We are really excited to be participating again in The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the world’s largest gathering of creativity in communications. Each year Cannes brings together the greatest creative minds in advertising to network with their peers, celebrate creative breakthroughs in advertising, and win awards — needless to say, we are fans of the event.
Brands Graduate Online Video College With Commencement Speech Videos
We’re just coming out of graduation season, where millions of high school and college students all around the world earn their diplomas and sit together for two hours during a really boring ceremony. However, some lucky graduates got the opposite of boring when their schools brought in special (and famous) commencement speakers. It used to be that schools picked speakers based on their message or connection to the school. And while those are still considerations, schools these days are savvy enough to also consider what kind of viral boost they might get from prospective speakers.
When SNL alum, Andy Samburg, spoke at Harvard’s graduation, the Harvard Magazine was there to record it, and has already leveraged it to more than half a million views for their channel:
Going Retro: Brands of the Present & Future Look to the Past
One trend we’ve noticed the last couple weeks in online video is that brands have developed an appreciation for the past. Specifically, many brands are finding ways to leverage the nostalgia and memories of viewers by going retro.
Polygon went retro within their own world of video games to bring us A Brief History Of Video Games, a sight-and-sound extravaganza for millions of former gamers–yes, your former favorite game is included:
Pay Attention To That Man Behind The Curtain
One of the current popular trends brands are using to gain traction with social video campaigns is the idea of taking the audience behind the curtain. Letting the viewer go behind the scenes of something (or someone) they already love is a fantastic way to really engage them and keep their attention on your content.
DC Shoes has had unprecedented success with online video through their Gymkhana series, featuring renowned driver Ken Block. So what did they do to follow up their 17-million-view Gymkhana Four? They went behind the scenes of the viral hit, and earned another 1.4 million views:
For The NBA, Online Video Is A Promotional Slam-Dunk
Things must be turning around for the NBA. For several years, viewership was slipping, as the league struggled with the image of the game and its players. These days, however, that image has largely been rehabilitated, and the NBA has never been more popular. Want proof? Just check the latest chart of popular branded video campaigns, and you’ll see the league is one of the most common (and in-demand) topics.
Pepsi scored a mega hit (over 6 million views in barely a week) with Uncle Drew, a short film starring Kyrie Irving doing a little in-character pranking on the local courts:
Native Advertising Round-Up: Facebook’s IPO marks the official start of the native ad era
With the Facebook IPO now in our rear view mirror, we can get back to the bigger issue at hand: The future of native advertising. Facebook’s historic public offering was a milestone for the evolution of the digital advertising industry from low performing banner and display advertising to native ad formats. Last week featured a litany of thoughtful presentations and articles about native advertising and where it is headed next. In case you got caught up in other things, here is a round-up of some of the notable native conversations: Read More
Brands Avenging Their Past Video Marketing Mistakes With Marvel Characters
For three weekends, Marvel Studios’ The Avengers has taken the world box office by storm, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars and cementing the status of a new tentpole franchise.
And now here come the brands. Always among the first to jump on a bandwagon, brands have already begun leveraging the popularity of The Avengers for their own purposes.
IGN has a hit with Disassembled, a fan film from animator Junaid Chindrigar:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJVCaxGTbTU
Branded Firepower – The Odd Trend Of Fake Guns
There are an awful lot of branded video campaigns out there right now featuring guns. Specifically… fake guns, made out of unexpected everyday items.
There’s the LEGO Gun, which got the attention of Boing Boing, leading to over 200,000 views. The guns are impressive because they not only look cool, but they have some moving parts and gun functions:
Dan’s TechCrunch Article: 5 Ways Native is Changing Silicon Valley
Dan details the five major ways in which native advertising monetization is changing Silicon Valley in a thoughtful and enlightening new TechCrunch article. Dan offers up the Silicon Valley perspective to the ways in which a native advertising strategy affects the upside for tech investors. He reminds us that it’s not just brands and publishers who have a stake in the native monetization strategies that are changing the digital ad game, and he outlines some of the ways Silicon Valley views and evaluates developments in the space.
Read it here.
It’s The End Of the World As We Know It – And Brands Feel Fine
Digging into the current branded video landscape, there are some obvious trends we can spot such as time-lapse footage, tilt-shift effects, and even interactive video campaigns. But dig a little deeper, and you’ll find the more subtle trends and topics brands are finding to be consistent sources of interest and traffic.
Such as the apocalypse. That’s right… brands want to destroy the world-at least if they can get some good PR out of it.
Mutltiple brands and video creators have found ways to take something as potentially-frightening as the end of the world, and use it to drive awareness in their brand. For instance, Epipheo found viral success and social buzz with their video last week entitled How To Survive A Robot Uprising. It’s tongue-in-cheek, and mostly for fun, but has some legitimate logic behind its reasoning.