Christian the Lion... A Subliminal Ad??
In today’s computer age videos are an essential and powerful tool for brand marketing. They are often easy to create and have the potential to be seen by millions of people. As you can tell by my other post in may I take an avid interest in the production of videos and the mix of obvious product placement, subliminal messaging and brand message.
A more recent viral video for the Botox alternative Restylane features a handheld shot video of a woman’s 50th birthday party filmed by her son. The video begins with shaky pannings of food and guest comments about how good the birthday girl looks until coming across a 20 something guy making out with a woman on a couch. Hilarity ensues when the cameraman realizes that the young, sultry woman is his 50 year old mother as he spouts out a series of bleeped out expletives while the Restylane logo appears with the line ‘Age Gracefully,’ which turns into ‘Age Dis-Gracefully.” This type of humor goes a long way with the online community while the branding does not interfier with the video and the product is not "in your face".
Some companies skip the production side of viral video marketing and take already popular videos and turn them into ads. AIG did this with a very widespread video (over 17 million views) of a baby who laughs hysterically every time a piece of paper is ripped. AIG simply edited the video down to commercial length and included the words ‘Laughter can add 8 years to your life…live longer, retire stronger, never outlive your money; AIG…’ BMW also used footage of two children on Christmas morning, freaking out after opening a Nintendo 64. The voice over states “remember when dreams came true? They still can; introducing the BMW holiday wish event…”
Some companies will even create a video without any branding at all, simply to generate buzz. Sunsilk did just this with its classic Bride has Massive Hair Wigout video. The video features another hand held shot video of a group of bridesmaids in a hotel room attempting to console the bride to be as she freaks out over her bad hairstyle before maniacally cutting it off in big chunks while screaming for the camera to be turned off. After its production was completed, Sunsilk detached its name from the video until it received 9 million hits on Youtube after which Sunsilk claimed it.
One extremely popular video, featured on countless talk and news shows, chronicles the true story of Christian the lion who was purchased as a cub by two men who raised him and later released him into the Kenyan wild. The video focuses on the reunion of the two men with Christian after a year in the wild, during which the lion heartwarmingly hugs and nestles the two men who were initially told that they would not be remembered. The video, sound tracked with Whitney Houston’s "I Will Always Love you", concludes with the following words: "Love knows no limits and true friendships last a lifetime. Get back in touch with someone today, you’ll be glad you did.” The video itself is not branded, nor does it have any known affiliation with any companies. Though I have to believe we will find out this video has a brand connection. Doesn't it scream of something like ClassMates.com and Reunion.com. The notion of getting back in touch with old friends is glorified with these sites that make doing so especially simple. If this is the case the video acts as a silent brander and in turn an effective "viral video".
Twitter vs. Friendfeed
As the number of users on Friendfeed.com continues to increase, it seems that the site’s competition with the highly successful Twitter has reached a level comparable to that between Myspace and Facebook. I feel that the greatest appeal of these microblog sites is the conciseness of their feeds that allow users to stay up to date with their friends’ statuses and activities in a basic, at a glance format. Despite their competition, the two are distinctly different. Twitter is the simpler of the two as it only involves microblogs which are conceptually identical to the Facebook and Myspace status bars. Friendfeed uses the same concept but brings it to a new level by aggregating from various sites into a consolidated but multifaceted feed that updates followers on a bunch of different statuses and activities. Friendfeed users can add to their feed from a series of different sites including other social media outlets like Facebook and even Twitter. Other things Friendfeed can update user feeds with are: new picture uploads from Flickr, updates on Blogspot blog posts, and even current Netflix rentals to name a few. This allows a more specific and detailed feed for users as Friendfeed can track and display a wealth of internet activity as opposed to the simple 140 character limit status line that Twitter offers. Friendfeed also allows users to create ‘rooms’ which are private feeds that only selected users can read such as family members or a distinct group of friends. Another notable feature is the conversational aspect of Friendfeed that allows users to respond to feeds and thus begin a series of follow up posts making the service much more interactive. When it comes to selecting which microblog service to frequent it all depends on what you want; a simple at a glance update on all your friends and acquaintances? Go with Twitter. Something a little bit more detailed, maybe even stalkeresque?
Some early adopters of Twitter have migrated to FriendFeed due to Twitter's outages. However, as of May 2008, Compete counts only 304,574 monthly U.S. visitors for FriendFeed versus 1.725 million for Twitter. For the mean time I am sticking with Twitter until I feel the number of updates decrease.
I am Getting "Lively"
Sorry for the unoriginal title, but I couldn't resist... So I have taken the plunge, I am an active member of a 3D / virtual world. Google launched Lively this week and well I joined, without any hesitation really. Here is "my room" below. I'll review this whole process after I have had a chance to interact with it a little bit more.
WALL*E - Movie Review
Pixar movies are a genre all on their own and I find that the only way to review them is to compare them to other Pixar movies. Here’s where I stand; best Pixar film: The Incredibles, Toy Story is a painfully close second, third would have to be Finding Nemo. So where does WALL*E Rank? Number four, right below Ratatouille. Like Ratatouille, WALL*E is enjoyable but not as consistently enjoyable as some of its predecessors like Toy Story in which nearly every scene is unique and captivating to some degree. WALL*E moves at a slower pace, often taking long periods of time to show off its exquisite environments. This didn’t necessarily make the film boring but instead lessened the appeal for multiple viewings and in my mind DVD sales. Though I still seem to really want to see it again - pretty sure the majority doesn't feel the same.
With its recent films, Pixar appears to be heading in a very different
direction. First off, the shambled, rusty, broken down look of WALL*E, the protagonist robot, insisted that Disney was not trying to create a marketable icon for toys, T-shirts, etc which is a refreshing departure from their reputation of merchandise overdrive. The rats in Ratatouille were similar in their unmarketability, seeing as how they’re rats and rats are, well, kinda gross.
Another change in Pixar is the complexity of its recent films. The stories are more elaborate and feature all sorts of subplots and numerous morals. Is this to do with the advancements in animation technology or the partenership with Disney? I think it has to be a bit of both. Like Ratatouille, WALL*E seems to focus more on plot instead of humor. Though WALL*E has a few giggly moments, it largely is not funny; not that its jokes fail but instead it just doesn’t try to as funny as previous films which focused largely on humor. WALL*E was quite a departure for Pixar as it featured some pretty serious elements; a future Earth so polluted that it is uninhabitable, an entirely obese population of humans, and some mean, scary robots that make Hal from 2001 look like Johnny 5 (who actually bore a striking resemblance to WALL*E). The seriousness of WALL*E implies that Pixar is taking its original notion of dual adult/child appeal to a much higher level.
In the end, WALL*E is full of pertinent eco friendly, anti-corporation morals while still working as an elaborate love story between two robots. (WALL*E’s screen sweetheart is EVE; a sleek and sexy hovering robot that looks like something made by Apple) Sparks fly, literally, between the two who share a captivating and convincing romance that only Pixar could create between two robots, but it can't possibly be the financial success of the previous Pixar films. If you ask me Disney has to be pissed!
The digital market has sent out a collective WTF and it is clearly addressed to Apple
Sure, the new iPhone promises higher speeds, greater business functionality and an almost excessive capability for personalization….However, despite claiming they addressed every concern with the old iPhone they have again neglected Multimedia Messaging. To me it is quite simply ridiculous; I cannot fathom what could be so difficult about such a simple program. Clearly we are subject to a few individuals who while computer savvy seem to have not been privilege to age old saying such as "a picture is worth a thousand words".
Big Brother, Facebook and Google are Always Watching
Open source software has been a big part of Web 2.0. Software that was once available for a price is now offered for free, in a variety of iterations to allow users to create their own tools. Google, not surprisingly has joined the party with Friend Connect:
An initiative to bring features commonly found on social networks to Web sites of all kinds. Google Friend Connect will enable Web sites to integrate social features such as blogging and feedback forms without having to write the code." - InternetNews.com
Sounds like a great idea.... However, it turns out that it redistributes user information from to other developers without users' knowledge. Now Facebook has suspended the partnership - D'oh!
All this finally leads to my thought process behind this post. With so many users publishing information online, pictures on Flickr, social network profiles, there will be such huge opportunity for PR to improve online reputation management. Just think of the possibilities for finding dirt on people - in 2020, looking up a CEO's blog from when he was in college on WayBackMachine.com.
Reality or Not?
There has been a lot of chatter recently about brands/agencies creating formulaic "viral" videos - yesterday it was Coors Light and Levis. Each video has a similar look at feel to it, both filmed with a hand-held camera, both have a grainy compression/filter. I'll admit they are a bit cheesy, especially when the guy from the Coors Light video calls out the brand and its "better wide-mouth can" (their selling point).
In general, the term "viral video" makes me a little queezy. Wikipedia have defined the term "viral marketing" as a strategy that "facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily". The very fact that the word voluntarily is used should explain to marketers/advertisers there is no formula to this process. You cannot force web users to share content. At the end of the day if the content produced makes you laugh or the content is new and original people don't care what its promoting who created it and will share it with their friends.
The Nintendo Wii's April Fools video is a great example...
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