Tag: youtube

Johnny Walker brand story

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

The high ground for any brand is the story. It’s what we should be aiming for. A brand where part of what people buy is the is the history, or to be part of a tribe. Johnny Walker has put together a great new campaign where they tell their story. It’s a 6 minute time investment worth taking.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnSIp76CvUI]

Some things worth thinking about with the Johnny walker story:

  • It’s a long copy format. 6 minutes plus. Something which can’t be done on TV.
  • It circumvents the negative connotations with success and globalisation. The personal effort and history makes financial success more palatable.
  • It gives detail about the product, range and brand that just wouldn’t be possible in shorter media formats
  • It’s sharable. Easy to send to friends, worth talking about.
  • It’s eyeball worthy. Well shot and executed.
  • It’s the idea. Ideas are king again, not media. Any brand with a story, and a small level of film / web expertise could have done it.
  • This is clearly Radvertising

What does this mean for startups? It means that a large part of what we talk about should not only be how we got here, but why we are taking this journey. A story they can live vicariously through.

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What they don’t tell you

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

It’s easy to get caught up in the brilliant stories of startups going viral to gain awareness, and the simplicity and usability of certain websites turning into large revenue streams. How cool the actual product is, the fact that the founders just built it and the rest just happened. This is the veritable entrepreneurial myth.

Here’s a few things to think about:

How many sales and business development people do you think Google has? Answer = around 5000. And we all thought their non human automated adwords system did it all.

What investment has Twitter made in Public Relations? You think Oprah and Obama just happened upon it? No they were pitched to heavily with a large investment in leading PR firms.

How many Youtube videos were posted by company created accounts? Answer = Hundreds of thousands.

Who seeds the quirky auction items on ebay? Answer = ebay started the game very early on and let the media know.

Everything is not as it seems. Push marketing is alive wand well, just the tactics have changed. It feels very organic and community driven, but the often the community is created by it’s founders and leaders. Nothing wrong with that, it is the job of entrepreneurs to invent said communities. But it makes for better business articles to talk of such things occurring naturally, so the real story is rarely told.

The question for startups is – what tactics can we employ to garner the same momentum?

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The end of television

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

There’s been a lot of talk about the end of television lately. You’ve heard it all. But one simple fact I heard today reminded me today of why television is doomed.

The end of the ratings period.

Yep, that old chestnut. But let’s stop and think for moment what it means and the legacy issues associated with the concept of the rating and non-rating periods.

It was something television could do. It could ‘have a holiday’. It could do this for one simple reason, it had no real competitors. TV broadcasters justified their actions too. They told us that their TV stars needed a break. They told us they were getting ready for the new season with great new episodes and shows. They told us we could enjoy our favourite re-runs. Sure we could go down the the video rental store, but it was much harder than turning on a television and a poor substitute at best.

Today, the end of the ratings period is a continued legacy which proves that broadcasters still don’t get it. We don’t care what time of year it is, we don;’t have to. We still spend money. The economy keeps churning. We still want current, new, exciting information and entertainment. Good news for us is that now we can go elsewhere to get it. And it’s more convenient than TV. It’s on demand, and uninterrupted. The fact that the ratings period still exists today has me flummoxed.

And as long as the television broadcasting industry thinks it can get away with it’s ‘holiday’, it is yet to understand what is happening. It alone is proof TV as an industry, is doomed. This little thing, the non-ratings period, is proof they don’t believe that is the end of their cosy little attention monopoly.

Good bye television, hope you enjoyed your stay.

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Viral marketing & probability

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I’ve spoke before about the truth about viral marketing, and our probability of viral marketing success. So here’s some number to help us all quantify it with the viral marketing haven that is Youtube.

  • The average youtube video gets watched for 6 seconds.
  • 2 hours of video are uploaded every minute.
  • Almost half the videos on youtube get viewed less than 10 times. (1 in 2.4)
  • Only 0.25% of videos get more than 10,000 views
  • A random sample of 10,000 videos uploaded received the following: 2,226 videos with no views in their first month, 237 with 1 view, 158 with 10 views, and just 23 with 100.
  • Only 1 in 3.1 million videos will get more than 1 million views

Sure we can increase our chances by creating great content, and frequency of posts. But getting a viral hit is like winning the lotto. Which for startups means it’s fine to play, but not to back our future on it.

Production values matter

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Sure we live in a mash up society. It’s acceptable to bootstrap. It’s OK to learn on the job in the digital arena. What’s not acceptable is to get worse. To not reach previously set quality benchmarks. In any business, no less your start up. All of the self made youtube stars invest time in the final production of their content. People expect a higher level of quality these days especially if we want to gather long term fans and loyal viewers. Production values matter. What was acceptable in 2004 in not acceptable in 2009.

The first thing you notice in the video output of these highly subscribed Youtubers is production quality: Hotforwords,  Community Channel, Kev Jumba, Happy Slip, Fred and others.

So when Miley Cyrus throws together a home made video of her leaving twitter seen below, we realize how much value her producers add to her usual output – seen underneath.

Home made Miley

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tSOTQPUQoU]

Produced Miley

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M11SvDtPBhA]

I myself, need to improve the videos I make for rentoid.com. So I’ve recently been investing a lot of time learning how to use iMovie editing software.

The lesson for startups is to invest in our digital output. A little more effort in production can be the difference between gathering customers and looking like an amateur.