Thanks to our clients at HBO, and our friends at FunnyOrDie.com, we were all able to pull together and make this happen.
Enjoy!
Wow. This may be the most insensitive, untimely, poorly-thought-out initiative I've seen in a long time. If Pizza Hut were a person, I'd say it was a jerk.
Lets see...anger mom & pop pizza places (yes, in this economy), and bring in the mass-produced bastardization of their bread and butter to rub in their face. Yeah. That makes me feel better about Pizza Hut. It's one thing to call out your competition if they are another chain. It's another to insult small businesses.
My advice? Next time, stop trying to make a 'viral' with the goal of getting views, and instead, focus on creating content that actually builds your brand -- or at least makes it look good.
This video deserves to get - er - panned.
In case you missed the spot, which was in heavy rotation through Thanksgiving weekend, here it is:
So what does it all mean?
LeBron james has a pre-game ritual of reaching into the chalk/talc basket near the scorer's table, rubbing it on his hands, then throwing it into the air. It's electrifying, and the crowd usually goes wild. It looks like this:
The track in the spot is 'Candyman' from Cornershop (they also scored a charting hit in 1997 with 'Brimful of Asha') which I believe may have gotten a little remix from Lil' Wayne. And that track is several years old, but a hip-hop masterpiece.
The song title, 'Candyman' is usually used to reference drug pushers.
Lil' Wayne made his first few bucks by selling cocaine.
Lil' Wayne is in the stands in the spot.
Lil' Wayne also brushes the chalk off his feet - possibly an allusion to his rise from the streets to fame -- and giving up on cocaine.
The chalk is also featured in a donut/coffee shop and a barber shop. The former representing the blue-collar everyman, and the latter is one of the primary meeting places in urban culture. It's where all the issues of the day are discussed.
This spot is phenomenal because it does the following:
1) It shows that Nike gets LeBron.
2) It shows that Nike gets basketball.
3) It shows that Nike gets the intersection of basketball, hip hop, and street culture.
4) It shows that Nike gets music.
5) And if you're savvy enough to understand all the finer points of the spot, Nike understands you.
Sheer brilliance. Yes. TV spots can still be great at telling stories -- but the web is a great place for continuing their discussion.
**UPDATE**
Another reason this spot is great? Director, Mark Romanek, director of some of the best music videos of our time (I highly recommend his DVD).
Here are the credits for the spot:
Client: Nike
Title: The Chalk
Agency: Wieden+Kennedy, Portland
Creative Directors: Alberto Ponte, Tyler Whisnand, Jeff Williams
Copywriter: Caleb Jensen
Art Director: Taylor Twist
Executive Creative Directors: Mark Fitzloff, Susan Hoffman
Agency Producer: Erika Madison
Production Company: Anonymous Content, Los Angeles
Director: Mark Romanek
Executive Producer: Dave Morrison
Producer: Aris McGarry
Head of Production: Sue Ellen Clair
Director of Photography: Adam Kimmel
Editor: Robert Duffy
Post-Production: Spot Welders
Post Producer: Carolina Wallace
Assistant Editor: Patrick Murphree
Audio Post-Production: Lime
Mixer: Loren Silber
Colorist: Siggy Ferstl @ Riot
Effects: Digital Domain
VFX Supervisors: Brad Parker, Vernon Wilbert
VFX EP: Karen Anderson
VFX Producer: Melanie LaRue
Senior Flame Artists: Chris De Cristo, Andrew Eksner, Jonny Hicks, Pilon Lectez
Talent: LeBron James, Anderson Varejao, JJ Hickson, Daniel Gibson, Greg Oden, Brandon Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge, Lil Wayne, Jamie Nared
Music: “Candyman” by Cornershop
Here's what they've just rolled out, via the YouTube Blog:
* High-quality start images (thumbnails) – Before you press play on embedded YouTube videos, the thumbnails for the video will be presented in high-quality. We're pleased with the results – let us know if you agree.* Search in embeddable player – At the close of an embedded video, along with the usual recommended videos and URLs, a search box will appear. Not only will you be able search from within the embedded player, you will be able to watch videos through the same window. That's right, you can search all of YouTube from the comfort of your favorite blog, news, or humor page.
* Integrated video annotations – Annotations enable video producers to incorporate text information into their videos, create choose your own adventure-style stories or add links to any YouTube video. People watching videos through the embedded player can now join the fun.
* Integrated closed captions – Back in August we started allowing video creators to add captions to their videos. Closed Captions are now available in embedded videos like this one:
These are important updates, as they enhance the functionality of one of the aspects of YouTube that are responsible for a huge amount of views, the embeddable player. The more functionality afforded to the portable nature of content, the more engagement audiences can have with it -- and the more reasons they will have to share it.
And the latest bit of 'deep' news is that YouTube is now allowing you to deep-link within its video content. This means that instead of linking to the beginning of a video on YouTube, you can link directly to a point within that video.
This is important because as YouTube increases the length of content available on the site, it's going to become increasingly helpful to be able to point people to specific points within that content. This is just another utility (that YouTube has not yet made 'official' -- it's only possible to do this now by manually altering the URL) to be used when distributing content, or blogging about it.
For example, if I wanted to link you right to where I receive my Commodore 64 on my birthday, rather than make you sit through the setup, you can do that by appending '#t=0m12s' to the end of the YouTube URL.
If you're in the business of getting people to link to your content, this could be a good tool for you.
Curious as to what I said on my panel on the future of self-service and automation in online media?
Consider your curiosity a think of the past. This is actually an interesting topic, that could make for an interesting debate -- not just a panel.
Here's the panel, in it's entirety. Agree with my points? Disagree? Let me know in the comments...
From the Social Ad Summit last week in NYC, watch this fascinating (yes, 'twas) panel on Branded Experiences in Social Networks, featuring:
Me
Don Steele, MTVN
Scott Monty, Ford
Deborah Korb, JP Morgan
There's some great insight here into what brands think of branded experiences in a social networking environment, what they're spending, and how they're spending it -- now, and in the future.
Paul Kontonis @ For Your Imagination blogs it best:
It's real, it's live and its all on the line at the NYTVF's "Creativity Live" mass participatory brainstorm on Tuesday, September 16 at 2:30pm at the New World Stages in NYC. Bringing together the sharpest and most creative minds in digital media - Toby Daniels from MintDigital, Paul Kontonis from For Your Imagination and Ian Schafer from Deep Focus - with a 150 strong audience, all will be given just one hour to develop three cross-platform entertainment concepts. Can it be done? After the event people will be able to go to the NYTVF website, where they can vote on the ideas they would like to see taken forward. This promises to be a really exciting event. See you there!
This should be LOTS of fun, so if you'll be at the NYTVF, check it out!
I recently participated in a KickApps webinar called Creating a Successful Social Media Website along with the brilliant Stephen Merrill, the GM of Budget Travel.
It was a great discussion, very well attended, and if you missed it, you can check out the recap here, watch an archived video of the session (registration required), or download the slides here.
If you've been thinking about building your own community, or extending one's reach, this one's for you.
Missed me at Federated Media's Conversational Marketing Summit?
Check out video of my panel here.
Video of the rest of the panels can be seen here.
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