Well Jim, first off I happen to disagree with you about a couple points you make in your article, the first being fluffernutter sandwiches.  I happen to really like fluffernutter white-bread sandwiches, not only are they a childhood staple of mine, but the peanut butter, fluff combo always keeps me coming back for more. Therefore, I think your analogy could use some readjusting in perspective. While you are comparing the content of viral videos to the nutritional value of a fluffernutter, you are missing the big picture—taste. Lets compare the general population to children and our sandwich menu to advertising. While a ham and cheese or turkey and swiss might have more nutritional value, would the kids choose those over a fluffernutter? I think not.

In your post you discuss the value in video series, which we do agree with, and I’m assuming you see more traditional forms of advertising as more appropriate, successful ways to reach the masses, but is that what they want? Since the dawn of advertising industry professionals have tried to figure out how to mold their messages to the tastes of their target consumers. This process has evolved to a highly manipulative, research-insight driven strategic process. While I think research is incredibly important as well as insights, it’s a fact that people DON’T LIKE TO BE SOLD TO. For the first time in the history of advertising, advertisers are enabled to empower their consumers to spread their messages for free all because the consumer actually wants to listen to them! I know you will say that it is a fruitless fight though because viral hits are one in a 1,000,000, but Jim, I’d rather not throw in the towel.

I think the opportunity advertisers have for the future represents a paradigm shift in the way we approach consumers. I think you are failing to look ahead of the curve. Viral video and episodic ad campaigns have the ability to wow and excite the every day YouTube watcher. Sure “David Goes to the Proctologist” would not be as funny the second time around as “David Goes to the Dentist,” but I’m pretty sure a new installment of Evian Roller Babies (35 million+ views) or a new T-Mobile Dance video (22 million+) would attract another couple million people.

Videos like these amongst others, Coca-Cola’s “Happiness Machine”, Levi’s “Backflip into jeans,” are supported by brilliant creative, quality production, strong special effects and the ability to amaze. These videos are selling their brands, framing an image and creating awareness in viewers’ minds. The most brilliant aspect of viral is that advertisers are pretty much guaranteed that when someone watches their video online they are most likely actually watching it. They aren’t taking a bathroom break in between their primetime programming, or skipping the 20 pages of $100,000 ads in between the break in the article they’re reading. For the first time people are watching ads because they want to watch ads, and they are even helping advertisers out by spreading the ads around.

So instead of saying screw viral videos, I say get to work and think of something great.

However Jim, with the viral video debate aside, as I mentioned we do agree with your view on the value of a well planned video series. I think they’re great too and do present the opportunity for excellent, consistent results. Much of our work is based on web series and building audiences with repeated video installments, but at Supercool Creative we think there is room in the industry for viral video consideration too.

Written by Tricia Teschke
As a Social Media Strategist with Supercool Creative, Tricia is responsible for social media marketing strategy development, tactics and implementation. She is a graduate of the University of Missouri.

• Video is an excellent way to get people’s attention since it appeals to the senses of sight and hearing, and appeals to each in more ways than other types of content. A viewer absorbs the pictures, any text within the video, the title and description, background music, speech, and sound effects. What other type of content can provide such a full experience?
• Video portrays a company’s spirit. A humorous video shows the company has a fun attitude, while an informative video shows it has a direct attitude. Videos can also blend multiple styles to show a diverse attitude. Other content, such as an article, is more one-dimensional and won’t portray a company’s spirit as fully.
• The message you want to get across to customers or industry insiders is not only conveyed through body text, but also through the action of the video, any text included in the video, and spoken narrative. Video content provides a more diverse set of opportunities to show viewers what you can do.
• Videos are fun to watch and share and are much more memorable than other forms of content because they’re just more entertaining!

To learn more about content marketing, check out David’s full article, “Content Marketing Strategies with Web Video and Social Media.”

Written by Elizabeth Highstrete
As a Content Optimization Specialist with Supercool Creative, Liz is responsible for optimizing video and other content for search and sharing across social networking sites and in viral campaigns. Liz is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara.

—

Online Video Creative and Production
We take an entertainment-first approach to writing and producing online video. By integrating the communication points into a video, in a creative and compelling way, the message gets passed on over and over and nobody kills the messenger.

Viral Video Marketing
We get the right audience to watch and share your videos across video sites like YouTube, Yahoo Video, Daily Motion and Heavy as well as across social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. How many views is enough to get your video out there? 100K? 250K? 1M? That all depends on your demographic and how far reaching your campaign is.

Social Media
We design and manage integrated social media strategies combining social networking resources like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn with web applications, iPhone Apps, contests, text campaigns, microsites and of course, online video to generate buzz and brand awareness.

The following are achievable goals for viral video and social media marketing.

Increase consumer engagement and interaction: A long-term goal that maximizes time spent with your brand and results in increased sales

Increase subscribers, fans, followers: A short and long-term goal to create an ongoing base of consumers and influencers.

Reduce marketing costs: Viral marketing can be a more cost effective alternative in the short and long term as content remains on the web and your message is shared.

Increase website traffic: In order to use social media and viral video to drive traffic to the company Website you have to determine the following: How will the viral video direct traffic to the brand’s Website? What is the required amount of conversation and sharing on social media channels, blogs and video sharing sites necessary to increase Web traffic? How will that traffic convert to purchasing action or further brand interaction?

Achieve desired video views: The number of desired views is based on the approach, investment and channels used for distribution. Decide how many targeted, national, international views are required to achieve what percentage of conversions?

Increase conversions: After converting viewers, decide what needs to be done to increase conversions. Specify what percentage of the total views will take the desired action. Also, know converter behavior and attitudes.

Increase bottom line sales: The ultimate goal for most businesses.

Tactics

On social networks and video sharing sites such as YouTube, users’ online lives collide with their real lives when videos, posts and tweets appeal to them. Their attention is generally focused and receptive because they are choosing to watch (opting in), increasing the likelihood of message retention and enhancing the value of the marketing content. The personal nature of video and social media marketing makes for a more qualitative assessment in terms of ROI. To maximize this advantage as a marketer, define the tactics you will use to achieve the goals.

1. Create and promote viral content:

In terms of viral video, ROI may be most easily quantified by viewership, however this is a somewhat basic assessment. The campaign strategy should clearly define if a large number of views is the only goal. The following questions assist in tailoring expectations to viewership:

Does the type of viewer matter?

What is the desired range of views to be achieved (i.e. 75,000-100,000)?

Do you wish to achieve a high volume of untargeted viewers or do you seek targeted viewership?

In addition to setting viewership goals, answering these questions helps to specify how to best distribute video across social networks.

2. Build relationships through engagement: In addition to defining the target and promoting through targeted channels, in order to build relationships with customers you have to uncover who is being reached. Finding who is interacting with and sharing the brand is essential to brand building. Fostering relationships with influential blogs, publications, Twitter followers, Facebook fans, etc. will create additional engagement and interaction across social networking channels.

3. Expand online presence in terms of buzz/pages: Generate online buzz on social bookmarking sites and forums, and create greater Web presence through blog mentions, embeds, Google search results, etc.

Executing tactics with paid media vs. earned consumer attention

The allocation of budget between paid media and time spent earning consumer attention online should be tailored to the specific ROI goals of the campaign. Paid offers the value of an automatic view guarantee and paid seeding can often help build a viral campaign. In cases where the goal is to reach a highly specified target, paid seeding can be a huge asset in accomplishing this goal. Thus, utilizing the benefits of paid media helps to create a baseline for further efforts to earn consumer attention through viral buzz and word-of-mouth.

If the campaign strategy is to rely heavily on earned media for digital video, then a social media strategy should aid in distribution. When using social media as a campaign and distribution tool it is important to properly allocate the appropriate amount of time and resources to make this happen. Purely organic viral marketing requires an ample amount of time researching targeted channels within social networks and sharing sites.

Using this approach offers the advantage of reaching target opinion leaders and earning attention through viral word of mouth. By targeting key influencers the video will be more relevant and the likelihood of passing the video along will increase. With this approach, ROI is perhaps best assessed through Website traffic, viewership and relationships a brand builds.

When establishing goals for paid media and earned consumer attention, setting up realistic expectations that are narrowly defined in terms of strategy is the key to success.

Summary

I believe much of online marketing involves testing, finding what works best for your brand and defining what channels are most valuable to brand building. ROI is the driver in strategy implementation, thus I think it’s a good idea to try a few options to optimize success. Experimentation is a good thing, being open to this idea can reap great rewards.

Key takeaways…

-The best way to assess viral video or social media marketing ROI is to begin with a realistic assessment of costs upfront.

-Establish well-defined goals.

Written by Tricia Teschke
As a Social Media  Strategist with Supercool Creative, Tricia is responsible for social media marketing strategy  development, tactics  and  implementation. She is a graduate of the University of Missouri.

Connect With David On LinkedIn

Follow @DavidMurdico On Twitter

]]> http://supercoolcreative.com/2010/08/20/david-murdico-2/feed/ 0 http://supercoolcreative.com/2010/08/20/tommy-liu/ http://supercoolcreative.com/2010/08/20/tommy-liu/#comments Sat, 21 Aug 2010 04:46:37 +0000 david http://supercoolcreative.com/?p=1249 Executive Integrated Producer
Tommy leads research and social media marketing strategy at Supercool Creative. A graduate of California State Polytechnic University Tommy is a thought leader in creative concepts, online video, social media and viral marketing strategies for brands and businesses. Also, he is awesome.

Connect with Tommy on LinkedIn

Follow @SupercoolAgency on Twitter

Read his blog at GettingSpotted.com

Connect With Vince on LinkedIn

Follow @StrategyHead on Twitter

Social Media Strategist
Tricia is a dedicated, passionate, driven advertising professional working with Supercool Creative as our social media strategist, specifically on social media strategy, implementation and new business development efforts. Tricia is a graduate of The University of Missouri.

Connect with Tricia on LinkedIn

Follow @triciat22 on Twitter