It’s YouTube Tuesday again — where I showcase three product or service videos and give a mini marketing critique. I have a good mix for y’all this week. I’ll start with a monstrously successful, monster-budget! immersive experience from Nike (and as a bonus show you a big budget flop) … and then move onto two more videos with much more down-to-earth budgets.
1. Nike Football, My Time is Now
I was studying YouTube trends comparing city trends in the U.S. and global country trends — and this video was #1 almost everywhere last week. It was a big soccer week, after all. For full effect watch it at YouTube. Like last’ week’s YouTube Tuesday Tippex video, Nike is using nonlinear story-telling here, letting you take detailed detours at different times through the video.
It’s a very immersive experience if this story and your characters are your thing. Some of the detours are videos themselves.
Others include workout tips…. .
and a shopping experience
Three interesting things to think about and apply somehow to your projects:
Keep the brand visible. Think about how many times Nike must have shot the shots with the ball to make sure we see the Nike logo.
Don’t let people get lost. Note how Nike makes sure viewers don’t get disoriented — easy to do in a non-linear experience with many choices. They give this nice his little clue in the video timeline that shows when you are taking a detour.
Challenge people. Nike’s smartly turned this experience into a bit of a game. If you don’t find all the detours, Nike challenges you to keep looking.
BTW, big budget does not always mean big success. Ironic that this video for Mitsubishi Electric Cooling & Heating is being promoted with paid Twitter ads and the hashtag #NotFunny — because it really isn’t funny. And it has hardly any views.
2 Joplin Globe
The Joplin Globe is a newspaper in Joplin, Missouri (they’re owned by Community Newspaper Holdings of Birmingham Alabama). Joplin was struck by a devastating tornado one year ago (Barack Obama spoke there yesterday at a Joplin high school graduation to remember the tornado and focus on their recovery).
Look at this haunting video from the Joplin Globe YouTube channel. It’s powerful in it’s simplicity and drama. It’s nothing but security camera footage from the waiting room in a Joplin hospital.
I think they could have been just a teeny bit less humble in their branding — perhaps showing up front a quick Joplin Globe logo in case people didn’t make it to the end. But I wouldn’t have overdone it … they’re only about 5 percent too humble here given the subject matter.
The paper has a tradition of working with “found” media. Check this out from Wikipedia: “In 1933 The Joplin Globe had a country-wide scoop, obtaining the camera[5] left behind by Bonnie and Clyde after a deadly confrontation with local police, developing and publishing the rolls of film in it, including the now-legendary photos of Bonnie holding Clyde at mock gunpoint and of Bonnie with her foot on a fender, pistol in her hand and cigar in her mouth.”
3. Asana
Here’s a video that worked for me … literally. I found the video shared on Facebook (makes sense given Asana is being built by some ex-Facebookers) by a friend of mine. Now we’re using their product at Rassak. Asana does a great job mixing in real customers talking, having a product manager from the company talking — and showing the product itself. I also quite like the timelapse video showing people at work. It’s also got nice, funny details (like the “Molecular Badass” mug). Great job.
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