Laughing babies = Advertising Gold?

Yet another YouTube video has made its way into a television commercial, and quite effectively I might add. BMW popularized the trend with its use of a home video depicting two ecstatic children who just received what is apparently the greatest gift ever. The commercial got its point across, equating the pure joy of the children with the joy of BMW ownership. Now AIG, a financial services company, has released a new commercial of a  cute and very amusing laughing baby that was a hit on YouTube. “Laughter can add eight years to your life. So live longer, retire stronger. Never outlive your money,” the commercial proclaims. The commercial flows nicely and it’s hard to argue with a laughing baby, just ask anyone who has visited YouTube recently. Laughing babies have seemingly turned into a phenomenon. Simply enter “laughing baby” and an endless array of giggling infants appears. Or look at the numbers: as of this entry’s writing, 35,839,310 people have watched the most popular laughing baby clip entitled “Hahaha”. AIG certainly took notice of these numbers and capitalized on this popularity.

Web Content: Who’s Doing it Well?

Dear Interactive Content Team,

As people change their media habits, the web continues to gain more of their attention. Watching video online has become increasingly more popular. Over 57% of U.S. Internet users say they have watched or downloaded online videos, according to a July study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Since better content attracts more viewers, and more viewers equals more revenue, there is more pressure than ever to create compelling content. Web-only programs are one of the popular ways that media sites attract viewers and offer unique content to them.

Here are 5 examples of media companies creating exceptional web-based content:

1. Naples Daily News – Studio 55: A local news vodcast

2. ABC local stations: a revamp of these sites now includes video on the home page with more local content. Go here for an example.

3. CondéNet partnered with YouTube while CBS Radio partnered with AOL’s Truveo to provide broader content to their users

4. The OC Register’s “Publish Your Stuff“: a section of the website where users can publish their photos, create blogs and interact with the community
5. Wicked Local’s Spotted: a photo sharing site serving various local New England communities
And here are some of the web’s most watched original content online series

1. Ask a Ninja (on askaninja.com and YouTube) gets “as many eyeballs as Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim.”

2. We Need Girlfriends gets “700,000 views per episode on YouTube and was picked up by CBS (CBS) and Sony Pictures Television in November”.
3. LonelyGirl15’s MySpace profile and YouTube videos peaked at 50 million hits.
4. Bebo’s KateModern (form the creators of LonelyGirl15) has 2.3million viewers and advertisers paying £250,000 for product placement.

So What?
Create compelling content by investing in web only programming. Look at other media companies and web-only sites for inspiration.

Want to Learn more?

Do We Need an Internet TV Network? Brad Stone, The New York Times

Make Way for Must Stream TV, Erick Schonfeld, CNNMoney.com

TV networks fight back amid online turmoil, Michael Rogers, MSNBC

Web Videos Stealing TV Viewers, and Marketers, Stuart Elliot, New York Times

Web Video: Move Over, Amateurs, Catherine Holahan, Business Week

Microsoft Teams Up With Hollywood to Offer Original Web Shows, Lorne Manly, New York Times

(Image courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter)

Making it Spread: How Digital Assets Make Campaigns Effective

Dear Viral Marketer,

When you are creating a campaign designed to spread virally on the web make sure to follow Johnny Vulkan’s lead and create digital assets.

Johnny Vulkan of New York agency Anomaly designed an effective campaign for Keep a Child Alive. Check out the video here. Wearing a “Keep a Child Alive” T-shirt, Vulkan was first in line at the SoHo Apple Store on the day the new iPhone was released. In order to launch this campaign, he went to the where the media was—rather than inviting the media to come to him. And it worked. The media took pictures of the whole experience – and the campaign received millions of media impressions as a result. What made the campaign particularly effective is that Johnny Vulkan produced digital assets—pictures that the press and bloggers could use in telling the story—and made them widely available.

Creating digital assets like this is not entirely new. Many companies have press kits on their sites for this purpose. But to create assets made especially for a particular cause, and then make them available and highly visible on sites like Flickr and YouTube, is a new and effective spin.

The idea of creating viral videos has also been recently adopted by a number of companies. Blendtec, a company that makes powerful blenders mostly used commercially to make smoothies, created a series of videos called “Will it Blend?”. The short videos of a Blendtec guy blending everything from a light bulb, to a “movie night” (a can of Coke, some corn and a DVD), to even an iPhone (which was sad to watch), were showcased on a microsite made specifically for the series, but they were also put up on YouTube.

And if you’re not creating your own videos, follow Mentos’ lead (Coke took too long to come around!) and make sure to take advantage of user generated viral media using your product (check out the videos here).

So What?
Next time you launch a campaign designed to spread virally, makes sure you have digital assets in place. And go to where the story is.