Tag Archives: YouTube

Buzzworthy Wednesday: Adventures of Captain Inbound: Episode One

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This week’s Buzzworthy Wednesday is an animated video created by HubSpot for the “Adventures of Captain Inbound: Episode One“.

Full Disclosure: I may be a bit biased here since I was the writer and animator on this project. While I tend to be hyper-critical of my work (is any creative person not?) I am more impressed with the strategy behind the branding video carried out by HubSpot.

They didn’t just create the video and throw  it out to the whims of the internet, they had a plan. In the word’s of the Episode “Guru” of David Meerman Scott “Create exceptional content that people will want to share, and point the world to your virtual doorstep.”

So the video was posted on their blog, they built a custom landing page for the series to reside (oh yes…there will be more), started a fan page on Facebook and launched a Twitter account for Captain Inbound. Practicing what they are preaching. The video was also mentioned as a great example of how “Content Rules” on the  MarketingProfs blog today by Ann Handley. Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

Buzzworthy Wednesday: Inspired Bicycles – Danny MacAskill

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This is a pretty amazing video featuring daredevil Danny MacAskill jumping fences and off of roofs…on a bicycle. It’s a pretty awe inspiring video to watch just to marvel at his sheer skills which is why I chose it as the Buzzworthy Wednesday for this week. The video was originally published in April and has steadily chugged along since then to almost 10 million views.  It’s lightly branded by Inspired Bicycles which is what makes it so effective.

Danny MacAskill reminds me of Hans “No Way” Rey who pioneered the sport of Mountain bike trialing in the 80’s when I was growing up. I would try to “emulate” Hans while going over “jumps” on my Schwinn Varsity 10 speed in my neighborhood. Bikes are one of the first methods of transportation a kid gets to their own freedom. You can go places on a bike you couldn’t by foot and jump over things just to test yourself. I remember lusting after certain brands of bikes because that was what Hans Rey or Greg Lemond were riding on.

If this was just a video about the bike brand with their message slapped all over it no one would watch it, but to watch a master of trialing perform while set to the perfect soundtrack of “The Funeral” by Band of Horses makes you watch with your jaw dropped open at what this guy can do on a bike. If I were into trialing or if I were a kid today after watching this video…this is the bike I’d want because every kid on a bike dreams of doing the stuff Danny does in this video.

Buzzworthy Wednesday: Nokia Booklet 3G first video

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In honor of everyone returning back to school there were a number of laptop videos released in the past couple of weeks. Nokia released a video for a brand new breed of portable devices, called the Booklet 3G. What does it take to make a netbook sexy? While it’s a pretty straight forward product demo – it’s done elegantly, with a great soundtrack, branded color scheme throughout and takes advantage of YouTube’s HD which really shows it’s stuff in this video when you watch it in full screen mode. All that combined makes it this week’s Buzzworthy Wednesday selection.

As a mobile market industry leader, Nokia has been expected by the mobile market to release a product in the world of netbooks. With the fierce competition in the mobile market raging on, Nokia chose to widen their product range with the Nokia Booklet 3G and step into the netbook arena with authority.

The video was picked up worldwide immediately after it’s release on August 24th by some influential blogs which already has resulted in over 660,000 views and over 20 duplicate videos.

Buzzworthy Wednesday Video: Johnnie Walker

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This week’s video comes from Johnnie Walker who released this brilliant six-minute video shot in a single continuous take and stars Robert Carlyle as the narrator taking us on the journey through the progression of Johnnie Walker whiskey from the shopkeeper experimenting with blending malts to the powerhouse it is today. It is well written and sequenced with entertaining narration perfectly matched to well-timed visual cues. Believe me…doing this in a single continuous take is not as easy as they make it look.

Interestingly enough, its not posted on YouTube by Johnnie Walker but by some random YouTube user in Brazil. I actually heard about it from the Creative Culture Weekly Top 5 podcast. This isn’t exactly a large audience podcast but still a mention on it would build buzz. In the US where’s the first place you’d go when searching for a video? Wouldn’t you want to at least have a branded YouTube channel with the video properly tagged including a description and links to your website or landing page? I know I would. At any rate, it’s had a few thousand views but is definitely worth the watch.

Buzzworthy Wednesday Video: Nike SB

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So this week was a little light in terms of newly released online marketing videos that I would consider buzzworthy. However my pick this week is for Nike SB to celebrate the release of professional skateboarder Paul Rodriguez’s (aka P Rod) third shoe (the skateboarding son of the famous comedian). Set to the grooving tempo of the Ice Cube song “Today Was a Good Day”, the Nike video kind of parallels the original Ice Cube music video storyline just through the eyes of a skateboarder with one slight humorous difference at the end. It’s had over 370,000 views since being uploaded about 3 weeks ago.

Nothing earth shattering here. No crazy production. No trick camera skills. No dancing babies or flash mobs. While there are some very cool skateboarding tricks, I’m not a particularly big fan of skateboarding. So why did this video appeal to me? I probably just like it because the skateboarding tricks ARE cool, the tempo of them follow the music well and it’s set to one of my all time favorite rap songs. There I said it. Sometimes it’s all about the music and how it moves you or grabs you.


Buzzworthy Wednesday Video: Kuroshio Sea – Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium

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This is the first time I’ve featured an “amateur” produced video on Buzzworthy Wednesday. I use the term “amateur” loosely…but its for a good reason. The video I selected this week is an amazing and beautiful single shot video of the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Japan. The “Kuroshio Sea” (as this aquarium is called) is the second largest in the world as evidenced by the huge whale sharks, manta rays and large schools of fish swimming.

The song featured, which really sets the tone for this video, is “Please don’t go” by Barcelona. Barcelona credits their song placement in this video with boosting their album and song sales on iTunes and concert attendance. The video is really awe inspiring which is why its recieved well over 1 million views in just a couple weeks.

I mentioned using the term “amateur” loosely because the producer wasn’t specifically paid by the aquarium to make this piece – however Jon Rawlinson the creator is a gifted professional cinematographer and filmmaker in his own right. Perfect song selection matched with the vast open “zen-like” beauty of the aquarium…could the marketing team at the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium created a better online marketing video? I doubt it. Enjoy.

Buzzworthy Wednesday Video: LaPoste’s Transformer Macbook

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So this is an interesting one. It was put out by LaPoste a traditional French mailing company and its had over 480,000 views since it’s upload three weeks ago.

Here’s a case of a poorly crafted viral campaign. The video is definitely geared to a youthful audience showing a Macbook transforming into a jet. Timely considering the release of the most recent Transformers movie.

However, when you go to the landing page they created (bear with me…my French is a little spotty), it’s for their new online service where you can fill out a form and send a registered letter and then have a record kept of the contents of the letter electronically on their site for three years. When you get to the landing page there isn’t even a line of text or link to the video to function as a visual reminder for why you went to the site. No engagement.

This isn’t a service geared to the 20 or 30 something, this is a service geared to the less computer literate crowd most likely from an older demographic who may not know that there are other digital mailing services available. This video has no target for that age group in any way, it’s being viewed by mostly teenage boys and Mac geeks. Don’t believe me? Take a gander at the comments.

So many missed opportunities.

While the video is very entertaining and would be fantastic as a Macbook or Transformers viral video, I feel like LaPoste missed the mark with their audience and their objective for creating the video. Still worth watching though.

 

 

 

Buzzworthy Wednesday Video: BooneOakley.com

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So this week’s Buzzworthy Wednesday Video is actually a web site design. But it’s a video on YouTube. No kidding. This interesting approach to web design was for a creative agency, who chose to build their entire website within YouTube. They utilized YouTube’s annotations and video tagging to create the entire “website”. The buzz from this “website” has led to more than 370,000 views in a little less than a month.

It’s an interesting concept in terms of online media buzz as it was featured on Creative Culture’s Creativity Top 5 among other blog and online references. I just wonder from a website traffic analytics and general online marketing perspective how much important information are they missing in exchange for this clever approach? All the same, it’s definitely worth checking out.

 

 

Buzzworthy Wednesday Video: Air New Zealand staff have nothing to hide

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Air New Zealand apparently has absolutely nothing to hide. To illustrate this point the flight crew stripped for the above commercial donning only body paint, don’t worry…it’s office safe viewing. More than 90 Air New Zealand staff members are featured in the campaign, with eight donning only body paint. In a little over 2 weeks the video has over 1.7 million views on YouTube alone.

Here’s the making of video with quotes and quips from the actual employees who were part of the body painting video shoot (also clean).

 

 

 

Online Video Driving Automotive Recovery

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constant-contact-zak-barronIn a great article recently published on the Online Video Insider by Eric Franchi, some great statistics and insight were shared which are particularly timely given Chrysler’s and General Motors’ recent bankruptcy announcements. Perhaps as they pick which road to take the companies future on they should reassess their level of participation in social media and particularly online video.

Here were a few of the highlights from that post for the automakers to keep in mind and my thoughts on these suggestions:


“83% of new vehicle buyers visit video focused Web sites prior to purchasing a car. This means 31% viewed videos on brand, product or company sites; 24% on auto-specific Web sites, 11% on YouTube; 7%, Yahoo Video; 7%, news sites; 6%, MSN Video; 4%, MySpace; 3%, Facebook; 3%, AOL Video; and 3%, other.”

These numbers from a recent Google sponsored study highlight a few really important factors that automakers need to keep in mind regarding online video and how viewers are searching and researching online. I’d be willing to bet that in a short amount of time YouTube, Yahoo Video, Facebook, etc. will garner a much larger piece of the viewership.


“Don’t skimp on production. A full one-third of auto shoppers watch the video content on the product site.”

So once you have the viewer engaged with a demo of the vehicle, why not lead them to other videos of the same vehicle they are looking at instead of (or maybe in addition to) pages of text information? Maybe it’s crash tests…shown from different angles? Maybe keeping something fragile like an egg inside safe during the crash? You can get really creative here but the object is to keep the viewer engaged and on your site.

Think about Blendtec and how they engaged their viewers by showing them real simple demonstrations of how their blender worked by blending ridiculously common things. Many of those interested viewers became brand loyalists for them.


“Investigate the broader video opportunity. Brand and auto-specific sites only make up slightly more than half of the automotive shopper’s online experience. Creating a presence on YouTube and other video destinations will help round out the plan.”

Why stop there? While video sharing sites like YouTube are a place that I think the automakers MUST have a presence, what about Facebook, LinkedIn or smaller automobile enthusiast user groups? The automakers could use these brand enthusiasts and interested buyers for research and development. They could find out what features and options people are REALLY looking for in a car. Let the group members participate in the design of new cars, show them videos of new concepts as they are created based on the group’s input and get feedback from the group. Imagine that kind of empowerment could turn them from potential buyers into the automakers brand evangelists.

David Meerman Scott wrote an outstanding post on marketing ideas for the automakers reinvention outlining 5 simple things GM could do to accelerate their hopeful rebound. I hope GM and Chrysler read his post because it had some great ideas. Automakers will be under a watchful eye with their marketing budget, so doesn’t using a tiny portion of their bloated television advertising budget to put a creative online video and social media plan together just make sense? Obviously I think so…what are your thoughts?