A “hunter shoots a bear” ad by Tipex (developed by Grouek ) shows how you can build viral branding campaigns on Youtube. The video takes interactivity to a new level by letting the viewer finish the ad. In addition they embrace the freedom of of the internet by dealing with humor with typos (with a nice 404 video) or if you decide to use the word “fuck”.

However the most interesting thing is the “white labeling” effect where the viewer always gets the feeling that is in Youtube. And guess what? This will not have been possible with other technology then flash. The use of CSS3 based animations might become more popular as the web changes, still it will take very long  time (maybe 5 years) for other technology to push the boundaries of the web as it was done in this campaign by Tipex.

The “JK Wedding Entrance Dance” on Youtube, is the viral video of the moment (if you want to see it, scroll down to the end of the post). At the moment of the writing of this post, it has 1,613,403 views. When I first saw it, like an hour a ago, it had 1.4 million plus views. Means that the current rate is 200,000 views per hour, which will be interesting to check if it double by the end of the weekend.

Is crazy if you see the graph [on the image bellow], how the video exponentially went up in views in the last day or so. If you see in the graph around the 23rd of July the video started to get traction and then suddenly it when up. My first question is what happened, what was the catalyst?

[source youtube.com]

The answer to the question is the demographics that go interested on the video, which is shown in the image bellow: Females from 35 to 54 years old. Women around that age already have been married (or divorced), have kids and generally have great social network of other moms.

[source youtube.com]

Women at this age share a lot and support each other, so it is natural that if they love this video, they will share it. I guess, to them this is a act [by a couple] that really wanted to make it a special day. In other words it was romantic gesture, that wasn’t disrespectful and had a catchy song (adding the modern twist). This way finding it appealing and sticky, therefore trigger them to share it with their other women friends.

Without further ado the famous JK Wedding Entrance Dance video, big kudos to the couple:

Although most are trying to figure out what exactly the Web  3.0 will be, I like to take a moment and show you what the business model of Web 2.0 was and what is happing today with web a.k.a Web 2.5.

The best way to explain what was the predominant business plan of the Web 2.0 companies, let take a look at this clip from the South Park episode called Gnomes (or “Underpants Gnomes”):

Finished? Cool stuff how the Gnomes business model and Web 2.0  look alike. Here is the comparison:

The success of Google gave “permission” to a bunch of VCs and companies to launch a “cool” or “innovative” way of using the web, getting a bunch of registered users and then (if no big company wants to buy them) try to figure out how to make money i.e facebook and youtube. Being  twitter and friendfeed  the last famous companies of the batch to use Gnomes business model.

With the economic recession [in other words realizing that we can't just waste money on promises and bet on money we don't have], it’s harder for web companies to get funding, if they don’t have clear revenue model (other than advertisement). So, today in the Web 2.5, companies like Vimeo, Animoto, Userfly and Mailchimpp, offer a trial or basic version of the service for free. If you want or need more advance features you can pay a subscription fee or paying as you go. Generally the “pay as you go” is for occasional users. What is interesting is that this is not a new business model, its basically the same used by companies behind  famous “shareware” software. But because the trend is to provide “software as a service” hosted on the “cloud” then, they took the principal of the shareware model and applied it to services. It will not be called the “shareware” model because its not software that you download and installed ( you just log and run it in your browser). The contemporary name is “freemium“.

Finally what is Web 2.5, well here is my kind of chaotic definition:

• Use freemium (or any variation) as their business model
• “the design style is really a re-emergence of the pre-web standards era of the late nineties”
• refocus on mashups and APIs
• target is less mainstream (as a result of a focus on making money)
• better user experience
• transition phase, were the lessons learn from web 2.0, are applied.

Recently I wrote a post on the Kobe Bryant Jumping over a car video, in addition to other stuff concerning viral videos. As you can see, that video has created some buzz like or not, good or bad, the buzz is there. But when such video, event or “thing” starts to appear as “spoofs” around YouTube, you have nail it. In the case of Kobe Bryant (and concerning the USA market) when a TV station like TNT creates a spoof in their show “Inside the NBA” well that is priceless.

Here is the spoof created by TNT with Kobe Bryant watching it

Funny stuff and Inside the NBA is the best.

But back to viral videos, Kobe’s “stunt”, is on the verge of becoming pop culture. When more videos like the following will appear in different forms, you know you have done it.

Of coarse, like most things, its easier said than done. The key here is to be creative and feed on others momentum, like the two videos you will see at the end of this post. And the create thing of video sites is that you can monitor the success of your video, so it can become a trial and error process. The resources to pull it off are out there (as the videos on the bottom show), but in this media of viral videos, what matter is only one thing: the content.

Viral, real or fake, who cares, at end, they sell, just like sex.

If you think the above phrase is true, then its a good idea you take a step back. Here is why:

If a video creates you the urge to share it, then I ask: “those you make it succeeded?”. Doesn’t matter if they did it because they want to critique it, think is fake or real, if people talk about it, buzz is generated. Of coarse not always any buzz is good buzz, but when it comes to videos, when done well they create brand awareness.

The reason I mention the above is because I stumbled at this video:

It shows Kobe Bryant jumping over a Aston Martin.

It’s a amazing piece of video, like most videos regarding Nike products. You can see at the discussions of the video that some people think is fake, some think is irresponsible and other that is read. But if people talk about it and pass it around, create web sites about the video (see here). The question here is does this video helps Nike sell more Kobe Bryant shoes?

If Nike wants to create brand awareness and be always in the mind of customers, then this might be the way to go. But I don’t know if they see this they will think they can jump, that maybe worked for Nike ten years ago and with Jordan shoes. People today are smart enough to figure out that the above video is fake, since the Lakers and nobody will take a chance to injure their star player on a “stunt”. But still there are people that think is real and the reason for that is that they are fans of Kobe or are anti Kobe fans. Either they will criticized it in a positive or negative way.

Nike has always done very interesting marketing campaigns and this tactic of using YouTube is not the first one. I think they started with soccer and the following add:

Again we have the fake or real discussion, but there are not commenting about Kobe being stupid, idiot, etc. The reasons is because Ronaldinho is Ronaldinho and Kobe is Kobe. But again they create buzz and having 22 million views is not bad as an alternative to TV and not paying royalties to for showing up the commercial.

Nike doing some viral video is different from a small company or startup, that question is “Will it Blend?”. That is a series of videos from a company called Blendtec where they create commercial blenders. To show the power of this blenders he will blend everything you ask for or he can come up with, from golf balls to Chuck Norris and even a iPhone (which the fans asked for).

As reported by this article on Inc.com:

Since the video series debuted on YouTube, retail sales of the company’s blenders have grown fivefold, to an estimated $10 million, up from $2 million in 2006. The original run of five videos cost only $50 to produce and has been viewed more than 35 million times on YouTube.

The lesson to learn here is that if you are going to use viral video or another kind of marketing tools, it should work for your company and not just follow a trend blindly. In the case of Blendtec they created credibility by blending anything. People on Blendtec new this, but how to make people see this and at the same time keeping costs down. In the case of Nike it’s just of maintain brand awareness, generating a stronger link with its customers.

At the end of the day, because of the low cost involved in creating videos for YouTube (or any Internet video site), it can be a trail and error process, but remember it’s all about the content. Do you think Blendtec success will have been the same if they use different slogan or jingle?

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UPDATE:

Just an FYI, i found this article that states the following

“The video drew concern from some Lakers fans, although Bryant wasn’t really jumping over a moving car. He said it was created with special effects.”