AdAge points us to a new 'viral' that Pizza Hut uploaded to YouTube, and now has a couple of hundred thousand views.
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.
By popular demand, I've decided to post an analysis of Nike's LeBron James 'Chalk' TV Spot (tip o' the hat to Michael Miraflor for pitching in).
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
YouTube's released a set of new features that make the embeddable video product a more complete one.
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.
So I was listening to 'Start' by The Jam and the lyrics got me thinking of every example of a failed attempt by marketers to use social media marketing tactics to execute on a flawed social media strategy -- especially those brands with image problems.
Take a listen, and see how/if it gets you to rethink things.
It's not important for you to know my name -
Nor I to know yours
If we communicate for two minutes only
It will be enough
For knowing that someone in this world
Feels as desperate as me -
And what you give is what you get.
It doesn't matter if we never meet again,
What we have said will always remain.
If we get through for two minutes only,
It will be a start!
For knowing that someone in this life,
Loves with a passion called hate
And what you give is what you get.
If I never ever see you -
If I never ever see you -
If I never ever see you - again.
In the spirit of all hallow's eve, and all things freaking disgusting, be sure to check out Fangoria's inside look at the making of NoKnownSurvivors, an epic 3-D immersive prologue for the release of Electronic Arts' highly rated, highly anticipated game, DEAD SPACE.
Kudos to the entire team @ Deep Focus for developing my favorite website of the year
I gotta tell you. I'm a big fan of news that involves the word 'deep'.
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.
What you see above is one of the first widgets deployed as part of the Exponential Action Network, a major social media initiative we created in partnership with the Ad Council.
When we were invited to work with the Ad Council we were flattered, and inspired.
We wanted to reimagine the Ad Council in today's era. For decades, the Ad Council worked because of donated media by cable and broadcast networks. But what if the Ad Council was rebooted today? We live in a world where people aren't just consuming media -- they are creating media. And if media were people-powered (like so much of the web is) we could create a whole new distribution and interaction mechanism for PSAs and their associated causes.
But wait, there's more. What if people that were donating their own media could actually see how much of an impact their advocacy had on others? And what if we got millions and millions of impressions donated by the likes of Facebook, MySpace, imeem, Netvibes, Clearspring and others to promote it?
Ok. So I'll admit. I never really saw the beauty (well, maybe 'cuteness') of the Ray Ban viral video done by Cutwater.
It lost its charm after one view, and lets not forget that it got 1.6 million views in a week, and a year later only has 1.7 million more. Doesn't say much for any kind of staying power, and a rather inefficient use of money (even though I have no idea how much Ray Ban paid for this).
Well, here's a new video by the same director, this time for Levi's.
Look familiar? Well this clip has 3 million views already, but to me, is even less impactful. And unlike the Ray Ban video (which uses Wayfarers that are iconic Ray Ban style) there's really nothing calling attention to the fact that these are Levi's jeans. Not even in the title (in which I would have used the word Levi's instead of 'jeans'.) This clip has the same director, 'Benzo', and it leaves me wondering how this was sold into the client...
(Tip o'the hat to Adverganza for pointing me in this direction.)
David Armano, of Critical Mass, recently posted a list of made-up words that inspired me to post a list of my own. I do this all day in meetings, and figured I'd share a few with you, loyal readers.
Crapplications: Annoying facebook applications. Usage: "No, I don't want to take your Dr. Phil test. What a crapplication."
Groupsydaisy: Accepting an invitation to join a Facebook group, only to realize it was for something completely different, then leaving immediately. Usage: "I just joined the 'I love animals group' on Facebook. Turns out it was for people that really 'love' animals. In that way. That was a heck of a groupsydaisy."
Feedbrag: Purposefully doing something on Facebook that you know will be posted to your newsfeed, thus letting everyone know about it. Usage: "John rented Fellini's '8 1/2' from Blockbuster just to make people think he's smart. That was such a feedbrag."
Viraelian: One who believes that every online video they post to YouTube will be seen by millions. Usage: "Just because he made a video that looks low-budget but has special effects doesn't mean people are all-of-a-sudden going to find them and email them to everyone they know. He's such a viraelian, and he's converted his entire department."
Flackipedias: Articles on wikipedia created by or contributed to by PR firms.
Twitzer: Using Twitter to attract women. Usage: "Man, he's totally sending out tweets that are designed to make him seem rich and single. What a Twitzer."
Memicide: To kill a meme through overusage. Usage: "It's becoming pretty apparent to me that coverage by mainstream media has killed RickRolling. A clear case of memicide." Or, my blatant copying of David Armano's blog post, is an official act of memicide.
Statustician: One who updates their Facebook and/or Twitter statuses habitually.
Twends: When something starts becoming oft-tweeted about in a short period of time. Usage: "I keep getting tweets pointing me to Brian Morrissey's twitter feed. This is a definite twend."
Invinsible: The feeling of setting your instant messaging application to "invisible". Usage: "Ain't no one going to bug me on IM today. I'm in control of who I chat with. I'm invinsible."
Bonus Words!!!
SMainstorm: The process an agency goes through when instructed by a client to deliver ideas for a Facebook/MySpace/Blog campaign. Usage: "Smainstorm! Conference Room A! 10 minutes!"
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