We are excited to join Click 3X in our “The Viral Business: Social Strategies for Brand Video Content” panel at Social Media Week next week. Our panel includes leading creative, media & tech agencies who will be discussing all facets of the social video market today (including brand video creation, promotion & distribution), as well as what is coming up in this exciting space. Additionally, the team will highlight examples of successful social video campaigns, and identify some best practices for getting the most out of your brand video (read: the holy grail of earned media & cultural impact).
Come one, come all! Whether you are a brand, marketer, creative agency, media agency, or someone that just fascinated at how leprechauns go viral, this will surely be an interesting discussion.
A Happy Hour networking session will follow the panel. Hope to see you on February 16 from 5:00-9:00 PM at Click 3X HQ.
Click here for additional event details:
Welcome back to the world of 1s and 0s. Today’s topic: grandiose engagement ideas.
It’s no secret that there’s an ever-growing gaming layer over the real world. What started as simple check-ins and intangible rewards (how cool is being a virtual mayor, really?) has catapulted into loyalty programs (Stampt), hyper-local deals (ScoutMob), and my personal favorite: real-life challenges to earn those hyper-local deals (SCVNGR).
And as this layer enters the general consciousness its evolution has been mirrored in advertising and marketing executions. You had the classic execution, where you win free stuff if you show up at someone’s check-in before they leave. Now that has been one-upped by Dodge’s recent campaign, where users followed clues hidden in a series of videos to try and find a new 2011 Dodge Journey. And if they found it, (you guessed it) they won it.
This new landscape has become the catalyst for some interesting creative meetings within agency walls. It’s not uncommon for a brief calling for a microsite and some banners to morph into a cross-country road-trip involving a tricked-out RV and major prizes. But even if you have the production covered, how do you get people to notice?
You could set up a Twitter account, but unless you already have a strong following that’s tough to build quickly.
You could build a Facebook fan page, but who doesn’t have that already?
You could do what Dodge did with YouTube videos, but YouTube has 48 hours of content uploaded per minute. (http://www.youtube.com/t/press_statistics)
How do you cut through the clutter? You can’t buy followers or fans, but you can buy video discovery to earn them.
(You saw that coming, didn’t you?)
If you’re launching an engagement contest, why not take a page from the Dodge playbook and promote it with an online paid discovery effort? You can spend a fraction of the budget of a broadcast campaign and get a ton more customer love.
Stay grandiose, my friends.
You wanna know who is awesome? Nikki Arias is awesome.
She is not a coffee drinker, but her sixth sense told her that the coffee we currently have in our office tastes like camel balls. And her sixth sense is dead on. On top of that, the RedBull consumption in the office (as a coffee substitute) was getting out of hand (Bryan had chugged then crushed RedBull cans on his head one too many times). So, as she explores new coffee options for the office, she organized a coffee tasting with Bicycle Coffee Co. http://www.bicyclecoffeeco.com/.
Believe it or not, their coffee is delivered by bike to SF, Berkeley and Oakland. Like Hansel, so hot right now.
When I asked some peeps around the office to describe the coffee in one word, two things became abundantly clear.
1. People think full sentences are “one word”
2. People loved the coffee…
Abir: Tasty. Bold. Floral. Aromatic. Coffee-esque. (5.5 words)
Jenna: Yes, it was great. WAY better than we have now. (10 words)
Winnie: It’s creamy. (2 words)
Evan: Creamy.
Davina: No, in a different word.
Evan: Um, smooth. How’s that? (4 words)
Jessica: Full flavored and delicious. Definitely a nice mid-morning treat! (10 words)
Bryan: It was bold. It was yummy. (6 words)
Davina: How would you say it compares to Redbull?
Bryan: I choose Redbull.
Davina: You can’t win ‘em all.
Chris: “Um, I guess I’d have to go with smooth. I drank it without milk. Usually hot black coffee doesn’t work for me, since I’ll want some milk or something, since it’s a little bit bitter. This one didn’t need anything.” (40 words)
Nikki, thank you for ridding our office of camel balls. And thanks to Bicycle Coffee Co. for coming to visit and letting us taste your delicious brews.
We want to welcome Lauren Wray to Sharethrough, as new Director of West Coast Sales. Woot woot!
In a word, Lauren is incredible.
In more than a word, check out our “Welcome Lauren” Q&A session:
Sharethrough: How did you first get into the online ad sales industry?
Lauren: I started in the mail room at Forbes. Well not exactly the mail room but I was opening mail. I was the assistant to the Circulation Director for Forbes Magazine. I knew I wanted to go to the sales side for Forbes.com early on. I moved quickly to sales coordinator at Forbes.com and got a taste of the online ad industry in New York and knew that I belonged in the space; the energy, the innovation and the people drove my desire to learn and and succeed in the space.
Sharethrough: Where did you first hear about Sharethrough?
Lauren: I first heard of Sharethrough through my mentor and now boss, Robert Pietsch. I worked with him for 8 years at Forbes.com. We had lunch one day and he was telling me all about Sharethrough; the people, the technology, the culture and right away I wanted to be a part of that energy and passion.
Sharethrough: What was your first impression of Sharethrough?
Lauren: Smart. Passionate. Innovative. Adaptive. Customer focused. Lean.
Sharethrough: What makes you most excited about Sharethrough?
Lauren: Seeing the reaction of our clients to our story. Our technology helps them get their brand story and videos out to the social web with scale and transparency. I love seeing the reaction on people’s faces when I tell them what we can do for their business. I love when a customer leans forward in a meeting and starts throwing me a million questions w/ excitement and passion. It’s the best feeling when you can provide a transparent, innovative and scaleable solution to their problem.
Sharethrough: What do you think is the key to successful social video campaign?
Lauren: Simple answer: people. If the right audience doesn’t see it, like it and share it, it won’t be successful.
Sharethrough: What is your favorite thing to do on the weekends?
Lauren: I just bought a Santa Cruz mountain bike. My passions reside in the outdoors so on weekends I find myself either climbing mountains by foot or wheels or sliding down them on skis.
Sharethrough: Where is your favorite place to travel?
Lauren: Italia! I am of Irish descent but if you traced my ancestors further back, I must have come from Italy. I love it there.
And there you have it folks, she is savvy (spent a decade at Forbes, holy moly people, a DECADE), well traveled (just got back from two weeks of trekking in Bhutan), and a total crack up (her laugh is contagious, make her laugh, and you too will be happy).
Help us welcome Lauren to Sharethrough!
The Wheaties FUEL team partnered with remix master, DJ Porter, to create a series of mashup brand videos about the cereal. Our take: Wheaties cereal + DJ Steve Porter + Famous Athletes = Great social video campaign. Wheaties knows whatsup.
Since the beginning, Wheaties has been using celebrity promotions for their cereal. It all started in 1934 when baseball legend Lou Gehrig was featured on a Wheaties box. And these new brand videos are kicking it up a notch, as they feature a bunch of Wheaties FUEL athlete partners, including Peyton Manning, Kevin Garnett, Albert Pujols, Bryan Clay and Hunter Kemper. If you don’t recognize all those names, trust just, these dudes are huge (both literally, and figuratively).
Here’s one of the videos:
But, people, it gets better. In addition to these awesome mashup videos, Wheaties FUEL will also launch a Facebook application with a consumer video mashup tool. Visit their Facebook fan page for all the goodies: www.facebook.com/Wheaties.
On a final note, I don’t know about you guys, but writing this blog post is making me want to eat some Wheaties. So, bye for now, on my way to Safeway.
All of our collective Sharethrough hats come off to the wonderful new Muppets social videos. These two videos are promoting the new Muppet Movie, “Green with Envy”.
Their first video released last week, and already has over 1MM video views as of today. The movie is starring Jason Seigel, Amy Adams, and….well, you’ll have to watch the video to see who else is featured. Do it, do it, do it.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CloKbXtD28
Their second video is a satire of the Hangover II movie when “three friends wake up wild-eyed, fuzzy-faced and lookin’ kinda green, then realize something terribly terribly wrong must’ve happened last night.”
It’s clever, it’s witty, and Wanda Sykes has a cameo. Nice.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRxDqakiw3I
We’ve seen Hollywood take it to the next level in terms of social video, and these two videos are solid and creative additions to the mix. The Muppets are creating great, entertaining branded content that people are excited to watch and share. Besides, who isn’t totally thrilled about the return of the Muppets?
Any comments from Statlers and Waldorfs (nerdy Muppet reference) out there? We’d love to hear from you!
The San Francisco Business Times and the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal recently released its list of the Best Places to Work in the Bay Area 2011….and we’re very pleased to say that Sharethrough was named one of the Top 10 companies to work for in the Small Business category!
This is an enormously cool accomplishment for our young company. Those that work within the hallowed walls of the Sharethrough office know what a special experience it is to be part of this company and we are really happy that word is getting out. Rest assured, it’s just going to keep getting better here.
Interested to be a part of the Sharethrough team? Check out our careers page: http://www.sharethrough.com/careers/
Sharethrough wants to welcome Beth Grossman, our new sales manager for the midwest. Here’s a bit about Beth:
Sharethrough: How did you first get into the online ad sales industry?
Beth: I was working at Fox and I wanted to be on the American Idol, but as an employee, I couldn’t try out. So…here I am instead!
Sharethrough: Where did you first hear about Sharethrough?
Beth: One of my smartest friends in the biz told me about the company. So I emailed Dan [CEO] on Linkedin…and the rest is history!
Sharethrough: What was your first impression of Sharethrough?
Beth: Awesome, REFRESHING, wow, & have to work there
Sharethrough: What did you do the night you accepted the offer?
Beth: I was at my favorite Italian rest in the city…answered the phone!! SMILED & drank lots of wine!!
Sharethrough: What is your favorite part about living in Chicago?
Beth: Most definitely Summer, Da Bulls, Great food and the best digital community in the country!
We’re happy to have you on board Beth! Many good things to come! Chicago….look out, here comes Beth!
Sharethrough: How did you first get into the online ad sales industry?
Mel: Sheer timing. I was working at Sony, but was starting to feel the impact that digital was having on the film business…so I knew I wanted to make a move. My husband ran into a friend at a happy hour who happened to be building up the sales team at MySpace and suggested I have a chat with him. Two weeks later I was working at MySpace–the whole company was still less then 75 people.
Sharethrough: What was your first impression of Sharethrough?
Mel: I met Rob Pietsch for coffee and he ran me through the sales deck. I thought it was WAY cooler then I expected it to be and I loved loved the look and feel of the deck. I liked that the company felt young and fresh and didn’t take itself too seriously. I think it’s the quirky font that caught my eye. When I came to the Sharethrough offices in SF, it literally reminded me of my early days at MySpace–fun fun fun with something special going on. During one of my interview breaks I called my sister and told her that ‘I HAD to get this job!’.
Sharethrough: What makes you most excited about Sharethrough?
Mel: The opportunity to be back on the social media side of the business and to be around content and work with creative agencies in addition to media agencies. I love the mix of personalities and energy both sides bring.
Sharethrough: Do you agree that either boobs, bombs or babies are the key ingredients to brand video success?
Mel: NO! I think that storytelling trumps all. I know this from my days as development exec. If you can’t tell a compelling story (no matter what the format is–movie, tv, 30 second commercial)–then who cares?
Sharethrough: What is your favorite viral video of all time?
Mel: Hard to say–I’m Filipino so any viral video that involves karaoke singing children or animals. Ha! I currently love the Jen Aniston/Vitamin Water ad. I’m good friends with Brad–the guy that gets kicked in the balls. He’s a really good guy and I suppose if you’re going to get kicked in the balls for millions of people to see, it may as well be by Jennifer Aniston.
My first month at Sharethrough has been a fantastic whirlwind (click here to read about what I was working on prior to joining). In addition to SF travels, client dinners, and millions of meetings, I also had the good fortune to attend the Ad Age Digital Conference in New York City last week. Although I could write a 30-page white paper on the conference, instead, I’ll leave you with this blog post on my top 3 takeaway’s from the conference:
1. Sharing is much more valuable than a like: Wendy Clark from Coke (who’s presentation was nothing short of awesome), spoke in length about the power of sharing. “A ‘like’ is important,” she said. “A ‘share’ is more important. We have to hold ourselves accountable for creating content that is sharable.” While liking on Facebook enables distribution of content (and will put brands messaging in your stream), the act of sharing is amplified distribution. Its putting your personal stamp on a piece of content, telling the world that you approve and that you think this content will be useful to others. If you have the time, I would watch this presentation, specifically as it relates to Coke’s global, social strategy.
2. Brands are not putting distribution strategy around their social video/branded content in mass “yet”: After networking with brands and advertisers for two days, and listening to some of the top minds in the business, it has become clear to me that although we are seeing more and more of it, brands are still not planning to distribute their social video campaigns in mass. I would say it’s a classic example of the 80/20 rule. 80% of the brands that are making dynamic branded content are still figuring out how to distribute it, as opposed to putting together a strategy as a part of the planning process. A classic example of this is a brilliant video/experiential campaign that Target orchestrated last year in the Standard Hotel in New York City. It only has 34,000 views:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H7J4FywkXE
3. Social Video was used in almost all of the Keynote Presentations: Almost all of the keynotes featured 1-4 minute ‘social video’ examples that the brands had created. Some examples:
a. The CEO of Electronic Art’s, John Riccitiello, played 3 two-minute long game trailers that were mindblowing. These videos are exactly the type of content that Sharethrough distributes. The game trailers/videos are entertaining, compelling, and something that consumers would “want” to share with their friends. He played the following Tiger Woods video that EA made in response to a user-generated video about a glitch in the game. Many other brands would have sent a cease and desist letter. EA turned this problem into gold.
b. Lorraine Twohill, Director of Marketing for Google, played multiple Social Videos including the “French Marriage” campaign (that played in the Super Bowl two years ago) and the Arcade Fire personalized video (that showcased features of Google Maps and Google Chrome).
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnsSUqgkDwU
Overall, the panels and speakers at the Ad Age event were top notch. It was very apparent how important the subject matter was to the attendees, which comprised of a good distribution of vendors, brands, and agencies. I’ve been to more conferences that I care to mention since I have been in this business–and Ad Age Digital was without a doubt the best. Congratulations to Allison Arden, Abbey Klaasen, Michael Learmonth and the rest of the Ad Age crew!
Sharethrough: How did you get into the branded content/web video industry?
Dave: Hmm… Well, I started my career of working in Sales and Marketing at rock Radio Stations in Baltimore and DC, then I traveled the world for a few years, and then I landed in New York in the midst of the Web Video bubble of 2008. I did a video when I traveling in Antarctica that was produced by the Lonely Planet that got a pretty good response and a decent amount of Youtube views– and I naturally gravitated towards Branded Entertainment and Web Video. Before joining Sharethrough, I co-founded Branded Evolution–an emerging media consultancy. We did a lot of interesting projects in the Branded Entertainment and emerging media space. So, I have always been selling media–but this I’ll give the Antarctica video the credit as to how I actually ended up in the web video biz.
Sharethrough: Where did you first hear about Sharethrough?
Dave: I heard about Sharethrough from my friend Hal Burg, who runs the Branded Entertainment division of Platinum Rye in LA. He needed distribution for a campaign he was working on for Rhett and Link/Dentyne and found Sharethrough. The campaign ended up on the Ad Age Viral Video chart!
Sharethrough: What was your first impression of Sharethrough?
Dave: Well, first off, I love the name. Sharing is one of the most powerful things a human being can do. And it states exactly what we do. We help brands and advertisers get what they make shared.
Sharethrough: What makes you most excited about Sharethrough?
Dave: I am excited about the solution that we provide and the timing of the brand content marketplace. When I got started in the early days of this medium–the hole in the market was so obivious. Everyone was making all of this great content–with no way to ensure than anyone would see it. There was zero distribution. In 2008, on the heels of the Seth McFarlene/Google/Burger King deal brands were distributing brand content through 300×250 ad units. Which, we all know is completely ineffective. Three years later, there is a solution to that huge problem, and I am very excited to be working for the company that figured it out.
Sharethrough: Any closing thoughts?
Dave: I would just say that I am extremely excited to be on board what appears to me to be “rocketship to awesome-town”! And that I love the idea that I am going to be in San Francisco quite a bit.
We are proud to announce that Sharethrough has launched the first official Justin Bieber Advertising network (JBAN). As the solar system revolves around the sun, extensive research has led to the conclusion that the internet and culture in general largely revolve around Justin Bieber. Also, like the sun, this is going to be really, really, really hot.
We’ve created the JBAN to provide advertisers with seamless access to the most premium Justin Bieber-related advertising inventory and to be a meaningful contributor to Justin Bieber’s near complete world domination. We too have Bieber fever and invite our valued customers and partners to share in it.
Advertisers will be able to reach Bieber fans (also known as ‘all of humanity’) through a variety of ad placements. The only restrictions to advertisements on the network are:
- Must include picture of Justin Bieber
- Must include text that praises Justin Bieber
- Must include song lyrics from a Just Bieber song
We are expecting an overwhelming response to this opportunity, so please contact us immediately to assure a placement on the Justin Bieber Ad Network.
Love and Bieber,
The Sharethrough Team
Help us welcome Avi Brown, VP of Platform Operation, to the Sharethrough Family !
Guess who got approved for Facebook compliance? Sharethrough…that’s right! As you all may or may not know, Facebook has outlined a formal set of terms for outside service providers who run media on the Facebook Platform (for specifics, see Facebook’s Developer Blog post: http://bit.ly/dX8Opj). Well…we are happy to say that we got approved as an official vendor on their list. Feels like we just got picked first on the kickball team.
This is obviously exciting news for us, as well as for our clients, as we can continue to distribute brand video content through partners across the Facebook Platform. We look forward to growing alongside the Facebook platform and together leading the social video advertising industry to realize its massive potential.
Check out more details on the announcement and full list of approved companies on InsIdeFacebook.com: http://bit.ly/hlCPcL
Isn’t it the best when you crunch your numbers and see your average campaign budgets have tripled? Yeah, that just happened to us, and yes, we agree, it is totally the best.
As we know, the digital landscape changes constantly (and isn’t that why we love it?). One of the major shifts we’ve seen in 2010 (in the digital video space specifically) is a movement towards the production of longer form, more content-driven branded videos. As brands produce ever more compelling video content, Sharethrough continues to be top of mind when it comes to distribution. The combination of pioneering video content and distribution strategies is what is directly resulting in this incredible growth in this advertising sector. Yes, we’re excited.
“In 2010, forward-thinking advertisers began shifting more of their budgets towards social strategies, creating entertaining content designed to be shared and making increasingly large media buys to guarantee views and maximize sharing,” said Dan Greenberg, CEO & Founder of Sharethrough, in today’s announcement. “Sharethrough’s rapid growth over the past year reflects the maturation of social video as a mainstream strategy for brand advertisers, and we anticipate an explosive 2011 as more advertisers see the value of a content-driven approach to advertising.”
And, lemme tell you about the cherry on top…
We are in the perfect position to ride the wave of these online trends…online video + social marketing = Sharethrough’s happy place. We started in this business to maximize shared engagement for brand video content, driving video views and earned video engagements, and guess what? We’re doing it!
To get the full details, read our announcement here: http://bit.ly/hNj1FX
And AdExchanger’s article on the news here: http://bit.ly/fUXENk
Last night Sharethrough hosted a panel on viral video as part of Social Media Week in SF. Our very own Dan Greenberg moderated a panel of industry leaders representing branding, social marketing, social media and creative. The topic discussion was on “The Viral Business: How social media is changing brand video strategy.” The discussion included thoughts on how to facilitate success of a viral video, how to create powerful brand video content, how to ensure your video gets seen (with only a modicum of shameless Sharethrough plugs, thank you very much).
Viral video is still in it’s infancy, and this social tactic is just starting to gain momentum among brand managers and ad agencies. We’re genuinely excited to continue to be on the pulse of this growing advertising trend and are hoping this will be first of many viral video meet-ups that we host.
Stay tuned for our upcoming meet-up group…many more fun viral video talks and viewing parties to come!
PS, Did we mention there was cheesecake? Loads of it, thanks to The Cheesecake Factory. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any, since Bryan ate it all.
“Cheesecake, get in my belly!” – Bryan
At Sharethrough, we like food a lot. On second thought, I guess we like food about the same amount as most other people like food. So, we like food an average amount, I guess you can say.
Regardless, we just moved into this new office and we scoped out the scene to figure out the Top 5 places to eat around our office.
Check out our deck and full food analysis:
As it turns out, Top 5 actually means Top 12ish…since we are in a delicious hood.
PS, Hotwok Express, I am a little bit sorry about this all.
Today marks an important milestone for Sharethrough and the social video market as ad industry-veteran Rob Pietsch joins Sharethrough as VP of Sales!
We are beyond excited to have Robert Pietsch join Sharethrough as National Vice President of Sales. With over 15 years of experience in online advertising, he is a genuine O.G. in digital media.
He is just coming to us from his VP of Sales position at MySpace, where he helped lead sales and marketing activities for the once-popular social network.
Prior to MySpace, he worked as Chief Digital Advertising Officer at Forbes.com, where he oversaw the advertising and revenue strategy that contributed to the digital-ification of the company.
Pietsch brings valuable experience and insight to Sharethrough at just the right time. Social video is growing like gangbusters and a respected veteran of the digital advertising industry like Pietsch will be instrumental in catalyzing the social video industry.
Get ready for more big moves this year from Sharethrough!
Link: Read more on SFGate.
- Dan Greenberg, CEO
As online video technology rapidly advances, we’re starting to see brands branching out from the standard video format and explore the nearly untapped universe of interactive video ads.
One of the hallmarks of interactive video ads was the Wario Land commercial, which launched on YouTube a couple years ago. It was the first time I’d ever seen someone play with the audience’s preconceived notion of the YouTube video player. The page was actually entirely in Flash, and as Wario jumped around the page began to fall apart:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSU-z-t9Ku4
Another good early example came from Hollywood, in a fun ad for Stallone’s The Expendables.
Since then, though, brands have been moving rapidly toward nontraditional YouTube player pages, and they began to roll in some functionality allowing audience participation. Tipp-ex, for example, found their interactive YouTube clip at the top of many 2010 Best Ad lists:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ba1BqJ4S2M
Google made a fantastic interactive video incorporating a quiz:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV6h1ffWYEo
(Google also created this excellent nontraditional video ad for the Nexus S phone)
And most recently of all, we find Sesame Street embracing interactive video in a clip that teaches kids about the scientific method:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy0S1Pv0eOE
It is exciting is to think about how nascent all of these techniques will look in a few years. As these interactive technologies have the potential to produce much higher levels of engagement for consumers with both the message and the brand, we’re expecting big things out of this medium in the (near) future.
Have some other cool examples to share? Type ‘em in the comments…
Dan discusses the how “birth” of Sharethrough sparked out of a need to figure out the psychology of social media. Additionally, discusses some best practices with mbStartups for how to help make a video get shared, including 1) entertainment value, 2) thinking outside the banner and 3) video location.
Read full details here: Media Maven Dan Greenberg Tells mbStartups How to Make a Video Go Viral
Lauren Fisher writes a great article on the Sharethrough offering, and what makes our company unique in this marketplace (in that we can guarantee viral video views for brand advertisers, as opposed to just “crossing your fingers” for a success viral video campaign). She also shares our same philosophy that “sharing is more important than clicks.”
Check out the full article here: Sharethrough – guaranteed viral video for brands?
Check out this article that was published on InsideFacebook.com this week about Sharethrough. It goes over the overall Sharethrough offering and suite of products. But also digs more specifically into the importance of Facebook for today’s advertiser. Brand advertiser’s today recognize the power of Facebook presence. ” Brands see that if they can entertain with quality content, they create window in which users are more likely to subscribe to future traditional marketing announcements via the Like button. Along with performance metrics such as views and shares, clients are requesting date on how many Likes campaigns generate.”
Full article here: Sharethrough Helps Advertisers Place Their Videos Deep Within Social Games
The things in the news drive how we behave online. For instance, right now, as I write this, Yahoo says that “Gayle King” is a trending search query. King is Oprah’s best friend and was the center of discussion in an interview with Winfrey released yesterday.
Turns out current events and pop-culture play a big role in popular online activity beyond search as well. By way of an example, take this video showing an artist’s rendering of the proposed soccer stadiums for Qatar’s World Cup bid:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-z2jtUS9-Y
Now, I first saw this video back when the World Cup was about to get underway in South Africa. There was a lot of talk in the news about the United States’ attempt to host a future World Cup tournament—actually, several countries were making pretty impressive overtures to FIFA (the worldwide governing body for the sport of soccer).
One such country was Qatar, and part of their “wow factor” was the fact that they wanted to build stadiums with inventive architecture—oh, and they are going to be open-air stadiums that are still somehow air-conditioned. So when the video hit in April of this year, it went viral and amassed 500,000 views in its first few months online.
Then, about a week ago, FIFA awarded the 2022 World Cup tournament to Qatar in what is generally considered to be a huge upset (some in the U.S. have openly suggested that FIFA is a bribe-accepting corrupt organization). Which made the Qatar stadium a popular current event topic once again. And guess what happened… the video had a viral reincarnation—it shot up to 1.8 million views in just the last week, nearly tripling the original view count in a fraction of the time.
There is so much more that drives our viral video success or failure than just the content itself. Timing is huge, as is picking a topic or theme that has already captured the nation’s attention. This is a lot easier to say than it is to do, because you have to either get lucky by predicting what the next hot subject will be… or you have to act with lightning speed once a new pop-culture story breaks. How powerful is a video topic that is current, relevant, and fresh? So powerful it can make your video go viral. And then go viral again.
What happens when you bring together the most forward-thinking & influential people in creative, media and technology and have them party together at Sharethrough headquarters?…Well, here’s a taste. Stay tuned – more events to come!
Our own fearless leader, Dan Greenberg, was recently honored by Advertising Age as one of their Media Mavens for 2010. The Media Mavens series aims to honor those who are at the forefront of how marketers are using media. This most recent list specifically highlighted and celebrated agency and marketing executives that have found success in the time of economic recession through efficiency and innovation.
From the Ad Age Media Mavens page:
“These 18 agency and marketer executives faced the great recession head on and found success stretching media budgets and bolstering their companies’ bottom lines”
The Media Mavens awards are a veritable MVP list in media and a tremendous honor for Dan and the Sharethrough team. Additional Media Mavens included forward thinking industry heavyweights such as Christopher Batty of Gawker Media, Iain Tait of Weiden & Kennedy (the agency behind the Old Spice Guy), Seth Kaufman of Pepsi, David Levy of Turner Broadcasting, and Stewart Atkinson of Proctor & Gamble.
In its recognition of Dan, Ad Age praised Dan and Sharethrough for creative thinking in offering solutions for advertisers who are seeking to gain great exposure through brand video marketing. Rather than leaving brands to cross their fingers and hope for viral success, Sharethrough has created a platform—built on our own proprietary technology—that automates the process and guarantees your brand’s video will be seen, shared and endorsed. Recognition such as this continues to validate Sharethrough’s mission to create the industry’s leading social video distribution platform.
We believe the future of online advertising—or any advertising, really—is firmly tied to social behavior—that the click-through as we know it will give way to a far more valuable measurement of engagement: the ‘sharethrough.’
Every day is exciting for us here at Sharethrough, and we love living on the cutting edge of where the online video advertising industry is headed. We’ve always felt that we’re doing something special—something every bit as innovative as it is necessary to the future of advertising. It’s nice to see a respected voice in the industry such as Ad Age agrees.
But we’ll try not to let it go to our heads—though we can’t say the same for Dan, who is busy designing “Media Maven” hats and t-shirts.
On July 29th, the entire Sharethrough office went out to quite possibly one of the coldest spots in San Francisco at Fort Miley. Nestled off of Ocean Beach and within walking distance of the famed Cliff House, we climbed, balanced, and had a few falls all in a fun yet challenging afternoon.
Yes, there were the dreaded trust falls, but they were used in a way to promote safety for all the climbing we were supposed to do! The Fort Miley Adventure Challenge Course is a non-profit program that encouraged us to change the way we work and solve problems together.
Here’s just a taste of what we did:
Afterwards, we sought warmth, drinks, and snacks at the Cliff House.
Check out co-founder and CTO Rob Fan going down the zip line:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tpo_sZEaW0
