MarketingExperiments Blog: Research-driven optimization, testing, and marketing ideas

Here are a few examples of what we feel are great viral videos:

1. Terry Tate, Office Linebacker

We like this (maybe we can relate) but why in the world did Reebok take the page on their site down that it points to?

2. The German Energy Drink Commercial:

Make sure your volume is turned WAY up.

3. What are You Thinking About?

We laugh every time we watch it!

Following is a PDF of the Presentation from yesterday’s research call:

Video for the Web 3.0 – Research Project Overview

It will give you an overview of what we went over, in case anyone missed it.

Also, you can click here for the audio:

Video Research Project Audio

We do not know exactly how many times these videos have been viewed or passed around. They are (in our opinion) great examples of large corporations creating and then using them to market virally over the internet.

Making a video, even one of these professional commercials, is not that hard (it just takes money). Making one that is good enough to get passed around, is hard.

Here are some of our favorites:

Learn a New Language

Buy Nike Shoes

During the course of our upcoming video research project we’ll be looking specifically at what makes a good video, and what causes it to spread on the internet.

We recently conducted our first conference call to introduce the upcoming video research project. The goal of this projec is to answer the questions:

1. How can video be best used to sell a product or service?

2. How can video be used as a way to market virally online?

It is clear that there has been a huge growth online for the ‘amateur’ video producer and consumers, however to date it is not clear what the commercial use of online video is, specifically how marketers can use video cost-effectively.

During the first call, we looked at a short clip that a creative Jerry Bader’s creative firm Jerry Bader, of MRP Web Media put together called “Battle of the Blizzard”, which was a creative approach for building brand awareness for Blizzards.

Jerry expressed that “in the sterile and untrusting environment of the internet today, video can communicate trust and visual validity when promoting a business’s services or products.”

We all agreed. It seems, at least at first glance that video adds an entirely new dimension to web.

Next, we heard from Alan Mathias, marketing executive for NDC Infrared Engineering, which sells high-end industrial control equipment through a sales team and distributor network.

He created this video as a tool for his sales team to use as a way to ‘communicate a consistent message’ to customers. The response was that it is a useful tool, but he has not been able to quantify the impact of the video.

This conversation highlighted the need for qualitative research in this area. We are even more enthusiastic to answer these questions.

If you missed this call, or if you would like to partcipate in this study, please register online:

http://www.marketingexperiments.com/video-call.html

P.S. To date we have had over 50 applicants for this research. If you are interested in participating, please contact us soon.

If you work in the online world you can hardly have missed all the latest talk about using video and video clips to promote products and services.

Suddenly, video clips are the way to go. And every marketer’s dream appears to be based on magically going “viral” on YouTube.com or some other video-sharing site.

Based on some of the comments from this recent article in the Chicago Tribune, online agency executives are eager to invest in this emerging “medium”.

We have a feeling that most of the money going into “video clip marketing” will be wasted. It will be clutter. Just like the last round of rich media investments.

This doesn’t mean to say we don’t believe in the potential of video online. Far from it. In fact, we are currently looking for research partners to explore this further.

However, it is our guess that agencies and companies will rush into video marketing with sales-centered clips, and be disappointed by the results.

While further research will reveal more, some initial testing indicates that there are three basic ways to go with video.

1. Use video to deliver information and add a depth to your web site content in a way that is either hard or impossible to achieve with text and static images alone. (Here is an example from one of our partners, National Alert Registry.)

2. Use video as a “how to” demonstration tool. (How to install a video card in your computer, how to make a Caesar Salad, how to install a dish washer etc.)

3. Or use video to entertain.

This third option will be hard to achieve for most companies. There are countless hundreds of thousands of video clips fighting for attention already, most of them made by enthusiastic amateurs. And the chances of any one clip going “viral” in a big way are very slim.

As we learn more about what really works with video clips, we’ll share our findings here and, in time, in the form of a full report.

During a preliminary study of the use of video as a marketing tool, we have found that the use of video to market a product or service may actually help increase conversion. In addition, we are finding that using short video clips to distribute on sites like YouTube.com, Google Video and MySpace may be a unique way to drive inexpensive traffic to your website.

Over the course of the next 6 months we will be working with several online marketers to understand exactly how video can best be used to:

1. Drive inexpensive traffic to your website.

2. Increase sales conversion of a product or service.

To find out more about this project, and how you can participate, you can click here.