl 2010 - top 20 most viewed online with number of TrueReach views and number of comments (click for larger image)
The Visible Measures figures are another example of how TV exposure drives consumers online. Clearly some of the TV ads were part of strategies that had heavy online components (the Dorito's UGC competition, the Budweiser Facebook 'choose the ad' vote etc), but it is interesting to see the extent to which ad views and ad commenting have occurred after the event - and worth noting that this has happened regardless of advertiser involvement.
Bitly.TV video aggregation derived from Twitter links
Bitly.TV analyses the URLs being posted to Twitter and then showcases the most popular videos being shared through Twitter across a variety of different time frames - with users able to see results for 'now', 'last day' and 'last two days.'
Another interesting data source for 'whats hot right now' - especially as it is based on Twitter link analysis and highlights most popular video rather than most popular words.
2009 has truly been the year of social media / viral / content marketing. Across the board brands have been developing campaigns that don’t just shout messages at consumers, they engage them too. The development of social platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter etc have allowed advertisers to create content that resonates, content that sticks, content that is shareable and most important content that becomes social currency.
I have been presenting on social media all year and to support presentations I have been using self-made video mashups of various social campaigns. Hacked together using Microsoft Movie Maker, the following video contains a variety of clips that aim to bring to life some of, what I consider to be, the most noteworthy social campaigns of 2009.
Many of these have attracted attention by using viral seeding and blogger outreach to kickstart attention, but all of them have content that internet users have deemed worthy of sharing and watching again (and again!) All the clips are based around marketing (hence the omission of Kanye West, JK Wedding, Balloon Boy etc).
To launch Windows7 Microsoft offered consumers the chance to host their own launch parties - cheesy or ironic - people couldn't decide and this generated significant volumes of discussion. Full video here.
3) Karen26 - Visit Denmark created a film to attract visitors to Copenhagen, but it featured an actress playing a Danish single mother who was using youTube to find the father of her baby. Controversy quickly followed - my post on Karen26 is here.
4) TGI Friday’s Fan Woody - A campaign built around a simple proposition 'become Woody's Facebook Friend and get a free TGI Friday's burger.' My post on Woody is here.
5) At one point this year Amazon were selling more Three Wolf Moon T-shirts than all their other t-shirts combined! The result of tongue-in-cheek reviews that went viral. Full details here.
6) Walker’s Do Us A Flavour - arguably the first brand to do a User Generated Flavour and a campaign that generated over 1 million entries. My post here.
7) Man In The Jacket was an Australian viral campaign created by Witchery Man. 'Heidi' met a man in a cafe, she fell in love at first sight, he accidentally left his jacket (co-incidentally a Witchery Man jacket that was shown up to camera) and she set off on a YouTube quest to find him. After appearing on national TV and prominently in newspapers the video was then revealed to be a fake (original film here.)
8) MINI Clubman 'I think we're in a viral' (my post here.)
9) Air New Zealand ‘Nothing To Hide’ body paint safety video (original post here.)
10) Laptop butt - Computer manufacturer MSI promoted their new series of X-Slim notebooks by having lycra wearing men catch them....... video here
12) Megawhoosh - giant (fake) waterslide - later revealed to be part of a campaign for Microsoft (video here.)
13) VW's Swedish campaign around the idea of 'Fun Theory' attracted large numbers of visits. Piano Stairs being the most viewed of all (my post here.)
14) Heinken 'Walk In Fridge' - a hugely popular campaign that kept coming back in new guises - this clip results from a builder misunderstanding the idea of 'Walk In Fridge.' (video here.)
15) Samsung LED Sheep - Synchronised sheep herding, in the dark, promotes Samsung TVs (my post here.)
16) Toshiba Space Chair - the other way of promoting TV viewing is to send a chair into space and upload footage to YouTube! (video here.)
17) Lewis Hamilton Blackberry Driving - Blackberry Storm used by Lewis Hamilton to control a reconfigured F1 car (my post is here.)
18) Burger King’s ‘Flame’ fragrance - Burger King launch men's fragrance and use Piers Morgan as the front man (my post here.)
19) Susan Boyle - virality of the Susan Boyle performance gave ITV unprecedented coverage for Britain's Got Talent (full story on how it happened here.)
20) Meerkat Bloopers - Aleksandr Orlov out-takes seeded on YouTube
21) Best Job In The World - Hamilton Island, Queensland and the campaign that offered the chance to become a paid caretaker on a beautiful island (my post here.)
22) Bragster Upside Down Tango - Just one of a series of eyecatching Tango initiatives (full details here.)
23) Pink and the T-Mobile Trafalgar Square Flashmob - after the success of the Liverpool St dance, T-Mobile went on to do mass karaoke in Trafalgar Square, with Pink! (full post here.)
24) Oprah / Black Eyed Peas Flashmob - Oprah launched her new series by hosting a Black Eyed Peas 'flash mob' in Chicago (video here.)
25) Though new UQAM students (Quebec, Canada) then followed up by producing their own Black Eyed Peas video to publicise their course and their University (full post here.)
26) 'United Breaks Guitars' - Musician Dave Carroll had an issue with United so he made a song, uploaded it to YouTube and generated millions of views and a PR nightmare in the process (Dave has blogged the full story here.)
27) WISPA ‘Thank You’ - after the public support for the Wispa relaunch a whole range of activity was created to say 'Thank You' (full post here.)
I was aiming for 20 clips but somehow it has ended up at 27! If I have missed anything or you want to comment on your favourites then please do so in the comments below!
[NB - The aim of my mashup has been to promote social activity and highlight some of what I think are the most interesting examples. I have aimed for the clips to be long enough to spur curiousity, whilst keeping them within 'fair use' limits (though as all of these sought to drive Conversation I would assume that any extra publicity is good publicity?) If there are any objections to use of any of these clips, please email me on the above address and I will re-edit accordingly.]
YouTube have started advertising in UK newspapers. The Guardian newspaper yesterday carried a YouTube ad highlighting the fact that full length Channel 4 (4OD) TV shows are now available for free on the YouTube platform.
The YouTube newspaper ad states 'with your favourite shows from 4OD..... YouTube's Got TV':
YouTube ad in the Guardian newspaper (click for larger image)
The YouTube newspaper ad pushes to a section of YouTube called 'Shows' (www.youtube.com/shows) and this area features full length 4OD programming as well as clips from shows like the X Factor and YouTube celebrities like FRED.
The Guardian writes that 'the [YouTube shows] section contains more than 5000 videos, of which almost 4000 are full length programmes, amounting to 3000 hours of content.' (This content will then be monetised with advertising.)
The 'YouTube's Got TV' campaign is mooted to be appearing in newspapers, on buses, online ads and will also aim to drive buzz with a 'pop-up shop' display stunt in Covent Garden shortly - a combination of 'Destination' and 'Conversation' activity. The campaign also has some Paid Search activity - searching for 'YouTube TV' produces an ad headlined 'You Tube's Got TV', but strangely searching for 'You Tube's Got TV' appears to have no YouTube paid search ad showing(?)
Google have traditionally shied away from above the line advertising for consumer offerings, instead relying on word of mouth to generate interest. However, YouTube appearing in newspapers and buses is not a regression to the frivilous dotcom advertising at the turn of the century, more recognition of the need to quickly build awareness and audience for the professional content now available.
If YouTube is to be viewed as something other than a place for viewing piano playing cats then this sort of ad campaign is important - however it's interesting to note that the so called 'dying medium' of print is being used to push people into the future!
(and 4OD content on YouTube could be the move that really drives the online video marketplace in the UK.)
The original 'Shift Happens' presentation by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Brenman was turned into a video and uploaded to YouTube in June 2007:
This was then remixed and set over a Fat Boy Slim soundtrack. A major YouTube hit, 'Did You Know?' has attracted over 6.5m views:
A new / updated version of the Did You Know film - Did You Know 4.0? - has now been created for the Economist's Media Convergence forum in October (more details on the film here):
However, a rival version / parody has been created by Darren Bachynski and Jared Bachynski that they are also calling 'Did You Know 4.0?':
but as they admit at the end of their version of 'Did You Know 4.0?':
I love the Did You Know style for presenting facts and figures (and you can clearly see the influence on other films like the recent Social Media Revolution video) - but the parody version gives a valuable lesson in internet objectivity. Just because something has nice graphics and energetic music it doesn't mean it's true, credits, citations and fact checking are vital!
Andrew Flintoff is the current face of Sure Men's Sport deodorant. To date Flintoff has featured in press ads for Sure, but this has now been taken further with a new internet film that sees Fred use a pedalo to outwit 'two Aussie pranksters' and get to the ground.
Sure have also listed the pedalo used (complete with Flintoff signature) on Ebay here - raising funds for Flintoff's charity the AF foundation.
Ebay listing for the Flintoff pedalo (click for larger image)
The Sure film is clearly advertiser funded so it will be interesting to see if this is embraced by internet users or shunned for being too contrived - though the Ebay auction is a nice touch and in support of a good cause.
Facebook have announced that they have now passed 250 million active Facebook users. To mark this occasion Facebook have released a rather nice (HD) data visualisation film that shows how the Facebook user base has grown across the world.........
'Pringles Jingles' is a UGC TV ad competition being run by Pringles in the UK. The Pringles Jingles competition offers the chance for someone to create, and star in, their own TV ad for Pringles.
Videos for the Pringles Jingles competition need to be posted through http://www.blogger.com/www.pringles.com/jingles and the deadline for submission is December 7th. The ad with the most votes will be screened on Christmas Day in the UK and there is a weekly prize of £2,000.
Around 40 videos have been uploaded so far, including this one by 'Johnny Black and the Rob Dogs' featuring a Pringles song and dogs in hats:
A wide range of commentators have been reviewing the Presidential election campaigns, however Coldcut and TV Sheriff have approached this from a different angle, producing an awesome video / music mash up of key campaign soundbites - "a drum&bass powered all-out AV assault on an American media machine in psychotic overdrive for the Presidential election."
You don't have to agree with the politics behind it to appreciate the phenomenal production behind 'Coldcut vs TV Sheriff "Revolution 08"':
This contrasts with Kristi Vandenbosch's mashup of the highlights from the Presidential primaries - equally interesting but very different approach to production:
Press reviews may produce deeper analysis, but in 3 - 5 minutes there is no doubt that these video mashups bring the campaigns to life more effectively.
With the Presidential election tomorrow, candidates are still campaigning and people are still apparently making up their minds. However, has the debate really evolved over recent weeks?
23/6 have mashed up the 3 debates in a video called 'Synchronised Presidential Debating'. They say, 'this montage of synced-up footage from all three Presidential debates confirms our deep seated belief that every debate was exactly the same.'
Interesting way of looking at things and an indicator that we have been in a phase where the frequency of message has been more important than message variety?
MoveOn.org have created a viral email campaign to encourage people to vote in the forthcoming US Presidential election. Accessed here, voters can enter friends details and forward them a personalised email. The MoveOn email links to a spoof news clip which personally names them as the reason Obama didn't win!
Screengrabs from my MoveOn video showing how it is personalised:
"All God's children welcome, except for Nick Burcher"
Facebook users outraged at Nick Burcher
"Marcianne Walsh disappointed in Burcher"
My personalised version of the MoveOn video can be watched in full here:
I think this is a great example of how email and video can be used together to promote a message. Over 10 million of these MoveOn videos have now been sent and the personalisation of the message is the key momentum builder. Cleverly executed and another example of how the Presidential election is pushing the boundaries of new media.
In December last year I posted the top 10 most viewed YouTube videos for 2007 which continues to be a popular post. However, I have been wondering what the top 10 most viewed videos ever are on YouTube.
I recently saw that Henry Chilcott had posted that Avril Lavigne ‘Girlfriend’ had exceeded 100m YouTube views and have noticed that ‘Evolution of Dance’ is about to pass the 100 million view milestone too.
So what are the top 10 most viewed videos on YouTube? There is no actual list so I have had to search around and try and work out the top 10. (Adult content excluded.)
6) Lo que tú Quieras OÃr (Google Translate=What you want to hear)
Google translates the body text of the video as:
"Sofia comes home after a long day of work. Chat with a friend and prepares dinner for her boyfriend. But something happens and is forced to choose between fact, fiction or something that is halfway between the two. What you want to hear is a love story about the relationship between fiction and reality."
The really interesting thing with this top 10 YouTube list is the evidence of the growing professionalisation of YouTube content. Music is huge on YouTube (with embedding regularly disabled) and artists are publishing through their own official YouTube channels.
Just outside of the top 10 most viewed YouTube videos are Alicia Keys, more Chris Brown, more Rihanna and more Leona Lewis - by this time next year the top 10 list may be entirely made up of professional content (though I have a feeling that ‘Evolution of Dance’ will still be in there somewhere!)
Video content can be created simply and quickly and then distributed online to a wide audience in a short space of time. Whilst big budget TV ads are still used to reach mass audiences, if seeded cleverly, online video can also deliver large view numbers (often for a fraction of the cost.)
A great example of this is the Paris Hilton response to John McCain's recent TV ad that criticises Obama's celebrity status:
John McCain's original celebrity ad (note use of annotation at end of video):
Paris Hilton's response to John McCain's celebrity ad:
"Paris Hilton McCain ad" is currently one of the top 30 Google searches in the US and the Paris Hilton McCain video response is being both watched and talked about across a wide audience (31651 references currently on Google Blog Search). This shows how viral video can create significant buzz and coverage (equal to TV?) However, proper benchmarking in this area will become more and more important and availability of data sources like YouTube Insight are essential to encourage / develop advertising support.
Blinkx Remote indexes all legal, freely available TV online and has launched in the UK today. Blinkx Remote results will be derived from the freely available on demand services such as the BBC iPlayer, 4OD, ITV.com and Five. Blinkx Remote will also include shows from other non-UK broadcasters, such as CBS, that are available to UK viewers.
The Blinkx Remote index includes around 1000 UK shows and up to 400 available from the US. Blinkx does not have broadcast partnership deals but uses publicly available data in the same way that Google News indexes freely available news sources.
Blinkx Remote screengrab (click for larger image)
Universal Search has been slow to develop and relevance has been a problem as Universal Search continues to serve up a mixture of text, images and video from both services like YouTube and catch up players. Blinkx Remote aims to make it simple for users to find the TV programmes either through using a Search Box or through sorting by genre and title.
Blinkx Remote is not trying to monetise the service yet but there are obvious promotional and advertising opportunities for the future - especially if Blinkx are able to introduce personalisation so users can customise listings and feed these through to their own social network profiles.
Whilst all the talk has been about Cuil this week, I think Blinkx Remote is a more significant development. Cuil attempts to challenge Google directly, aiming to offer more effective Search results, whereas Blinkx Remote is something new, operating in a space that Google have not yet mastered.
It will be interesting to see where this goes but Blinkx Remote appears to have stolen a march on the other Search Engines and the ability to easily find online TV shows could substantially boost online TV viewing.
Dr.Horrible's Sing-along blog is a new internet 3 part mini-musical available until 20th July. Dr.Horrible's Sing-along blog is another example of a full length production being split down into easily manageable chunks for consumption on the internet - and it already looks like a hit. (There were 200,000 'hits' (horrible word) an hour on the first day of release causing the host servers to crash and the show is number one on US iTunes where each installment is on sale for $2.)
Joss Whedon (the man behind Buffy and Angel) 'found himself at a loose end' during the Hollywood writers strike and used the time to create Dr.Horrible's Sing-along blog which claims to be the 'first internet musical.'
"Dr Horrible tells the story of a would-be villain (Neil Patrick Harris) who dreams of joining the Evil League of Evil. He's thwarted by arch-nemesis Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion) and by his affections for the girl from the laundrette (Felicia Day). " (Guardian)
Episodes are being released over a 5 day period at http://www.drhorrible.com before being removed from the internet forever. Act one (Wheee!) was released on 15th July, Act two (OMG!) is released on 17th July (today!) and Act three (Denouement!) is released on the 19th July. After Dr.Horrible's sing-along blog has been removed from the internet, the full 42 minute feature will be available as a subscription download, before moving to a DVD release (that will even have sing-along commentaries!)
There is a significant social media presence around Dr.Horrible's Sing-along blog. The Dr.Horrible Facebook fan page now has 12,314 fans, there is a MySpace page with 5770 friends, a Dr.Horrible Twitter with 2301 followers, 5834 blog mentions on Google Blog Search and a YouTube user profile with a teaser trailer that has been viewed over 40,000 times:
Dr.Horrible is weird, different and fun. The Hollywood writers strike shook up a lot of areas and a by product was that influencers, like Joss Whedon, started re-evaluating ways of doing things. Dr.Horrible is well made and cleverly distributed through internet and social media channels. At the same time others like MySpace are experimenting with webisodes that ultimately come together in a full length feature (eg Beyond The Rave) and this is an area that will continue to develop as video sharing sites seek to expand the volume of professional content that they index. Feature films that split down into small chunks that can be easily digested through mobile or social networks are on the increase!
I’m Voting Republican (http://www.imvotingrepublican.com) is the latest (controversial) viral in the US Presidential election. It was not officially produced by the Democrats, it was written and directed by Charlie Steak and produced by SyntheticHuman Pictures. 'I'm voting Republican' has been a hit online and has had 2.6 million views on YouTube in just 2 weeks.
According to Hitwise, the biggest driver of visits to http://www.imvotingrepublican.com was email as people forwarded on the link and the site was ranked #17 among 659 websites in the Hitwise Politics category.
Interestingly more internet users visited imvotingrepublican.com than visited the official John McCain website over this period and this is another reminder of how powerful viral internet messages have become in US politics and the Presidential election.
Nick Burcher is Head of the VNC UK and Products / Partnerships EMEA at VivaKi in London. (Note - this is a personal blog, the views expressed are my own and do not necessarily represent the views of my employer.)
Contact me on nickburcher AT gmail.com
