Viral Video Selection: Including the Telecom Ad
Creating a good viral video is akin to alchemy, its a dark art and you never know what you’re going to get at the end of it. Here are some examples of how marketers used online video to virally enhance their brands (and one emerging story where the opposite may be the case).
Telecom Ad Update 7th July 2007:
Over the weekend the Herald broke the news that Telecom’s new ad was making “bloggers mad.” According to the report, “The ad is shot to look like an amateur home video of the type seen on YouTube. One blog, Spare Room, accused the advertisement of being misleading because it looks as if a real company is plugging Telecom.”
Storm in a teacup maybe but there are some interesting questions arising from the ad. Here are three.
1. Some of the original comments posted on youtube last week claimed to be from people who worked at McCallum and Partners. They said things like “I’m in this ad. We made two versions of this and can’t wait see the next one”. So why have these people since removed their comments? Surely they weren’t posted by interested parties hoping to convince the public the ad was really a consumer generated piece.
2. Is it possible the creative idea was borrowed from these two well known “lip-synching-party-in-the- office” videos (as the more recent comments on youtube suggests). http://vimeo.com/173714 and http://laughingsquid.com/digg-vs-revision-3-battle-of-the-lip-dub-videos/
3. Will Telecom be pleased with the negative comments the public have been able to post beneath the youtube video?
Perhaps we should give Telecom the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they were simply trying to produce a local homage to an obscure internet genre - the-happy-office-lip-synch-party. Whatever the intention it’s certainly a reminder that once the internet viral video genie is let out of the bottle, it’s hard to get him back in.
Ford Balloons Spoof: This has done really well in the awards though the claim to it being “consumer generated content” may also be a tall tale.
Banned Xbox Commercial: Got an expensive TV ad? Fallen foul of the censors for overt displays of cartoon violence? Don’t worry, now you can pop the ad online and reach more people than you ever dreamed of originally.
Green Party Aotearoa: The Green party are definitely adopting a community approach to campaigning over the internet (as opposed to the main parties more obvious approaches). Here is an example of how they are using viral video to promote the big issues.
42 Below: Still funny after all these years…
Game of Two Halves: Dare I say it but this uncut, never shown on mainstream tv, youtube clip is as funny , if not funnier, than anything that made it to air. See how viral video can help you win new fans.
And a whale gets beached in NZ:
This is a viral for… no, it’s not for anything, it’s just bloody funny.
