SPEAKING AT WOMMA SUMMIT 2006

I've been asked to speak at the WOMMA Summit coming up in December, the session title is "Viral Video and Messages: Content That Gets Forwarded." While I'm super excited about presenting at a WOMMA Summit, I'm hoping to expand the session a bit. Thing is, if you want to talk about marketer uses for online video, viral is just a small part of the story. The best known (and flashiest) part of the story perhaps, but I don't think the most interesting. The problem with viral video is that it almost always relies on outrageous humor or situations for it's virality. Viral video seeks to be seen by the largest number of people possible, like TV. Viral doesn't care if the brand message is relevant or interesting to the viewer, it's just hoping you'll notice the brand, somewhere in there with all the farts and breasts and rapping WASPs. Most viral vids associated with brands are CGM, and negative. So while viral is a workable strategy for some brands, it's tough to pull off in the right way. Similar to viral is stuff like YouTube's "brand channels" and Video Egg's opt-in post-roll ads and Google's Video AdSense program--these are brand messages that rely on viewer interest in the product or service offered. While the content is displayed in the same format as a viral video, you know it's an ad (of sorts) and you know what it's about (more or less). If you click on it, it's because you want to see a message from brand X. What can you do as a marketer to make that message compelling? Hint: don't make it look like a TV ad. No bogus sets. No bogus actors. The next level out is video blogging, or creating a series of ongoing pieces that tell a brand story. Again, you can put this story out through viral channels, but what you're really trying to do is get interested viewers to follow the story on your site, where you can create better context for your message, and provide better tools for your customers and viewers. Current examples of this include Ford (both Bold Moves, and Amanda Congdon's Road Trip, also with the NRDC) and Samuel Adams Brewery. All of these approaches are documentary is style, which means real people, real voices. The core expression of real people real voices is of course CGM. And there are some fun marketer executions using CGM video, my current fave being iamnotafraidofyouandiwillbeatyourass.com (look for the gnome...that's me). Still though, when it comes to CGM video and marketing activity it seems like the real action is in qualitative research. Trend sites (noteably trendwatching.com) and brand researchers of all sorts watch video sharing sites for a peek into consumer's lives, and companies that employ and/or recruit trendspotters and brand loyalists and bzzagents etc. are getting into providing video tools to their communities. The results of these more focussed assignments are rarely public, but I think we'll increasingly see content come out of these groups that plays as advertising. For me, that's where the real interest lies: in the crossover between research and brand messaging. I want to see content about brands that shows context, connection to poeple's lives. I want to see work that reads as research to brand managers, documentary advertising to consumers, and provides insight to both. PS One sort of brand that would thrive by giving users video tools would be sites like PlanetFeedback.com and TripAdvisor.com. (I'd love to put up my video of the shitty buffet, unstaffed bars, and blowing trash at Beaches, Turks & Caicos, $6000/wk).