The National Parks Conservation Association recently launched a campaign to elect a bear for president, in hopes of getting the presidential candidates to address national park issues while on the campaign trail.
The NPCA has relied heavily on viral videos, and the internet to promote the campaign.
Y&R Chicago created several pro-bono videos for the campaign. The […]
HoneyShed.com is the furthest thing from traditional online advertising I have seen.
When you arrive at the site a large video stream will begin playing, starring a bunch of 20 something guys and girls who look like they’ve just been pulled out of a 1980’s fashion magazine.
At first it might seem that they are just hanging out and goofing off, but you will soon realize, they are trying very hard to sell you products.
If you like the product they are promoting, there is a link off to the right side of the screen showing the price, and giving you the option to buy it or stash it for later…
IKEA agreed to let comedian and filmmaker Mark Malkoff live in their store for a week while his New York city apartment was being fumigated.
Mark has flipped the typical scenario of a brand using a celebrity or sports star to endorse their products, and instead, he is using a brand to promote himself.
Mark set up the website www.MarkLivesInIkea.com, and has posted nearly two dozen videos on it so far. He is also inviting people to become his friend on MySpace and Facebook…
Buffalo Wild Wings have come up with a clever way to promote their “Boneless Thursdays”.
The new Wild Messages website allows users to select from three vocal characters (a sexy teacher, a referee, or a drill sergeant) to created a personalized message, inviting their friends to meet them at Buffalo Wile Wings for “Boneless Thursdays.”
The humorous message can be sent to their mobile phone or their email address…
Burger King pulled a stunt on it’s customers by telling them that the Whopper was discontinued and no longer on the menu.
Crispin Porter + Bogusky filmed the whole thing and turned the stunt into a TV ad and a 7 minute long viral video documentary.
What I find most fascinating, is that when customers are confronted […]
Apple’s “Get A Mac” TV ads have had an intentional second life on the internet. Apple has created a page for them on their web site, and they have also received millions of views on youTube.
Recently Apple has taken this campaign on step further by making an ad that ties together a web site’s online video ad space and banner ad space. The result is far more powerful than just a video ad alone.
This isn’t the first example of synchronizing multiple display ads that I’ve see, but it is definitely the best.
Here is an example of a well crafted and well funded online marketing campaign. That ties together a campaign website, online video, and the most expensive commercial that Guinness has ever produced.
The treasure hunt begins at the Guinness contest website. There you will be challenged to unlock 11 dominoes. Each domino represents a scene from the new Guinness ad.
To unlock the dominoes, you must look for clues hidden in the video clips and visit additional contest websites to find the hidden codes. Once you unlock all 11 dominoes and put the ad together you win a golden domino.
18 year old freshman and apple fan Nick Haley created a home made iPod Touch commercial and uploaded it to youTube. He pieced it together from clips he found at apple.com and timed his edited to the fast paced and catchy song “Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex” by CSS.
Imagine his surprise when Apple contacted him, and told him they liked his video and wanted to create a TV commercial based on it. Nick was then flown to LA where he got to work with long time Apple agency TBWA/Chiat/Day on a broadcast quality version of his spot.
The people over at Tubemogul wrote a great report on why you should include video marketing into your internet marketing mix, and they follow if up with some best practice tips on how to get your video in front of your target audience.
Tubemogul provides a free service that allows you to track videos across several video sharing sites. I have been using and testing their services (as well as their competitors) over the last several months. Considering we are still in the early stages of video tracking and analytics, I have been quite impressed with their services so far. With this in mind, we should all be interested in what the people at TubeMogul have to say when it comes to internet video marketing.
Internet marketing has proven to be very effective when it comes to promoting social, charitable, and environmental causes, and blogs have played a major role in making this possible for marketers who are on a small budget.
Blog Action Day is a great example of an initiative with next to no funding, that has gone viral by asking bloggers to do what they do best, talk passionately about a subject.
Blog Action Day was started by Collis Ta’eed, Leo Babauta, and Cyan Ta’eed based on the idea of how great it would be if bloggers all around the world were talking about the same issue on the same day. All three are passionate about the environment, and they knew it was a popular subject, so they decided to make the environment the theme for Blog Action Day 2007.
Collis Ta’eed wrote a great post on the NorthxEast blog that describes in great detail how Blog Action Day got started.
He describes how they turned an idea into a global internet campaign in less than three months.
Sony’s most recent ad for its line of Bravia LCD TVs is riding high on the viral video charts.
This collaboration between Fallon and Passion Pictures is Sony’s third ad in their “Color Like No Other” campaign.
Chris Willingham Group Account Director at Fallon London said that color “is the most important thing in people’s minds when purchasing a new TV”. Throughout this campaign Sony has forgone any technical or feature based pitch, and focuses solely on color. The beauty of color and the emotions that color can stir up.
Sony has also released making of videos for their bouncing balls, and paint ads, and in the case of Play Doh they released a short making of video as a teaser even before the ad aired.
A small sub shop in the Midwest called Erber and Gerbert’s, just put out this animated 30 second spot.
The spot features an animated character on a quest to discover great subs. The animation was achieved with stop motion animation and 150 t-shirts.
What I really like about this campaign is the inclusion of the making […]
Compile a 2 minute (or less) short video based around the theme Lose Yourself. This video should express a moment where you felt connected to nature or completely free - a moment of escape. You could compile the video from previous footage you’ve shot or create new footage to express your escapist moment.
The submission deadline is October 23rd 2007 and the winner will receive an adventure vacation courtesy of NOLS, TravelWorm, and lonely Planet TV.
With the release of Halo 3 fast approaching, I thought I’d take a look at how Microsoft and Bungee used the internet to promote the third iteration of its most popular title.
Microsoft and Bungee followed a 5 Phase campaign, involving both online and offline marketing. It started with a TV ad that aired during Monday night football called “Starry Nights”.
The commercial was soon uploaded to youTube, and has received 3,781,245 views at the time of this posting.
And the $57,000 goes to “Heinz the Kissable Ketchup” created by Andrew Dodson who runs a one man production shop out of Wheelersburg, Ohio.
His winning user generated commercial for the Heinz Top This TV Challenge aired during Sunday night’s Emmy Awards.
The four runner up videos each received $5700 and their commercials all aired on the Today Show Sept. 17th.
Heinz plans to run a second campaign in august.
Hungry for more? Due to the impressive number and awesome creativity of the commercials you all submitted, we are excited to announce the Heinz Top This TV Challenge Take Two-coming this October. Stay tuned for details.
Dan Meth created this short animated video feature the “Internet People” who have now become part of pop culture thanks to viral nature of internet video.
The video has become a viral video success of it’s own, with over a million views on youTube so far.
If there are any clips you don’t recognize, or if there are a few you want to revisit, Buzzfeed has created a comprehensive list of all the viral videos and memes mentioned in the video.
My company Kinoli handles the Internet Marketing for Petfresh, makers of the healthiest dog food on the planet. We recently redesigned the web sites for their two brands, Homestyle Select and Deli Fresh.
After launching the new Homestyle Select web site, we sent an email to a list of veterinarians encouraging them to check out the web site and fill out an online form. In return they would receive a free sample of Homestyle Select. The only way to access the free sample form was through the link provided in the email.
A few weeks after we sent the emails to our list of veterinarians our client noticed that they received a few hundred submissions for free samples in the time span of a couple hours.
With it’s latest Gmail promo video, Google shows us once again, that simple ideas are viral ideas. The catalyst for this collaborative video campaign is “help us imagine how an email message travels around the world”.
Google set the ball rolling with a short somewhat comical clip of google employees passing around an oversized Gmail M-velope. They invite people around the world to download and print the M-velope and create their own 10 second clip to ad to the video. Google will select it’s favorites to complete the video, and the video will then play on the Gmail homepage, via youTube of course.
Time is running out to enter the latest user generated ad contest. The deadline is August 6th. The top 15 will be voted on by the public starting August 26th. The top 5 will be seen on TV and the winner will receive $57,000. Is the user generated ad just a trend, or is it on its way to becoming a standard advertising practice?
At this point there doesn’t seem to be a lot of online buzz around this campaign unless of course you visit youTube.
Here is a video of legendary adman David Gunn presenting his favorite print and TV ads at Cannes 2007.
The handheld footage is a little anoying at times, but if you’re a fan of international advertising and you’ve always wanted to visit Cannes for it’s annual advertsing awards conference, here’s your chance for a cheap sneak peak.
marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness, through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet. Viral marketing is a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily.
A spoof McDonalds commercial featuring a couple guys rapping about Chicken McNuggets has been featured almost unedited in McDonalds latest TV ad. The original video surfaced on youTube over a year ago, and is now being credited with increasing McNugget sales in the New York area where the the ad has been running for the last two weeks.
To Launch Pirelli’s P Zero Tires, Leo Burnett enlisted Hollywood A-list director Kathryn Bigelow (Strange Days, Point Break) and actress Uma Thurman for the internet only chase film Mission Zero. To start the buzz, they sent promotional kits including a car shaped mouse and branded mousepad to its main clients and invited them to check […]
With the Simpsons Movie release only one week away. Here is a quick round up of their marketing efforts both on and offline. My favorite is Monty Burns takeover of JetBlue’s Blog.
The Official Simpsons Movie Web Site
The Official Simpsons Marketing Partner Site
Xbox Contest
JetBlue Contest
Be an Animated Simpson 7-11 Promotion
List of 7-11s to […]
This summer mentos is trying out a new viral campaign that revolves around Trevor the Mentos intern. When you visit the site there is a live feed of Trevor sitting at his desk from 9 to 5 answering visitors IM messages and preforming tasks that users have added to his schedule. Trevor also has […]
With the new updates at Google, companies using YouTube to advertise, and video use up, it’s time to start thinking on how to get videos to rank well organically.
Like any other organic search project, you need to write quality title tags. However, since your main purpose is people not search engines, you’ll […]
What a great free and somewhat viral way to advertise a website. I mean, if your website or company could create a short, witty, and funny video, then you could potentially have thousands of visitors plus your brand now known by possibly millions.
The above video was uploaded to YouTube just over 2 months ago […]
While new, advertising on video hosting sites is proving to be a valid type of advertising. Quite a few webmasters are are uploading videos to the three major video hosting sites (youtube, myspace, and google video) with branding of their website in hopes of receiving targeted traffic. Some users are reporting 100+ uniques […]
We’ve been hearing the heavy use of the term “viral marketing” lately, but many still do not have a clear understanding of what it means. Wikipedia says,
Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness, through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of […]
