Plumbing: How To Unblock A Sink
There is a bit of an assumption that you can stick any old film online and you've instantly got yourself a viral hit. This is yet another of those grand misunderstandings of what digital is all about. The most obvious example of this are the multitudinous attemps of agencies to bung a telly ad online, cross their fingers and hope that it flys around the web like Cadbury's Gorilla did.
Alternatively, the conventional wisdom states that any old under-produced bit of audio visual cack, once graced by the magic of a YouTube upload, will busy itself flying between every computer in the land. Bollocks.
In a very simplistic way, there are two end point strategies for film online. There are a spectrum of films that fall in between. But for clarity's sake, let's just consider these two.
- The type of video content that is good. So good, in fact, that people feel compelled to pass it on to others. The views accumulated from this type of content are primarily driven by peer-to-peer sharing. The viewing audience for this is not necessarily your target audience, or even those who could give a toss about your product. Lots of people will see it, though.
- Video content that people find as a result of a specific search - say, "How to unblock a sink". The views of this type of content are driven by interest or need around the videos topic. The viewing audience of this film type will tend to be much lower. But you can pretty much guarantee that a large proportion of them will be very warm to your product and message.
Both are very valid strategies, but you just have to be clear what type of film strategy you are pursuing from the off. Y'know, like you do with all your marketing strategies.
For example, say you are launching a shiny new handset. You could employ the two strategies in two very different ways, and at two different stages of the campaign launch.
"Peer-to-peer" Video.
Marketing objective: Create wide spread buzz and awareness of the handset to an audience who are not already aware of the hardware.
Comms timing: Close to launch. We need buzz that will lead to sales.
"Search-destination" Video.
Marketing objective: Create destination content for a handset to capture those that are actively aware of, and are searching for information on that particular handset.
Comms timing: As early as possible. The longer you leave it, the more likely *lots* of other people will create similar content that will trump you in natural search. First always wins.
There are of course examples that kind of do both. But they just confuse my neat little plannery argument. Actually, can't resist. What role do you think this one plays?
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Posted by: Marc | July 14, 2009 at 12:45 PM