Vertical Measures » Video Marketing

Act Like a Rock Star and Harness the Power of Video Marketing

Ardala E — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:55:54 +0000

Do bands want to be known for their music or their videos? Well, for the group OK Go, they really have no choice. In 2006 the infamous “treadmill video”, for the song “Here It Goes Again,” debuted on YouTube (which was still wet behind the ears), and became extremely popular. Shot at a relative’s house on a shoestring budget, the video won them the 2006 Most Creative Video at the YouTube Video Awards, and the 2007 Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video. The video is credited with bringing large audiences to OK Go’s concerts on five continents.

One reason this video became so popular is because many websites and blogs embedded the video, so users weren’t just viewing the video on YouTube, they were viewing it all over the Internet. Another reason for the success of the treadmill video is that it has a “homemade” look and feel to it that appeals to people, maybe in the same way that reality TV does. MTV is considered the birthplace of music videos, but they were very selective. For a video to be aired, it had to be flashy, glamorous, technical and expensive. Then along came YouTube.

At some point, OK Go’s record company decided to disable the embedding feature for the treadmill video. Views dropped 90 percent after the restriction was imposed. This did not sit well with lead singer Damian Kulash, as he explains in an article in The New York Times, “WhoseTube.” Record companies realized that videos on YouTube could be a source of revenue, so they got YouTube to agree to pay them a meager amount of royalties for each stream. But, of course, the stream had to be through YouTube’s site. On Tuesday, OK Go announced in a video, featuring two executively dressed dogs, that they are leaving EMI and creating their own label.

OK Go released their newest album, Of the Blue Color of the Sky, in January of this year. They hooked up with the Notre Dame marching band on a field in Indiana and created another unique video to the song “This Too Shall Pass.” What’s so special about this video is the fact that it’s being recorded live, what you see is what you hear. In other words, the song, originally played by the band’s four musicians, had to be arranged for 200 band members. So, this really isn’t the “official” video for the song. That came a little later, on March 1, with the help of Syyn Labs and the good neighbors at State Farm.

The band had always planned on making a video involving a Rube Goldberg Machine (a machine that does a simple task in a very complex way that involves a series of chain reactions), and the time finally came. Six months of planning, a month and a half of setup, 60 people (including NASA engineers), a 10,000 sq. ft. warehouse, numerous flea market finds, 25 very sensitive mousetraps, no computer magic, the band, precise timing, and a whole lot of patience is what this video is made of. A bit of funding from State Farm also helped a bit. The video begins with a State Farm truck starting the machine and ends with a thanks from OK Go for making the video possible. State Farm paid an undisclosed amount to be a part of the creative team, and to ensure that viewers can embed the video on other sites.

OK Go has been very successful with the viral video phenomenon. At the time of this writing, the treadmill video has had tens of millions of views and the RGM version of the “This Too Shall Pass” video has close to seven million views. With the popularity of “homemade” type videos, video marketing can help a band, or a website, gain recognition quickly. A brainstorming session is great for coming up with ideas of what users will find unique, helpful and intriguing. The video concepts should be something that viewers will get excited about and want to share. Utilize the power of video marketing and promote like a rock star.

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What Movie Rentals Could Mean for YouTube and You

Michael Schwartz — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:54:03 +0000

When YouTube announced last week that it would be offering five films from the Sundance Film Festival for $3.99 a pop, it wasn’t a big deal because people no longer had to make like Ari Gold and Vinny Chase from Entourage to view some of the best independent films upon their release.

Instead it’s a big deal because it could be the first step for the popular Google-owned video sharing site to eventually adopt mainstream fare into its already robust menu of wedding dancing and baby biting videos.

The biggest question surrounding YouTube for years, not unlike Twitter, is when will it stop being a bandwidth hog and start justifying the $1.65 billion price Google paid to acquire it three years ago?

There is only so much money that can be made from Google ads, so YouTube protruding into the rentals market could be significant.

According to The Huffington Post, analyst Douglas Anmuch projects YouTube to produce about $700 million in revenue this year, which would be a 55 percent increase from 2009 in large part because advertisers will be more willing to put ads next to professional content than amateur and potentially offensive material.

No doubt we’re still months away from YouTube becoming Netflix, if that ever indeed does happen; this is just a trial for certain.

It’s not going to be easy for YouTube to negotiate with major motion picture agencies, but this is another step in the paradigm shift in how we watch movies.

Why would anybody go to Blockbuster again when they could watch movies on demand on Netflix or YouTube?

Beyond the rental charge, I wonder what kind of monetary opportunities such a shift would mean for YouTube.

Could they get advertisers to sponsor the video page with a relevant ad that would be showing on the webpage during the viewing? That would certainly cost a pretty penny for sponsors.

For link builders, this could be most noteworthy because the popular "Related Videos" tab remains intact for the Sundance videos.

A company that offers video marketing services such as Vertical Measures could create a video with the aim to go viral and optimize it with keywords related to the major motion picture. If the general public agrees that the video is as entertaining as you think it is, its hits would likely explode.

Of course, this would not be as good as getting direct traffic to your actual site, but it could drum up buzz and at least a nice bit of traffic from the link to your site in the description of the video.

If YouTube becomes a giant in the movie rental industry as it could be poised to become in the coming years, you will definitely want to ride its coattails for your own benefit.

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Viral Videos: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Kaila S. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:39:18 +0000

How valuable is traffic to you? Let’s say, hypothetically, you received a million visitors to your site in a couple days. Could you benefit? Your answer is likely a resounding, YES! One of the avenues businesses are exploring to accomplish this feat is through the aid of viral video marketing.

Recently Evian’s "Roller Babies" commercial was released with both US and UK versions, yielding 15 million+ views collectively on YouTube….in less than a month. With proper planning, marketing, and development they created an internet sensation. Their "Live Young" campaign has been a hit, and their dedicated website to this campaign is already a PR 3.

Businesses can profit from videos they don’t even produce or submit! Today on YouTube’s Biz Blog they mentioned the infamous "JK Wedding Entrance Dance" that has exploded on the web and the successes seen since the viral video’s launch on July 19^th. They reported that the song featured in the video, Chris Brown’s "Forever", was claimed by the rights holders and utilized for monetization purposes. They placed Click-to-Buy links over the video, leading viewers to iTunes and Amazon to purchase the track. This has translated to a #4 spot on the iTunes singles chart and a #3 spot on Amazon’s best selling MP3 list, over a year after the songs original debut. By the way, the JK video has received over 12 million views in 11 days.

Businesses can also be hurt by viral videos, which is why brand management is so important. Take for example Dave Carroll’s video, "United Breaks Guitars". One day after the video was released United contacted Mr. Carroll, but it was too late. Within a short four days he had over a million views on YouTube, had the video featured on CNN, and had over 19,000 blog mentions. In this time span he successfully changed the SERPs for "United Airlines" in Google, taking over 7 of the first page slots.

Carroll and his band are said to be profiting quite nicely from the publicity received on the video, and others have taken advantage of the video as well. Worth noting is what Taylor Quality Guitars decided to do. They provided a video response to Carroll’s video, hopping on the bandwagon and receiving 100,000 views just simply by expressing their concern and giving a plug to their site that provides guitar travel care.

As you can see there are many good, bad, and ugly repercussions in regards to viral videos and many lessons to learn from the above videos. 1) Have good brand management, 2) content truly is king, and 3) unique ideas can and will flourish on the internet.

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