It’s not even half way through 2014 but it seems there could be a contender for the most creative music video of the year in Sia’s Chandelier.
The three minute and 51 second clip to her emotional ballad has rocketed to over six million views online in just eight days – and the singer doesn’t even make a single appearance in it.
The star of the show is 11-year-old Maddie Ziegler – best known for reality television series Dance Moms – who has been praised for her incredible performance.
The cinematic video had over a million views within 24 hours and follows an animated Ziegler as she dances around a derelict house, jumping on mattresses and playing with curtains.
It has gained some A-List fans, with talk show host Ellen DeGeneres taking to social media to share her love of the quirky songstress. See for yourself;
It even has resulted in some cheesy parody by comedian Jimmy Kimmel broadcasted on American TV;
Facebook said it would begin selling video advertisements later this week, a move that may help the social-networking giant capture a share of the annual $66.4 billion TV advertising market.
Some advertisers rejoiced Tuesday when Facebook introduced long-awaited video advertisements. A bigger question is how users will react.
Marketers “have to be sensitive,” said Tony Pace, chief marketing officer for the Subway sandwich chain, which advertises on Facebook. “If someone said [this video ad] is going to run whether consumers want it or not, that would give me pause,” he said.
Facebook said its first video ad, a teaser for the coming sci-fi film “Divergent,” would begin appearing Thursday, marking an effort by the world’s largest social network to grab a slice of the $66 billion annual U.S. TV advertising pie.
The video ads, which the company says are still being tested to a limited number of users, will start playing automatically as users scroll through their news feed, the central real estate in Facebook’s desktop and mobile platforms. They will initially play without sound; users can stop the ad by scrolling past it in the news feed.
Some users are wary. “This may be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back,” said Lee Kirschbrown, a senior citizen in Tampa, Fla., who is irked by existing Facebook ads. Video ads “will only make me madder,” he said.
Facebook said its first video ad, a teaser for sci-fi film ‘Divergent,’ would begin appearing Thursday. Shown, Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif.Associated Press
In a November survey of 735 Facebook users by global marketing consultancy Analytic Partners, 83% of users said they would find video ads “intrusive” and would likely “ignore” them.
Marketers are more enthusiastic. “Video is really powerful,” said Shelby Saville, managing director at Spark, a media-buying unit of Publicis “Using sight, sound and motion is a way to get consumers to have an emotional connection to the brand, if it’s well done,” she added.
Video advertising isn’t available to all advertisers, and Facebook didn’t say when it would expand the offering.
Many advertisers will be priced out of the market. Facebook is charging around $2 million per day for the ability to reach its 140 million U.S. users aged 18 to 54, according to media buyers. Some media buyers said they found the price surprisingly high.
Facebook began pitching advertisers on video ads about a year ago, giving several advertisers and media buyers a sneak peek last January during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In September, Facebook began quietly testing auto-play videos.
Subway was among the companies that placed ads containing video that users had to start manually. Mr. Pace of Subway said roughly 88 million people saw the ad and “millions” of people clicked on it. “It worked pretty darn well,” he added.
Media buyers said advertisers would be more interested in video ads if Facebook allowed them to better target specific sets of users. Facebook currently allows advertisers to target video ads by gender and age, but not by interests, as it does for traditional ads. “Advertisers always need more data than simply impressions and reach,” said Vik Kathuria, global head of digital investment at Mediacom, a media buying firm owned by WPP.
“This news further confirms that Facebook has abandoned social marketing in favor of standard push-style ads,” said Forrester Research analyst Nate Elliott.
Ad experts say it is no surprise that a movie studio was the first video advertiser, since consumers typically are more interested in movie trailers than ads for more mundane products like soup or toilet paper.
“A movie is perfect for this,” said Jordan Bitterman, chief strategy officer at Mindshare, the media buying agency that brokered the ad deal for Lions Gate Entertainment “Americans love films and when you show a movie trailer there is always going to be a certain part of the audience that really likes it,” he added.
When was the last time you paid attention to a pre-flight safety demonstration? In the past 12 days, Virgin America has managed to get 5.8 million people to watch their safety video without even stepping on a plane!
The airline roped in American director Jon M.Chu (Step Up 2, Step Up 3D) and a team of renowned choreographers, producers and dance stars to give their safety video a full blown makeover. 36 dancersspent 26 hours on set, using 14 different dance styles including broadway, contemporary, jazz, tango, b-boy and break dancing. The end result is this innovative piece of entertainment that has received over 5.8 million YouTube views, 430,000 Facebook shares and 17,000 tweets in less than 2 weeks!
The cast consisted of 10 So You Think You Can Dance alum, 2 former Olympians and 1 American Idol finalist. Watch this behind-the-scenes video to know more about the VX Safety Dance concept, the crew and the creative minds behind the campaign:
You can submit your dance moves at VXsafetydance.com and be part of Virgin America’s next safety video. What ‘s your take on this new approach to in-flight safety demonstrations? Ingenious or ineffective? Would you find this entertaining if you’re a frequent flyer? Share your views in the comments section below.
It’s all about the animals this week on the Viral Chart, well almost. There’s a piece of Honda video marketing that was too good to pass up but we’ll get to that after a series of delightful animal based clips.First up is the world’s first dog powered Rube Goldberg machine. The fact that the video thumbnail contains a shot of a clutch of Labrador puppies in a red wagon has probably helped this clip’s view count skyrocket.
1. Dog Goldberg Machine
Now onto cats, the rulers of the Internet, not everyone likes cats though, some people wish they would be more like dogs. O2 have realised that dream.
2. Be More Dog
Remember that clip of the whale being serenaded by the Mariachi band? This is the sequel:
3. Seal Sax Serenade
Originator of one of the greatest Rube Goldberg machines of all time, here is that new Honda ad:
4. Honda – Hands
Lastly this week and not cute at all – its a showdown on This Morning. Warning, this might make you angry:
5. Holly Willoughby Loses Her Cool With Katie Hopkins
Media and entertainment companies are facing sharp changes in their global customer base over the next four years as a growing middle class in Bric countries and other fast-growing markets narrow the gap between digital media “haves” and “have-nots”, a new forecast cautions.
PwC, the audit and consultancy firm, sees Brazil, Russia, India, China and the once small media markets of the Middle East, north Africa, Mexico, Indonesia and Argentina doubling their share of global entertainment and media revenues to 22 per cent by 2017, even as digital “tipping points” transform larger western markets.
China, now the fifth-largest media market, will overtake the UK and Germany to become the third largest after the US and Japan by 2017. Brazil will pass Canada, South Korea and Italy to become the seventh largest and India will pass Australia to be just outside the top 10, PwC forecasts.
On a global basis, mobile internet revenues will surpass those from fixed broadband by 2014, PwC predicts, and the spread of smartphones and tablets enabled by mobile broadband will take digital entertainment and media spending to 44 per cent of the total in mature markets by 2017.
This growth in smart devices is “democratising” access to media, said Marcel Fenez, head of PwC’s global entertainment and media practice. “Two to three years ago, penetration of smart devices was low.
“They were expensive and only available in certain markets, and the infrastructure wasn’t there to support them,” he noted, adding that the challenge for media companies would be to understand and serve their new, more international customer base.
Even as consumers shift their consumption to digital media, however, they are still proving reluctant to shift spending proportionately, suggesting that the media industry’s concerns about exchanging traditional dollars for “digital dimes” will persist.
Consumer spending on digital content, which accounts for just 9 per cent of entertainment and media revenues, will grow to only 16 per cent by 2017, forcing media companies to rely more on advertising, business-to-business revenues and other digital income.
Digital advertising revenues will continue their rapid growth, PwC predicts, but gaps will persist between the percentage of advertising spent online and the time consumers spend on digital platforms.
This was because advertisers still needed better cross-media measurement tools, Mr Fenez said, noting that “measurement standards have generally tended to lag the developments in the media”.
PwC, which forecasts a tipping point where home video revenues overtake box office takings in the US in 2017, predicts a blurring of the lines between technology and media companies as groups from Google’s YouTube to Netflix, the streaming video platform, invest in producing their own content. There is “a race for content,” Mr Fenez said
Content owners increasingly are turning to social media in hopes of being able to deepen relationships with regular viewers, and, perhaps more importantly, to attract new or occasional viewers to specific programming. But a new study suggests that while social media can help enhance existing relationships with viewers, if it’s used to often, it efficacy decreases. And, in the case of non- or infrequent viewers, social media may have little–if any impact–on drawing them into the fold. The study, from the Council for Research Excellence, found that word-of-mouth is far more likely—five to 10 times more so–to attract new or infrequent viewers to a TV show than Facebook, Twitter, or other social apps.
“While our ‘Talking Social TV’ study found social media incrementally influential in drawing viewers to new shows as opposed to existing shows,” said Beth Rockwood, senior vice president, market resources, of Discovery Communications, who chairs the CRE’s Social Media Committee, “these latest findings suggest social media may have a stronger role in building relationships with a show for existing viewers than in drawing newer viewers to that show. If programmers already have a regular viewer watching their show, they can engage them further.”
The study helped the CRE identify two distinct types of viewers—the “repeaters” and the “infrequents,” Rockwood said. It also helped it “understand the relative roles of demographics and program genre in determining the impact of social media, and to observe the effects of different forms of communication on viewers.”
For instance, the study found that social media holds more sway with repeaters who are over 55 and white, and for infrequent viewers who are Hispanic, African American and male. It is also interesting to see the type of content that has most impact.
CRE said a second study into the relationship of social media and TV viewing, encompassing a lengthier survey of respondents using mobile apps as diaries, is expected to launch later this year.
The academic review of the study was conducted by a team including The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester, and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Some other findings include:
For repeaters, the first encounters with offline word-of-mouth, or a one-to-one electronic communication such as an email or text, or a social-media communication, are related to higher viewing — while subsequent communications can have diminishing returns.
For repeaters, those receiving an initial social media message were found more likely to watch a show by one percentage point, with diminishing returns after each additional exposure to a social media message.
For infrequent viewers, social media and show promos were found to be less related to high viewing than offline word-of-mouth, which peaks at a four-percentage-point increase in the likelihood of sampling the show. More than five social media exposures are needed to obtain the same one-percentage-point lift as one offline word-of-mouth exposure for these infrequent viewers. This suggests social media plays a role in encouraging sampling, but a smaller one;
Social media plays a stronger role for genres such as reality (a nearly four-percentage-point increase in likelihood of watching), sports (more than a two-percentage-point increase) and talk shows (approximately a one-percentage-point increase).
The CRE is an independent research group funded by Nielsen.
comScore, released data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that 182 million Americans watched nearly 41 billion online content videos in May, while the number of video ad views reached 15.8 billion.
Top 10 Video Content Properties by Unique Viewers
Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in May with 154.5 million unique viewers, followed by Facebook with 60.4 million, AOL, Inc. with 53.8 million, VEVO with 52 million and NDN with 46.5 million. Nearly 41 billion video content views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number at nearly 14 billion, followed by AOL, Inc. with 839 million. Google Sites had the highest average engagement among the top ten properties.
Top U.S. Online Video Content Properties Ranked by Video Viewers
Property
Total Unique Viewers (000)
Videos (000)*
Minutes per Viewer
Total Internet : Total Audience
182,217
40,953,776
1,247.9
Google Sites
154,537
13,958,260
436.7
Facebook
60,429
727,383
26.1
AOL, Inc.
53,845
838,934
64.2
VEVO
52,024
591,209
37.9
NDN
46,457
505,339
78.5
Microsoft Sites
45,179
541,503
36.9
Viacom Digital
43,676
415,654
41.2
Yahoo! Sites
43,625
342,432
72.7
Amazon Sites
33,740
163,817
17.8
Turner Digital
32,975
276,951
41.7
*A video is defined as any streamed segment of audiovisual content, including both progressive downloads and live streams. For long-form, segmented content, (e.g. television episodes with ad pods in the middle) each segment of the content is counted as a distinct video stream.Video views are inclusive of both user-initiated and auto-played videos that are viewed for longer than 3 seconds.
Top 10 Video Ad Properties by Video Ads Viewed
Americans viewed 15.8 billion video ads in May, with BrightRoll Platform ranking #1 with 2.6 billion ad impressions. Google Sites came in second with nearly 2.6 billion ads, followed by LiveRail.com with 2.1 billion, Adap.tv with 2.1 billion, Hulu with 1.7 billion, Specific Media with 1.4 billion and TubeMogul Video Ad Platform with 1.2 billion. Time spent watching video ads totaled 6 billion minutes, with BrightRoll Platform delivering the highest duration of video ads at 1.3 billion minutes. Video ads reached 53 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 96 times during the month. Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 71.
Top U.S. Online Video Ad Properties Ranked by Video Ads*
Property
Video Ads (000)
Total Ad Minutes (MM)
Frequency (Ads per Viewer)
% Reach Total U.S. Population
Total Internet : Total Audience
15,844,581
6,042
96.5
53.1
BrightRoll Platform**
2,624,509
1,340
16.2
52.5
Google Sites
2,553,208
233
23.7
34.9
LiveRail.com†
2,128,167
742
23.9
28.9
Adap.tv†
2,098,981
1,000
15.8
43.1
Hulu
1,666,610
653
71.3
7.6
Specific Media**
1,411,102
552
12.5
36.5
TubeMogul Video Ad Platform†
1,225,897
349
13.5
29.4
Tremor Video**
882,522
459
11.6
24.5
Videology†
632,899
262
8.1
25.1
AOL, Inc.
630,551
296
12.1
16.9
*Video ads include streaming-video advertising only and do not include other types of video monetization, such as overlays, branded players, matching banner ads, etc.
**Indicates video ad network
†Indicates video ad exchange/DSP/SSP
Top 10 YouTube Partner Channels by Unique Viewers
The May 2013 YouTube partner data revealed that video music channel VEVO maintained the top position in the ranking with 50.2 million viewers. Fullscreen held on to the #2 position with 36.5 million viewers, followed by Maker Studios Inc. with 32.4 million, Warner Music with 32 million and ZEFR (formerly MovieClips) with 27.5 million. Among the top 10 YouTube partners, Machinima demonstrated the highest engagement (63 minutes per viewer), followed by Maker Studios Inc. (48 minutes per viewer). VEVO streamed the greatest number of videos (562 million), followed by Maker Studios Inc. (433 million).
Top YouTube Partner Channels* Ranked by Video Viewers
Property
Total Unique Viewers (000)
Videos (000)
Minutes per Viewer
VEVO @ YouTube
50,238
561,631
36.1
Fullscreen @ YouTube
36,486
284,829
23.8
Maker Studios Inc. @ YouTube
32,371
432,854
47.5
Warner Music @ Youtube
31,956
176,509
17.7
ZEFR @ YouTube
27,497
130,772
13.5
The Orchard @ YouTube
24,313
90,023
10.4
Machinima @ YouTube
21,371
349,628
62.6
UMG @ YouTube
19,838
68,297
9.9
BroadbandTV @ YouTube
16,451
112,491
21.6
SonyBMG @ YouTube
16,250
44,173
8.3
Other notable findings from May 2013 include:
84.8 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
The duration of the average online content video was 5.6 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.
Video ads accounted for 27.9 percent of all videos viewed and 2.6 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.
YouTube reaches more U.S. adults between the ages of 18 and 34 than any cable network. With one billion unique users per month, YouTube helps brands engage with people who aren’t just willing to watch videos; they’re actively seeking them out.
A video marketing strategy on YouTube can benefit your brand’s social media presence on other networks, too. When Old Spice ran its “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign, it gained over 80,000 Twitter followers in two days and increased its Facebook engagement by 800%. What do these numbers mean? Well, for Old Spice, they meant a 107% sales increase.
This infographic by MDG Advertising illustrates the growth and consumption habits of YouTube viewers, and shows how your brand can turn content into revenue with a video marketing strategy.
Marketers’ excitement over new social media channels is understandable; these platforms have fundamentally changed the way that companies and their customers interact. But a September poll of adult internet users and marketing decision-makers in the US, the UK, France, Germany and Australia conducted by Pitney Bowes Software found that marketers need to be careful to make sure they are not overcommitting to social channels, and, moreover, that their actions on social media are aligned with consumer preferences.
The survey found stark disparities in the concentration of consumers on certain social media networks, compared to the percentage of marketers on those channels. Those making marketing decisions in the five countries in which the poll was conducted have responded to the heavy adoption of Facebook. But in many other cases, the number of marketers on a given platform outpaced the potential customers there.
On Twitter, for instance, 57% of marketers reported using the site compared with 31% of consumers, and 51% of marketers had a presence on Google+ despite the fact that only 21% of consumers used it. Meanwhile, 53% of consumers were on YouTube, but only 41% of marketers had established a presence there.
And comparing between networks, while internet users were more likely to be found on YouTube over Twitter, marketers were more heavily present on the microblog network vs. the digital video channel.
Adding to the need for marketers to approach social maketing somewhat cautiously, consumers have displayed time and again an indifference to—or at worst, annoyance at—marketing messages pushed at them on social media, instead preferring to use such platforms to engage in more conversational interactions. And it should come as no surprise that consumers were predisposed to marketing messages from brands and companies that they had already chosen to “follow” or “like.”
The annoyance rate of consumers who saw ads from brands they followed was 11%, but jumped to 24% for those confronted with social media marketing messages from brands they didn’t follow, showing that tolerance for unsolicited messages was noticeably lower.
With the advent of content marketing, brands also need to be careful about confusing customers when employing Facebook Sponsored Stories and Promoted Tweets. An October survey of US internet users by social and mobile advertising solutions provider MediaBrix found that 57% of those who had seen a Sponsored Story thought it appeared as content in a misleading way, while 45% thought the same about Promoted Tweets.
Even worse, MediaBrix found that 72% of those who felt they had been duped by a Sponsored Story either felt the same way or worse about the brand afterwards; 62% of those feeling mislead by a Promoted Tweet said the same
Nike is known for using guerrilla marketing tactics to try and steal the limelight from its competitors, and during the London Olympics it managed to outshine official sponsor Adidas with a massive billboard and social campaign around the capital.
Nike eschewed the usual celebrity endorsements in a campaign that celebrated everyday athletes. It bought up hundreds of billboards around the city featuring the hashtag ‘#findgreatness’.
Adidas, which spent tens of millions of pounds to be an official sponsor, ran a campaign featuring Team GB athletes and the hashtag ‘#takethestage’.
According to Socialbakers’ CheerMeter there were more than 16,000 tweets associating Nike with the word Olympic between 27 July and 2 August compared to 9,295 for Adidas.
Furthermore. Nike attracted 166,718 new Facebook fans during the Games versus 80,761 for Adidas.
Data from Experian Hitwise shows that Nike achieved a 6% growth in its number of Facebook fans and a 77% boost in engagement on its Facebook page compared to 2% and 59% respectively for Adidas.
Dumb Ways To Die
I became aware of this campaign thanks to Vivienne Egan’s excellent blog post about why it’s achieved such huge viral success.
The video is a catchy tune created by a public transport authority in Melbourne, Australia, aimed at raising awareness about railway safety.
I don’t know whether it will actually prevent any train accidents, but you’d hope that the video had an impact on at least one of the 30m people who have watched it since it went live two weeks ago.
Dollar Shave Club
Male grooming can be an expensive business, particularly when buying branded razors on a regular basis.
Spotting a gap in the market, Michael Dubin set up Dollar Shave Club to provide men with new razors for just $1 a month.
In this brilliantly quirky video Dubin describes his businesses service in the company’s warehouse amid increasingly bizarre scenes.
It’s not only extremely funny, but also does a great job of convincing the viewer to sign up to Dollar Shave Club.
Cadbury
Social media lies at the heart of Cadbury’s marketing activities, and we‘ve reported on a number of product launches this year that used Facebook and Google+.
One of its most interesting social campaigns was to celebrate the brand reaching 1m Facebook fans.
Cadbury realised that despite having so many fans, only 16% of them ever saw content that the brand posted on Facebook.
The challenge was to increase the engagement among its fans, as well as reaching friends of fans and the wider Facebook community.
To test what content users would engage with, Cadbury decided to build a giant Facebook ‘like’ thumb out of pieces of Dairy Milk.
It used teaser ads in the build up to the event, then live streamed in a studio decorated with user-generated content and photos. The team also responded to user requests and comments in the video.
As a result, Cadbury gained 40,000 Facebook fans and more than 350,000 people were actively involved in the campaign. Some fans even left the live feed running for hours on end.
Prometheus
Back in May 20th Century Fox tried to tap into the viral power of Twitter to promote the release of Ridley Scott’s sci-fi movie Prometheus.
A new three-minute trailer for the film was screened simultaneously online, on Channel 4 and on social TV app Zeebox.
Viewers were then encouraged to tweet about the film using the hashtag #areyouseeingthis.
During the next ad break, Channel 4 screened a 40 second spot which included viewer’s tweets.
Analysis from 1000heads shows that there was a spike in activity, peaking at around 4,000 tweets, with the campaign potentially reaching around 15m users.
At the time I suggested that the reliance on traditional media meant that the campaign wasn’t particularly innovative, but I still think it’s a noteworthy example of a studio using social to promote a new movie.
Old Spice
Old Spice is responsible for some of the most memorable viral campaigns ever created (“I’m on a horse”), and this year it ditched its Old Spice Guy character for an interactive video involving ex-NFL player Terry Crews.
After watching a short video of Crews playing musical instruments by flexing his muscles, viewers could then use their keyboard to play their own tune.
It has little to do with the product and everything to do with the brand, and has now clocked up 8m views on Vimeo.
Heinz
Heinz is another FMCG brand that frequently uses social to build excitement around its product launches.
As part of the marketing activities around a new Five Beanz variety, Heinz created a Facebook quiz app that told people what kind of bean they had grown up to become in response to a series of questions about their personality traits.
To encourage people to take part and share the app, five winners were picked every hour and sent a personalised bean and every user that invited 10 people to take the quiz was given a goodie bag. Heinz also offered Facebook fans a coupon so they could try the product.
The campaign ran for two weeks and achieved impressive results:
22,143 took the quiz to apply for a personalised bean.
More than 10,000 users shared the app.
The campaign reached 10.8m people on Facebook.
It reached 3m people reached outside of Facebook through Twitter, blogs and news sites.
The Heinz Facebook community grew by 30,000 extra fans.
Heineken
Never one to endorse brands shamelessly chasing Facebook ‘likes’, I was in two minds whether to include this campaign on the list.
However Heineken went beyond the usual “like us and we’ll give you a discount” tactic employed by many brands and instead offered to blow up one green balloon in its office for every new ‘like’ it got on its Brazilian fan page.
Heineken even personalised the campaign by reading out the names of some of the users on YouTube.
This is another great example of a fun, interactive campaign that is more about the brand than the product itself.
It earned Heineken thousands of new fans and helped to improve brand awareness in an emerging market.
Telenet
A Belgian TV station setup a dramatic set piece in a town square to advertise a new TV station, involving a shoot out, fights and American football players.
To kick off the over-the-top action sequence, members of the public had to press a red button in the square with a sign saying ‘Push to add drama.’
As is often the case with viral videos, you’re never quite sure whether the members of the public are indeed genuinely unaware of what’s going on, but you can’t really argue with 39m YouTube views.
Mini USA
This video technically went live on YouTube at the end of December 2011, but I thought it was good enough to sneak onto the list anyway.
A social media marketing campaign with a healthy budget – Mini asked people to describe the best test drive ever in six words.
Matthew Foster came up with the winning entry and became the star of an ad to promote the launch of the new Mini Cooper.
It’s had less than 700,000 views on YouTube, but contains stewardesses, salt flats, paratroopers, sushi and a random rock band name Falconer. What’s not to love?
Bespokevideoproduction 