Just a quick update on the Blog to remind you off all the awesome stuff you can be doing on Shotclip this year! Ok so you may be an amateur right now but with our help we'll help you build your story and be creative and wow your friends with cool videos!
Craft and DIY
This year we're all about the personalized do it yourself gift! Lets face it, after Christmas we all want to be a bit more frugal with the penny's, yet birthday's crop up, not to mention Valentines day and anniversaries.
We have recently gotten into www.etsy.com for all things crafty and cutesy! Making something yourself is fun, cheap and personal. We bought some crafty paraphernalia on Etsy o make ourselves and friends some jewelry. There are lots of Etsy Haul Videos online that give you advice on the best shops and also craft videos to show you how to make and do!
We wanted to make our very own, to promote our jewelry and to show off our skills! To help you make your own Etsy craft or Haul video, we created guides on the ShotClip website to start you of making your videos and showing off your talents. With our help your Etsy related videos will look professional and fun and most of all get loads of views and bring buyers to your Etsy shop!
May 1st 2012 saw the winners of the 16th annual "Webby awards" announced in New York with some noticeable winners from different areas of the internet. The awards themselves are awarded by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS) and they acknowledge the outstanding individuals whose groundbreaking Internet work stands out among others. Hailed as the "Internet's highest honour" by The New York Times, The Webby is the leading international award honouring excellence on the Internet including Websites, interactive advertising & media, online film & video and mobile & apps.One of the big winners at the 2012 award ceremony was Conan O Brien. His "Team Coco" who won the peoples voice award for celebrity/fan sites and was nominated for best humor site. In 2011 "Team Coco" won both the peoples' voice and webby award after only a short time in existence.
Conan O'Brien and his Team Coco came about due to a work place dispute between O'Brien's then employers NBC and O'Brien over the coveted "Tonight Show" TV show on NBC. The argument streamed from the decision made by NBC to break their contract with O'Brien and give Jay Leno his role back as the host of "Tonight Show" after his new show was both a commercial and critical failure. O'Brien was offered the "Tonight Show" position in 2004 with a view to fully taking over from Jay Leno on June 1st 2009. Due to his drawing power Jay Leno was seen as an important free agent by NBC and so he was given a new show, the Jay Leno show, at the key lead in time of 10 PM. By January 2010 relations between the three parties had taken a turn for the worse due to declining ratings for both "Tonight Show" and "The Jay Leno Show" which was having an adverse effect on viewing figures and advertising revenue. NBC proposed to reinstate Leno to his 1135PM slot, with O'Brien to move to a new time of 1205 which did not break his contract. This new time would have a knock on effect on the other hosts on the NBC network which O'Brien felt would "seriously damage the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting" and so he broke his contract by stepping down as presenter of the "Tonight Show" from January. O'Brien gained universal support for his stance on the matter from all across the various social media platforms with over 88% of twitter posts on the matter supporting him and over one million people joining the two most prominent Facebook groups supporting O'Brien, "Team Conan" and "I'm With CoCo". O'Brien's fans used social media to great effect during this period with his fans changing their profile image,which was becoming a communal display of solidarity on Facebook and other social networks, to theI’m With COCO image created by Mike Mitchell who also created the accompanying website and Facebook Page. O'Brien officially stepped from "Tonight Show" on 22nd of January not before attempting to sell off the "Tonight Show" set on the community website www.craigslist.org for two Coldplay tickets.
In February 2010 O'Brien joined the social network Twitter, @ConanOBrien, and began to use the goodwill that he gained from his plight with NBC. The popularity of O'Brien on the internet was such that within the first hour that his profile was active he managed to match and surpass the number of followers that "The Jay Leno Show" official Twitter account had since it went live in April 2009. In March, O'Brien decided to use his Twitter account to follow someone at random and within a short period of time the Twitter followers of @LovelyButton grew from 3 to just under 20,000.
As part of his contract negotiations for stepping down from NBC, O'Brien reached a settlement that barred him from appearing on television as the host of a program until September 2010 but it did not bar him from performing before a live audience in a concert setting. To circumnavigate this stipulation O'Brien announced on Twitter that he was establishing the website www.teamCoCo.com where fans could buy tickets for his tour and where O'Brien had an outlet to keep the momentum going while he determined his next move regarding his TV career. From April to June 2010, O'Brien would perform 42 shows in the United States and Canada. In April of 2010 O'Brien once more chose to use Twitter to announce that he was to start a new TV show on the cable network TBS starting in November 2010.
Faced with the reality that he could easily slip from memory over his 9 month layoff, Conan and his advisors launched a massive social media campaign that included a presence on Twitter (he has over 1.7 million followers), Facebook (well over 1 million fans) and Youtube (nearly 4 million views to date). Not only was Conan active on all of these platforms, but he took the time to put together great material. To ensure that he remained relevant and in the public's consciousness O'Brien ensured that the “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour" stopped by the head offices of both Google and Twitter to perform for the staff of both organisations.
Following the completion of his tour O'Brien returned to his social media roots to promote the launch of his new show by teaming up with the location based social network "Foursquare" to launch "The Conan Blimp" into the skies above Philadelphia. The Conan Blimp also had its own website complete with a live cam and an always-updating map which allowed Conan fans to "Check-in" to get a special Conan Blimp Spotter Badge. Team CoCo's plan was to ensure that the blimp check ins would get distributed to all corners of the social web and spread the message that Conan was back. In conjunction with the launch of "The Conan Blimp" Team CoCo began live streaming a random series of irrelevant videos featuring zombies, a dancing Taco, a competitive eating competition, special guests and bears dressed in 80s garb doing aerobics among others on their site. In addition, at the start of October Team Coco launched an online poll, allowing viewers to vote on who should be the first guest on the new show which was launching in November.
With its launch in November 2010, the show became something new that had not been seen before from a marketing perspective. The show was embraced and fully embraced social media like no other show before it. To reward the fans who supported him on the "Team CoCo" site the first episode "Episode Zero" was streamed on the site while TBS and Twitter released a specially commissioned "Fail Whale" in honor of Conan's first episode. Initially TBS sold the show to advertisers on the pretence that it would have the same market appeal as both Leno and Letterman with the channel. By summer 2011 TBS began to repackage its advertising offerings by highlighting that O' Brien's show lures hard-to-reach young adults via online and social media, not only on TV. The average time spent watching "Conan" content on his website, www.TeamCoco.com, has increased 30% since the show launched, and the average time spent per visitor on the site has increased 103% with the online and TV audience for O'Brien estimated to be 20 million people between 18 and 49.
O'Brien is one of the most digitally savvy TV hosts with a hands on approach to all aspects of his branding. He holds multiple digital meetings every week and fully understands the benefit of the online audience, both for his brand, his tune-in and his sponsors. Through his direction Team Coco maintains a strong presence on myriad of social platforms such as Facebook,Twitter,Foursquare,Google+,GetGlue,YouTubeandTumblr. O'Brien and his team of ten are pretty disciplined about scheduling content and they strive to program natively for each platform as much as possible. To ensure that there is limited content overlap, each platform is treated like a franchise with exclusive content being created for each one. In certain cases Team Coco look for economies of scale to enable their creative efforts to get the most mileage. One of the most successful social media campaigns for Team Coco has been their F-Cards on Facebook which are a pre-recorded a series of videos that friends can post to other friends’ walls for holidays, like Valentine’s Day or birthdays, or for more mundane occasions, like embarrassing your relatives or unfriending people all staring Conan. On April 1st this year Conan joined forces with www.mashable.com for an Aprils fools day prank which saw him run the powerful gadgets and web news site. The prank was a play on O’Brien’s silly false ego and a lampooning of the niche on which the site concentrates. To cement the takeover Mashable’s Twitter icon was changed; out is the ubiquitous face of CEO Pete Cashmore, replaced by the very serious stare of a solemn, web-crazed O’Brien. Throughout the day O'Brien released videos on various topics such as "manual Tweets" and the Mashable's colour scheme was changed to reflect O'Brien's famous ginger hair.
O'Brien is indeed an innovator in all aspects of digital marketing as can be seen from the various successes of both www.teamcoco.com and the various social media channels that his brand is present on. From the original set back he endured when his 20 year career with NBC came to an abrupt end in January 2010 to the career resurgence that he is undergoing thanks to his willingness to embrace new and emerging social media platforms. Throughout his various social platforms O'Brien has remained relevant to the general pubic by ensuring that he, and his brand stay ahead of curve. Although he did not get to leave his mark in the way he wanted to on the "greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting" perhaps with the path he has had to travel on his will create his own franchise of note.
April has seen the launch of the latest Adidas campaign to tie in with the countdown to London 2012. The campaign, which has the tagline "Take the stage", is one of the most unique for a sports brand in that it is pursuing the idea of User Generated Content (UGC) as a key element of the campaign. Take the stage is using major stars from the sports and entertainment fields to encourage Adidas followers to embrace the brand.Featuring Team GB athletes Victoria Pendleton, Louis Smith and Tom Daley alongside entertainment stars such Wretch 32, Bashy, Example and comedian Keith Lemon, the narrative of the adverts tells the story of how you can go from the top deck of the bus to the top of the charts overnight.The brand is targeting user interaction across the brands diversified areas of Sport, Street and Style. Each one of brands distinct elements is represented by different sporting stars such as David Beckham and Derrick Rose while the UK music scene is represented by Wretch 32.
Keith Lemon and Victoria Pendleton
In 2011 the brand launched an initiative called Adistars which was designed to encourage sports participation and reward 13-19 year olds who get involved with a myriad of prizes such as personalised messages from adidas ambassadors and opportunities to attend sporting events and meet with the likes of David Beckham. The rewards were based on the completion or mastering of specific tasks around the area of fitness such as speed, skill, stamina, strength and suppleness. Those taking part had access to the Adistar website which hadvideo editing tools where participants could create films of their challenges to share with friends on the website as well as to their wider community on Facebook.
Adistars was an early version of the brands attempts at UGC which they are continuing with their "Take the stage" promotion. UGC is one of the key evolution's associated with the rise of the internet and social media. The advent of user-generated content marked a shift among media organizations from creating online content to providing facilities for amateurs to publish their own content. User generated content is a two-way process in contrast to the one-way which existed prior to the growth of the internet with an ever-growing number of participatory users are taking advantage of the interactive opportunities, especially on the Internet to create independent content. UGC has enabled the growth of Facebook,Twitter and Youtube with various brands using these emerging marketing tools to gain a foothold with their fan base.
Adidas is one of the most successful brands using social media at present. On Facebook it presently holds the number one sports brand with facebook.com/adidasoriginals currently having just under 14 million fans and over 200,000 people talking about the brand on a regular basis. It has a 0.1% daily fan growth compared to the average fan growth of 0.08%. The monthly average fan growth is just below average at 2.45% compared to most brands average growth of 2.5% growth. The most recent peaks in fans talking about the brand occurred in conjunction with the launch of the "Take the stage" advertising campaign. Their official Twitter page, @adidasoriginal, has been active for over 3 years and has just over 200,000 followers which is slightly behind the other leading sports brand on this social channel. On a daily basis it gains nearly twice as many followers, 0.24%, than the average brand, 0.14%, with its monthly growth, 9.87%, well ahead of the monthly average, 4.2%, for other brands on Twitter. The brand's Youtube channel is slightly behind the averages in certain areas in comparison to other brands. Its weekly viewership growth, 1.67%, is below the average, 2.23%, for other brands while its monthly viewing average, 1.67%, is also behind the monthly average, 2.27%, for brands. One area where it does out perform ahead of others is in the number of views of uploaded videos at just over 12.6 million views of videos on their channels.
Their most recent campaign, "Take the stage", is encouraging fans to upload content onto its main webpage with a view to winning the chance to meet sports stars such as Derrick Rose and David Beckham. Collaborations with sports figures have long been a method of effectively influencing audiences on what’s cool and what’s not. Sports collaborations between an athlete or a sports team with a brand or company, like other channels, have adapted and incorporated the digital aspects of the ever changing marketing landscape to remain effective. To win a chance to meet MVP and star of the Chicago Bulls, Derrick Rose, and play ball with him in Chicago fans.
David Beckham is giving competitors the chance to come on a photo shoot with him where they will meet David and have the chance to photograph him and work with him in the studio.
Wretch 32 is giving competitors a chance to open for him on Tour later this year.
The winner of the competition will get a chance to open for him at one of his gigs and also meet the man himself. To enter any of the competitions competitors need to upload a video or photograph to the Adidas main site and ensure that their video is in the top 10 most liked at the end of the competition. From there, Adidas, Beckham, Rose and Wretch 32 choose the competition winner. The benefit of having a cross platform competition like this ensures that the brand is not isolating itself from any particular fan base and it also showcases the brands many uses.
The potential of social media and sports brands is still being exploited. "Take the stage" is one of many user generated competitions that different brands have chosen to pursue in recent years. UGC competitions enabled brands to produce content that will appeals to both users and potential users of their products or services. The tie in potential that London 2012 offers sports brands such as Adidas and Nike is very unique in that the event is being sold on the idea of creating a legacy that will exist for decades to come. As "take the stage" implies this event is offering people and brands the opportunity to leave their mark on the public's consciousness in the lead up to the biggest sporting event of 2012.
This week two friends decided to celebrate a birthday in the same way as most people do, by having a birthday party with cake and candles but when these two friends are a hunter and a bear then you can imagine it would not be a normal celebration. 18 months on from their successful viral video campaign Tipp-ex have returned with their latest video that focuses on the adventures of the hunter and the bear. The original video was a massive success online, winning numerous awards for the digital agency behind the video thanks to the video's innovative nature and the ability for the user to change the outcome of the ad.
It all started with a video titled "A hunter shoots a bear" which was part of the "Tippexperience" campaign which was run by French based digital agency Buzzman on behalf of the German owned correction fluid company. In the original video which can be seen below, the hunter is startled by the bear rumbling around his tent and he is encouraged to shoot the bear by the camera man. The viewer is then prompted to either "shoot bear"or "don't shoot bear" with both decisions leading to the same screen with Tipp-ex branding and ads featuring prominently.
The hunter then breaks the forth wall and tells the viewers that he does not want to shoot the bear and instead reaches out of the video to grab the white out pocket mouse that could be seen in the ads beside the video. Using the Tipp-Ex products to "white out" the part of the video title, the hunter then encourages the viewers to rewrite the story by entering key words or phrases that would lead them to a conclusion video. If the words or phrases they entered have no corresponding video they were brought to a comedic 404 page error video.
First example of the interactive Annotation of the "Tippexperience"
The Hunter "whiting out" the word "Shoots"
The functionality behind the actual Tippexperience youtube channelshowcased the innovation and creativity that has taken precedent in modern digital marketing. The first video lets the user decide how the story should go on, already giving the impression that this is something interactive and that the user can direct the story. Both options available to the users lead them to the Tipp-ex Youtube takeover page. It is just a layer that gives the impression of a regular YouTube video. This innovation is part of an advanced part of Youtube's operation called annotation. YouTube annotations is an effective tool for creating videos that are engaging, interactive, informative and entertaining. Annotations can be used by digital marketing companies to initiate a dialog with your viewers, call upon them to take action and get higher levels of engagement. When used correctly annotations can improve viewership and grow the brands audience.
Tippexpererience, as mentioned previously, was a massive success for the the Tipp-ex brand with the campaign quickly becaming a worldwide viral phenomenon, amassing over 35 million views within the first 100 days of launching. It went on to win various awards such as Digital and Interactive Bronze at New York Festival, 2010 Ad Age award for Best Interactive Video Campaign and also a Gold in Web and a Silver in online film, media innovation and alternative media (France)2010 at the Epica Awards.From a consumer interactive perspective the video was a great success for the brand. In the first 36 hours alone the Teaser video had over 1 million view and was Shared over 100, 000 times on Facebook and 7, 500 times on Twitter. In the proceeding 36 hours the ad had a Virality rate of 5000 % (each user send the link to 5 people on average) with an average time spend with the brand of 6 minutes. The company has estimated that the equilivant media coverage would have cost the company over €5 million if they want to gain the same traction.
Earlier this week Tippexperience season 2 was launched with the focus this time being on the users ability to rewrite history instead of just the story.The story this season takes place at the Bear's birthday bash in 2012 where the Hunter and bear are faced with an earth-destroying meteor in the sky above them. The annotation begins by offering the user a choice between either ending the party or keep it going. Once more using the Tipp-ex whiteout the hunter encourages the users to interact with the video by choosing a different year to continue the party in with 46 different scenarios available. There are also Easter eggs scattered throughout the choices.Since its launch on the 12th of April the videos have been viewed over 5 million times already with nearly 17000 subscriptions to the channel.
The Hunter "Whiting out" the year 2012.
Hunter and bear's -1000 birthday party with social media channels clearly displayed throughout.
Within its first week the "Tippexperience 2" viral has already been a great success for the creators, Buzzmann, and the parent company Tipp-ex. The annotation used in the original "Tippexperience", as mentioned above, brought the brand closer to the public which for any company is one of the key reason for pursuing any form of digital marketing. The innovation and interactivity which is afforded by the use of Youtube annotation is one of the biggest benefits to modern brands as it enables them to make a connection with both current users and potential users.
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