Death and stupidity have always been classic web spreaders. What’s rare is when, as in this case, depicting death and stupidity serve a purpose—preventing death and stupidity.
This very funny video might not seem like a product video at first — I mean does YouTube really need to advertise itself? But there are many people YouTube must make happy, including advertisers. And humor, done well, is always a happy maker.
This video “trailer” for Tim Ferris’ new book could have done a better job explaining this genre bender. But perhaps the mystery is powerful. It got me to head to Amazon and explore further. And since there will be about 2,19,999 books published this year that I won’t do that for, that’s quite a feat!
Oh well… this awesome bit of digital media didn’t work out. But it’s no less awesome for having been tried. This looks like a standard political campaign website — except for the “donate nothing” button.
I want one. Need I say more? Well since this is a “YouTube Tuesday Plus” post in which I promise mini marketing/branding/messaging critiques I guess I do need to say more. OK.. here goes:
Not only is this pure pure fantastic on-message marketing with a dead simple call to action — it’s funny and fast moving. It’s more than three minutes long though it doesn’t feel it at all!
This is a story of how some people are developing tools and apps and “media” that show a deep deep understanding of the ways messages can be spread today. How they recognize that a teeny 73 by 73 pixel “billboard” in the form of a profile picture is seen by a lot of people a lot of times — each time they read a tweet. And how they have tapped into technology and human desire to spread messages in new, effective ways. It also gives a great, simple, illustrated (because I am going to illustrate it for you) example of what is sometimes called a “viral loop”.
Here’s an awesome company video for online gaming outfit Kixeye in San Francisco. It’s designed to recruit top engineers and other talent to the company (that can be a real challenge these days) and it’s also cool enough to possibly appeal to customers too.
Facebook launched “Facebook Stories” a while ago … I was immediately impressed and continue to be. Look at this one. It is something that is very emotional, quite easy to relate to, easy to feel good about, and it ties the product (Facebook) in in a direct (but not in-your-face) way.