12seconds.tv = video Twitter. The idea is to record updates in 12-second bites. This is harder than you might think, but the 140-character limit of Twitter was an acquired taste as well. You can record the video straight to 12seconds.tv and post it to your feed. Or, you can use mobile device to record the video and email it an assigned email address to get it posted to your feed. My favorite way so far though is to record it through TweetDeck. TweetDeck has combined Twitter feeds and 12seconds.tv feeds, so you can do it all via your desktop.
I am still testing 12seconds.tv and haven’t quite figured out how best to use it, but so far, here is why I like it:
Visual communication instantly.
Limited time allowance keeps it from getting mundane.
It is new and different.
Why not to like it:
Just another status update tool; we definitely have enough of those.
The technology has been around for about a year now, but hasn’t caught on with the masses yet. This is not to say that it won’t – look at Twitter’s growth: Twitter launched two years ago, but has just now hit the mainstream.
Test it out and let me know what you think. I have embedded my 12seconds.tv feed on my blog to the right.
And, check out this great little book video called “This Is Where We Live” that celebrates the 25th anniversary of 4th Estate Publishers in the U.K. It makes me happy.
From the people that brought us the drumming gorilla, a new spot for Cadbury appears. It is great fun, just as chocolate should be. The drumming gorilla was a great viral success for Cadbury, and it looks as if this one has that potential too.
For those of you that do not remember the drumming gorilla, here it is (if it hasn’t been removed yet for copyright infringement):
I don’t keep up with football and know nothing about fantasy football, but I love this promo video for fantasy football. It is just fun to watch. Enjoy.
As reported by the Guardian, online activity dipped during the inauguration. Google searches, Flickr uploads and Last.fm listening all paused while listening to President Obama’s swearing in ceremony. Google reported that:
“…the overall query volume of Google searches dropped in the U.S. from the time President Obama took the oath of office until the end of his inaugural speech, demonstrating that all eyes were on today’s festivities.”
However, the number of people trying to watch the ceremony live from their computers was incredibly high and caused some streaming difficulties for viewers. According to a New York Times article:
“CNN said it provided more than 21.3 million video streams over a nine-hour span up to midafternoon. That blew past the 5.3 million streams provided during all of Election Day. At its peak, CNN.com fed 1.3 million live streams simultaneously, according to Jennifer Martin, a spokeswoman for the site.”
As Google points out, there has been a significant shift in internet use since the last presidential inauguration:
“During the last nine years, the growth of the Internet has changed the way the world seeks information. From President Bush’s first inaugural address in 2001 to his second in 2005, the number of inauguration-related searches increased by more than a factor of ten. From 2005 to today’s address, the number grew even more.”
This is how a brand should use social media. Zappos, known for their vast shoe catalog, taps into the news of President Bush ducking shoes thrown at him in Iraq and creates their own video. And, they post it immediately to make it relevant.
I must be the last person on the planet to watch this (it has 26 million+ views on YouTube), but I have to post it here anyway. Amazingly creative and entertaining.
How can you not get mesmerized by these cute puppies? I can’t believe they are not selling advertising space on that bed. Over 30,000 people have tuned in to watch these puppies sleep and play. Surely we in the ad industry can learn something from this. Free video streaming by Ustream
Who is the Army trying to recruit? A generation of youth that grew up on the internet and shares everything online. To reach this audience, the Army has launched a new recruiting campaign that uses the web as its hub. It is about time the military got up-to-date with messaging and delivery methods. The key to the website is video delivery of “testimonials” from soldiers in Iraq. People considering enlistment in the Army can ask soldiers questions and get video responses. It takes the “scary” out of the unknown and gives potential recruits a way to interact. This generation of potential recruits are comfortable with online search and using video for education; the Army was smart to shift tactics to reach this young audience. While the Army is a traditional establishment, it has recognized the need to be more progressive in its message and delivery. Great use of the online space.
Check out this NY Times article for more. My favorite line from the article:
“To help pay for the new media features, cutbacks are being made in areas like the Army’s sponsorships of professional rodeos.”
YouTube is the most popular video site on the web with more than 330 million users. And while the site really generates little to no revenue, Google purchased it for $1.65 billion in 2006. It has kind of been like that popular kid living off a trust-fund, with no need or requirement to get a real job and earn his keep. Until now.
YouTube is introducing longer format videos that include advertising. The launch is with CBS and includes full-length episodes of popular shows ranging in length from 20 to 48 minutes. In addition to offering the video free to viewers, there will be a “theater” mode to improve viewing experience. See full story here.
This sounds like a winner to me. It would be great if they could offer geo-targeting for the advertisements that appear before/during/after the video to allow local marketers to get in on the action with viewers in their areas.
Lately, we have had a lot of discussion around the agency about viral campaigns: what do you do, how do you make them “viral,” how much should you spend, etc. So when we find a good one, we try to learn from it. Via my Brandweek e-newsletter today, I found the Haagen-Dazs “Help the Honey Bees” campaign. I love it. The idea is simple, fun and effective. It uses a video and a microsite to deliver the message. I am re-posting the case study as written by Brandweek, because it tells the story best:
The Challenge
Ice cream stalwart Häagen-Dazs was feeling the pinch when honeybees started inexplicably disappearing, since 30 of the brand’s 73 flavors use honey to contribute to their flavor. Strawberry just isn’t strawberry without some honey, really. So the brand decided to adopt the issue of the shrinking bee population by launching a multiplatform campaign, via Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco. The effort is designed to raise public awareness of this honeybee deficit.
The Plan
A two-minute video called “Bee-Boy dance crew drops dead” was introduced in July. It features a dance crew in bee outfits, doing a “bee dance” to an instrumental hip-hop track, complete with DJ, also in a black and yellow bee outfit. It was disseminated to bloggers who tended to embrace social causes and youth efforts and was introduced in chat sites as well. After all of the dancers disappear, the viewer is directed to the helpthehoneybees.comsite. The Feed Company, Los Angeles, handled the viral video aspect of the campaign.
The Results
The video generated more than 2 million views in two weeks and drew over 3,500 comments on YouTube. More than 150 blogs featured the video and it was part of over 11,000 Web forum discussion sessions. The video maintains a 4 1/2 star rating on YouTube.
I would love to know budgets for a campaign like this. If anyone has ranges, please send them my way.
A continued theme in my readings and postings (here and here):
“The amount of video consumed on TV has dropped 5% among consumers who actively stream and download content…Meanwhile, movie theater consumption fell 2% while personal computer viewing grew 8%. One-in-five hours watching video is now done online.”
Continued reporting on the increase in online video viewing, reported by New York Times:
ComScore reported that the average viewer watched 228 minutes of video in April, compared with 158 minutes in May 2007. One reason is that the videos people watch are becoming longer — the average viewer spent about 17 seconds more per video in April than in May 2007 — but most of the rise came from a spike in the number of videos that each person watched.
“‘It’s no longer that people just get sent a link by one of their friends,’ said Andrew Lipsman, a senior analyst at comScore. ‘Now they actively seek things out, ‘I just saw this on TV, and I’m going to find it online.’ I think video is being seen more and more as an extension of search.’”
