G to the Square

Viral, real or fake, who cares, at end, they sell, just like sex.

If you think the above phrase is true, then its a good idea you take a step back. Here is why:

If a video creates you the urge to share it, then I ask: “those you make it succeeded?”. Doesn’t matter if they did it because they want to critique it, think is fake or real, if people talk about it, buzz is generated. Of coarse not always any buzz is good buzz, but when it comes to videos, when done well they create brand awareness.

The reason I mention the above is because I stumbled at this video:

It shows Kobe Bryant jumping over a Aston Martin.

It’s a amazing piece of video, like most videos regarding Nike products. You can see at the discussions of the video that some people think is fake, some think is irresponsible and other that is read. But if people talk about it and pass it around, create web sites about the video (see here). The question here is does this video helps Nike sell more Kobe Bryant shoes?

If Nike wants to create brand awareness and be always in the mind of customers, then this might be the way to go. But I don’t know if they see this they will think they can jump, that maybe worked for Nike ten years ago and with Jordan shoes. People today are smart enough to figure out that the above video is fake, since the Lakers and nobody will take a chance to injure their star player on a “stunt”. But still there are people that think is real and the reason for that is that they are fans of Kobe or are anti Kobe fans. Either they will criticized it in a positive or negative way.

Nike has always done very interesting marketing campaigns and this tactic of using YouTube is not the first one. I think they started with soccer and the following add:

Again we have the fake or real discussion, but there are not commenting about Kobe being stupid, idiot, etc. The reasons is because Ronaldinho is Ronaldinho and Kobe is Kobe. But again they create buzz and having 22 million views is not bad as an alternative to TV and not paying royalties to for showing up the commercial.

Nike doing some viral video is different from a small company or startup, that question is “Will it Blend?”. That is a series of videos from a company called Blendtec where they create commercial blenders. To show the power of this blenders he will blend everything you ask for or he can come up with, from golf balls to Chuck Norris and even a iPhone (which the fans asked for).

As reported by this article on Inc.com:

Since the video series debuted on YouTube, retail sales of the company’s blenders have grown fivefold, to an estimated $10 million, up from $2 million in 2006. The original run of five videos cost only $50 to produce and has been viewed more than 35 million times on YouTube.

The lesson to learn here is that if you are going to use viral video or another kind of marketing tools, it should work for your company and not just follow a trend blindly. In the case of Blendtec they created credibility by blending anything. People on Blendtec new this, but how to make people see this and at the same time keeping costs down. In the case of Nike it’s just of maintain brand awareness, generating a stronger link with its customers.

At the end of the day, because of the low cost involved in creating videos for YouTube (or any Internet video site), it can be a trail and error process, but remember it’s all about the content. Do you think Blendtec success will have been the same if they use different slogan or jingle?

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UPDATE:

Just an FYI, i found this article that states the following

“The video drew concern from some Lakers fans, although Bryant wasn’t really jumping over a moving car. He said it was created with special effects.”