Burn it, smash it, blend it: really simple product videos that put it to the extreme.
Product videos account for a large part of commercial video content on the web. Most of these videos are part of the product site or description and at best they are informative but never too entertaining, right? But that’s ok because their key function is to be relevant and useful for users who needs to get a better understanding of the characteristics of the product or service offered. But that’s also why only a very small part of those videos make it out to the web and go viral.
A “good” viral product video should produce more than a fleeting spike in views on YouTube. It should be able to create a certain (desired) brand effect and in the best case drive traffic to the brand’s or product’s site, raising online conversion rate.
Here are 3 great and extreme examples of how brands from different industries have been able to raise brand / product awareness through very simple viral videos.
1. The chemical group DuPont presents a new fire fighter protection suit that beats everything else on the market and gives almost 100% burn protection for fire fighters in extreme conditions. The spectacular clip went viral after video blogger Amanda Congdo put it on her favorite video list. Click on the image to go to the video.
2. Another great example is “catapulting chairs” stress test video that shows the indestructible design of Emeco aluminum chairs. The test object, Emeco navy chair, is catapulted against a brick wall. See what happens to the chair:
3. You might remember the launch of the IOSafe Drive at this year’s CES in Las Vegas. The video of the burning and drowning but disaster-proof data case of its hard drive made it around the globe. IOSafe kindly remarks, “Don’t try this at home with your normal hard drive!”
If you think about producing a product video for the web make sure you are able to visualize the unique value proposition of your product first. What is it that makes your product or service really different from all the others? What’s the best way to prove this to your prospective customers? After thinking about the characteristics of your product, you may consider using a video that puts the product through extreme testing - remember the simple but effective video campaign by “Will It Blend?”
Still, one should never forget that extreme footage isn’t for every product. Don’t force the “extreme” element into your videos just because it’s sensational. Such approaches can damage the brand, and when this style is forced onto a product that doesn’t fit the “extreme” mold, it actually can turn potential clients away.
Video hosts can help focus a shopper’s attention
I have been noticing that more sites have started to use an interesting form of online video known utilizing a “video host” or “video spokesperson.” This type of video is often presented as an overlay on a web site that appears when when you first enter a site or hit a landing page. When implemented well, a video spokesperson does not interfere with the normal operation or navigation of a site. Typical applications for a video host are site advertising and promotions, how-to or training videos, issue management or recruitment over the web.
First I was a sceptical because I thought it was an intrusive element in terms of user experience but looking for sites that use them I found some really well implemented examples, like this one from a Youth Sports site called We Play.
The site is hosted by baseball pro LeBron James who helps the first-time user to quickly find out about the main content and services by directing the user to the principal sections of the page. His intro ends with a call-to-action: “Join now, it’s free.”
The University of Dalhousie in Canada uses a host to promote the services of the institute’s career center to future students and alumni.
And at Barnes & Noble’s online shop, new releases are brought to the user’s attention using a short overlay promo video featuring the book author.
There is no doubt that this kind of dynamic video application can help to drive conversion rate of website or landing page. But in order to guarantee a good user experience it must be used at the right time, in the right place and above all give the user control over the video. The user must be able to stop and click away at any time while navigating the site.
So I think that a video spokesperson is only useful if …
1. …it helps the user to find his way around the site. Avoid simple welcome messages that don’t deliver any additional value for the user experience.
2. …it uses a person that relates naturally with your brand or product.
3. …the clip is related to a call-to-action or promotion that justifies the presence of an extra layer of navigation.
Tags: video commerce
Forrester says, there are online video opportunities beyond advertising. Start to call it video commerce!
Beet TV has published a video interview with Bobby Tulsiani, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research about the company’s report on video platforms.
The interesting thing is that now even mainstream analysts seem to realize that there is a business case for online video beyond advertising! Good, we are making progress. He doesn’t call it e- or video commerce but he says, … “I think we are looking at a much broader business cause. One could be communication [...]. You can do something like lead generation. [...] It can even be something more [like driving] transactions on a retail website.”
Transactional videos, lead generation! Oh yes, Bobby Tulsiani - I think you know your stuff!
It seems that we are really getting to the point where the mainstream business world starts to understand that video and online marketing is not the same as recycling your TV spots on YouTube but actually helps to convert a user into a client.
Click here to watch the entire interview.
Good video marketing reads for the Halloween Weekend
There are three great papers that were published recently, all of them good reads for everyone who works in video marketing and or in online marketing. And the good news: apart from being really useful, all of them are available online for free.
If your weekend is busy and you only have time to read one of them then go for “Creating E-Commerce Videos that Sell” by Justin Foster, co-founder of Liveclicker and Founder of Video Commerce Consortium . It’s a great paper for everybody how wants to understand the potential of video content in e-commerce; especially interesting were the sections on “Understanding Motivation, Simplicity, and Triggers” and the “Product Video ROI Calculator”.
The second paper I recommend is part of a series of best practice papers published by Adobe Scene7 called “Experience: What’s Best, What’s Next - A Point of View on Building Rich Online Experiences”. The author is Doug Mack (Vice President & General Manager of Consumer & Hosted Solutions at Adobe). Believe me, I have no intention whatsoever to promote Adobe or its RM solution Scene7. But it’s simply interesting and everybody involved in the multidisciplinary art of video marketing can learn something useful from the 7 principles explained. Principle 2 “Movement has Meaning” explains why adding video, animation and voice is so important for a good user experience online, including real cases of videos displayed in fashion e-retailing sites that helped increase performance.
The third is actually a presentation and has no direct connection with video marketing but it dives deeply into the immediate future of the Internet, showing upcoming trends relevant to any Internet marketer. The Top 5 Internet Trends were published by Richard MacManus, Founder&Editor of ReadWriteWeb. You will find valuable information on Structured Data, The Real-Time Web, Personalization, Mobile Web & Augmented Reality and the Internet of Things.
When will YouTube be a transactional video shopping site?
This week, eMarketer cites a study by InternetRetailer which reveales that already 41.4% of all Top 500 online retailers are present on YouTube. That’s the second most used social site after Facebook where more than 57% of retailers are trying to do business.
So far social networking sites have been seen by many retailers as part of a multiple-points-of-entry strategy to the e-commerce site. That’s where we wanted to attract the traffic to because that’s where the user is less distracted by other offers. At least, that used to be the common belief. But the article points out an interesting fact that will make us rethink this “single- point-of transaction” strategy” again, especially for those retailers using video for selling.
Shopping is (and always was) a social act, so it’s common sense to let people shop among their friends at their favourite social networking sites. That’s why forward-thinking retailers want to bring their Web stores to the environments where their customers like to spend time. As a result, almost three-quarters of the merchants in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide have a presence on at least one of the major social networks or social shopping sites.
I think in the future we will have to think much harder about how to integrate the transaction into the video content or player in order to reduce clicks and make online shopping an even better user experience - even if that means that customers don’t drop by our shopping site. Let’s see how long it takes YouTube and other social network and video sharing sites to become transactional.
Video finally integrates with AdWords and YouTube becomes e-commerce enabled.
Last week, Google announced the international (Canada, the U.K., France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands) roll-out of the integration of YouTube Promoted Videos with Google’s AdWords platform. Any AdWords advertiser who has video content can now start promoting videos directly from the AdWords UI, creating a “One-stop-shop” for marketers, as Google says in its blog.
This is good news for small and medium sized businesses with video content to promote their services, especially if they have been using AdWords sucessfully to drive traffic to their site already. It will also help to make content stand out in a place that many e-marketers still call “too crowded”. It’s no no wonder, - 20 hours of video content are uploaded to YouTube every minute!
For all the YouTube skeptics, let’s not forget that YouTube is the second largest search engine with 107 Million unique visitors and an average of 65 views per visitor each month. If you have product videos you may very well want to consider how to leverage your content by using all e-commerce tools YouTube now offers.
When does branded web.tv make strategic sense?
Video has become part of corporate Internet content strategies and online marketers who don’t pay attention to that, are wholeheartedly ignoring YouTube as the second most important search engine behind Google. “To YouTube” is “to Google” and for brands there is no way to get around that. Having said that, there are many different strategies and ways to use video; a YouTube channel to communicate with your clients is just one of many formulas.
One option - and without any doubt the most challenging in terms of strategy, implementation and maintenance - is to set up a branded web tv. In the last 12 months we have seen how difficult it can be to keep a branded web tv alive. Bud.tv (Budweiser Beer) closed. “Jen and Barb mom life” , originally sponsored by Kraft Food, had to downsize its activities drastically and instead of talking about food and health they now talk about connected living as Kraft Food dropped out and Verizon Wireless came in as a new sponsor.
But let’s look at some branded web TV success stories: take Mercedes Benz TV, a Web TV platform of the German carmaker with films and stories about cars, motorsport, lifestyle and music. The idea is simple: using entertaining contents to present the innovative drive of the brand.
Or enter at Vacacions Canada TV, a great example of how to sell online while entertaining the audience / users. The site is based on video content and they way it’s done seems so natural. All that Canada has to offer as a vacation destination is intelligently packed into short episodes which relate to holiday offers that can be booked online through the site. All video content can be e-mailed, shared, embedded and downloaded.
On the other hand there are example of brands like Nestlé Spain that have launched their idea of web.tv. But unfortunately there is nothing “webby” about the site’s value proposition. But let’s be fair: At least, Nestlé Spain at least calls the thing by its real name: “Nestlé online television”. Take a quick look and you will see what I mean. This is TV content (including Nestlé’s outdated TV spots) made available online without any obvious relation to strategic marketing objectives.
So, when does branded web tv = entertainment that helps to persue a specific online marketing strategy, make sense in the first place? In my opinion, branded web tv can be a powerful marketing tool…
1. … if you are able to produce and offer useful and unique contents that are not available elsewhere. Sometimes it feels that brands think of web tv as a channel to recycle their tv spots.
2. … if the site is part of a bigger online strategy and related to branding, converting and ultimately selling you product or service.
3. … if you can create community around the contents and target it to o users / customers with specific needs and/or interests.
4. … if you provide an interface / player that allows the user to truely interact with the content.
5. … if you are aware of the resources necessary to maintain the site alive and know how to distribute the content on the web. Those are costly projects which need to produce ROI at some stage, through cross-selling with other site of the brand or affiliated sites.
Poor use of video marketing in the best European Business School
School is back and thousands of students and adult learners are about to decide where to invest their time and money to get the adequate education. More then ever Internet is the first and most important source of information for students of all ages to select a college, a university or a business school and check out their offers. Schools’ web site, home and landing page designs are crucial for converting a user into a lead or potential student. Since video content is playing a critical role in the online brand experience I have taken a look at how the top 4 European Business Schools - according to the 2008 Financial Time’s Ranking - use video to attract, inform and convert users online.
Therefore I tried to find out 2 simple things: 1. Do the schools use professionally created videos on the homepage (no embedded third party content from sharing sites), and 2. Do they include videos to sell their MBA programs. To evaluated the quality of the integration I also checked on the number of clicks necessary to find video content entering through the site’s home page and on the “web 2.0 character” of the content.
Talking about the who-is-who in higher executive business education, the findings leave a lot to be desired.
1. HEC / Paris
At the home page of the French icon of higher education we find a summery of a speach Bill Gates gave at HEC some while ago. It’s an embedded video from HEC’s YouTube channel. Click on the link “videos” and you are redirected to a news page that features a series of videos - the most recent from January 2009 - which are resumes of conferences or talks held at the university. Nothing too exciting and probably not too useful for someone who looks for information about programs. But with just 3 clicks from the home page you get to what is called “MBA stories”, a micro-site that hosts some 20 videos, basically testimonials of alumni (between 1 and 2 minutes long), where MBA graduates share their experience and memories and talk about the quality of the program. The video site has very basic sharing options: send the page to a friend and link it to Facebook or LinkedIn. No embed, no comment or video sharing options, though.
Conclusion: HEC’s home page clearly fails to impact on potentially new students - no video that explains briefly the advantages, the USP or the offer of the school. The MBA page includes a video mini-site but it lacks proper integration with the product site and the offer, no cross-selling, no call-to-action and a very basic player without sharing options.
2. London Business School
You won’t find a video at the home page of London Business School (LBS), but at least there a link to a “Dean Welcome Film” which leads to page with 6 videos about the core competences of the institution. The player is basic and the list of videos does not use thumbnails. Looking for further information on MBA programs, we find a text-based site on MBA contents, method, targets and alumni - no video either! Nevertheless, on the right we find a link to a content section called MBA TV that features 13 episodes about campus life, the program, students, etc. But the clips are presented as a list and you need to scroll down; but the worst of all: no thumbnails are include to quickly identify what the content is about. There is a download option but no way to embed, share or comment the content.
Conclusion: The idea to include a MBA TV is great, contents might be interesting for potential new students but integration is poor. There is no clear segmentation and so it’s impossible to know which content is interesting and / or useful for a specific user. Again, no sharing options are available to make the content go viral.
3. INSEAD
The second French School in the ranking, INSEAD does not use video on their home page either. 2 more clicks away from the home we find a 6 minute “MBA programme video, based on several interviews with alumni and students, sharing their personal experiences. At least, there are sharing options to export the page to Facebook or LinkedIn for example. All the rest of the information is text based.
Conclusion: Total lack of video marketing strategy.
4. IE
IE, the Madrid-based International Institute specialised in Business education and post-graduate programs includes a video window called “IE Media Campus” that features interviews with teachers, students and alumni. Although the content is institutional rather than promotional, it’s the only home page out of four that welcomes the user with a video. The player includes a scrollable list of other related clips. 2 more clicks away from the home page we find more video-base information about the International MBA program. The player does not reproduce the way users are used to - before starting the clip the user has to choose between image, podcast or video format - but offers a scroll to see other clips with practical information on admission procedure, program content and campus life.
Conclusion: Home and MBA product pages both offer videos. There is an associated site called “IE Media Campus” with more video content (student stories, practical info, financial issues, etc.) which helps the user make a decision whether IE is the right place to get a degree. There, users find the most common sharing options, including forwarding, linking, embedding and rating.
General conclusion:
1. 3 out of 4 sites analyzed have no clear video marketing strategy.
2. 3 out of 4 lack of the typical web 2.0 tools to distribute the content on the web.
3. None of the school uses innovative storytelling.
4. Contents are not designed to engage or convert the user. There is a lack of commercial and promotional intention in the implementation of video.
5. 3 of 4 do not use videos on their home page and fail to create a strong visual impact for first-time users.
Video Email Best Practices
Video Email Marketing in 2009: Facts, Stats, Limitations, Possibilities from Justin Foster on Vimeo.
Here embedded an excellent presentation on video email by Justin Foster and Lisa Harmon. Topics covered include:
- Concerns, attitudes, and expertise level of marketers seeking to learn more about video in email marketing
- Forces driving video in email
- Methods for achieving video in email
- Video .GIF vs. Animated .GIF
- CertifiedVideo (from Goodmail Systems)
- Video .GIF pros and cons
- List of which mail clients support video, by video inclusion method
- Email client market share
- Browser market share & video .GIF limitations based on browser
- Which email clients block images by default
- Several examples of email messages that include video
- Video .GIF best practices
- Example results
- Common questions re: video in email
Video Email Marketing Webinar: “Video Email Marketing in 2009″
Date: August 12, 2009
Time: 11:00AM Pacific / 2:00PM Eastern
Register: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/688801731
Description: For years, email marketers were told it was impossible to include video in their outbound email campaigns. Those who tried often encountered ISP delivery blocks or rendering issues as ISP email administrators began clamping down on Javascript and Flash in email due to potential security issues. As a result, embedding video in email remained a pipe dream for email marketers.
The longstanding best practice used as a workaround was to embed a static image in the email, with a “play” button overlaid to indicate a video was viewable on the campaign landing page, once the subscriber clicked through the email. Even today, we still see articles like this one preaching the merits of this method of video in email. There’s only one problem - it’s not video in email. It merely suggests video exists, but nothing actually plays in the email at all.
Today, email marketers no longer have to settle for this best practice and the pat answer that video in email simply doesn’t work. Two new industry innovations have changed the game of video in email, and email marketers are beginning to experiment once again now that the spam issue can be avoided - at least for those who know what they’re doing and plan ahead. Lest you get too excited and start going willy-nilly embedding your videos in email campaigns upon reading this blog post, it’s worth noting that major limitations still exist with regard to video in email. To use an automotive analogy: if you expect to find the holy grail of achieving universal video in email (across all email clients, and across all ISPs), you might just have to settle for a nice, practical Toyota Corolla for now and leave the Ferrari on the showroom floor most of the time with the exception of the occasional joy ride around the dealer parking lot.
This webinar will get into the details of how email marketers are achieving video in email today, while highlighting innovations in research and development that are driving the push for universal video in email adoption tomorrow. We’ll also highlight the limitations of video in email in considerable detail, and share best practices for achieving workable video in email by following some important best practices. Attendees will learn:
- How to showcase video in email across 80% of your subscriber list, without triggering spam filters
- The limitations of video in email, including breakdown by email client and ISP
- The role of video certification services, and what can (and can’t) be done with these services
- Why email marketers who seek to include video in email will need to learn about bandwidth maintenance, video compression, and “designing for the exception” when including video in email marketing campaigns
- The impact of video on the subscriber experience, and how to design for the optimal experience without distracting or annoying your list members
The webinar is hosted by Justin Foster, Founder of the Video Commerce Consortium, Co-Founder of Liveclicker, and Founder of the Email Marketing Roundtable. He’s joined by Lisa Harmon, Principal and Co-Founder of Smith-Harmon, Chair of the User Experience Roundtable at the Email Experience Council, and President of the Email Marketing Roundtable. You can learn more about the webinar and register here.