Photography & Decor

It's amazing how beautiful your house can be with some frames, pictures and creativity.
So if you like photography & decor but you don't know how to put a frame on the wall, you should have a look at some great ideas that we've separated on our Pinterest Page.

Let's shoot and decorate like a pro!

5 Video Production Tips

We separated for you #5 great tips of video production. Check it out!

1# - Get close to your subject

We know you can zoom into a shot but it's not the same thing. The visual perspective is different, and so is the sound. You take better shots when you are closer to the subject and the sound will be much clearer.

2# Film scenes using more than just one shot

It's usually best to film a scene using multiple shots, giving different perspectives to what's being viewed, but don't overdo it.  Decide on the style of shots that you will use, and be consistent unless there's a reason to change. 

3# Use an external microphone

If you can't get close enough to what you're taping, or you're in a noisy environment, then using a microphone that's remote from the camera really helps get a much better sound.

4# Use a tripod

If you're filming something that needs a steady shot, then you need a tripod (or place the camera on a stable object). It's very distracting to watch something like someone speaking at a presentation, if the camera is wobbling all over the place as if it were being filmed during an earthquake. 

5# Edit and be ruthless with ShotClip

Editing means putting together just the shots that you need.

You should remove anything that doesn't belong to your video (mistakes, lots of waiting around for something to happen, boring pauses between things, etc.).

PS - Be careful, you can't fix filming errors with editing, you're stuck with them, so if you make a mistake while filming, re-do the shot straight away.  

via Camera Tim

Helping Students Get The Most Out of Learning Through Video

Lets face it, school could get pretty boring. Sitting daydreaming, doodling and distracted, it wasn't always easy to stay focused and interested! One of my favorite memories of school was when the door would swing wide open, and what was rolled in? You guessed it; the TV and VCR. The DVD may not have been anything as exciting as I hoped, but it was something that grabbed my attention back and got me engaged.

As we enter the digital age, it's even harder for students to stay focused, with the prevalence of smartphones, social media and YouTube, kids these days have their minds on the digital world. This isn't always a bad thing! It's the present and the future. So how about we incorporate this into their learning! Sounds too difficult? It's not.

At Shotclip we believe that educational learning videos are a great resource for students and teachers. For students it is visually stimulating and encourages them to explore learning and topics in class, and engages them in a more visual world.

Teachers are the perfect catalyst for this, as trusted education providers you have the chance to show students how to responsibly look up resources for learning and also create online tutorials to classes, so they can be referenced when doing homework, study or project work.

Simply set up your video camera or smartphone and record the most important aspects of your lesson.
Remember if you break the lessons into shorter 5 minute sessions you will hold the students attention a lot more. Try and add some props or screen grabs to make it visually interesting.

You can even make the class time activities more fun by posting up discussion prompts or clues to future classes on youtube and asking students to find videos on the subject. And by encouraging the to create video replies this further prompts interactivity.

You can easily edit your video and add cool transitions or effects, pictures and text on www.shotclip.com

A great video resource I found was http://www.watchknowlearn.org/ but we always recommend creating your own and tailoring your class!

Happy video making! :)

Siobhán 

Capture your Customers Attention with Exciting Video Content.

Video can be your best communication tool in business- if you've decided to use it you've just tapped into one of the richest ways to create content and promote yourself or your business. In 2012 Comscore tells us that viewers watch 22 hours of video a month. What's even better is you no longer have to hire expensive studios or equipment to achieve a great video that is going to boost your companies awareness and importantly, the profits.

Whether you want to create a video to email to clients, generate content for your blog or advertise and create press awareness, we at ShotClip want to help you do this. Body language can communicate more than writing ever can, so don't just tell your customers what to buy-show them the benefits.

Getting Started

You've taken the leap and decided you're going to make a marketing video. What do you want to gain from your video? Do you want to build a rapport with your customers? Do you want them to download your whitepaper? Or go to your website and buy? For example, perhaps you have an online farm shop and want to promote your market fresh produce, you may want to create a video about the benefits of organic produce.Customers love to see the "Real You".
Creating a video telling the story of your produce can go a long way to building a rapport with clients. 

Tip: Be authentic, if you make a mistake, it's ok, it makes you look real. Don't adopt a persona that is not you.

Planning Your Story 

This is the first step that ShotClip can help you with. Your video needs a beginning, middle and end. As well as populated guides with great shooting tips, we have customizable guides wherein you can plan your scenes and shots before you make your video.
Think about your call to action, what is your angle? Based on this create your story that will engage your viewer. Planning is key, we all want our videos to be as real and personable as possible but we want them to look sleek and professional and really make your company shine. You can go to our Guides and get some pointers on how to frame and shoot these shots.

Tip: Try to keep your video under 3-4 minutes long. 

Lighting and Audio

If you get this right your video will look even better, you don't need fancy equipment just a reasonable camera, a tripod is desirable and as many lights as possible  to create a professional looking video. 

If you have access to, or can get a clip mic, this will benefit audio quality. 

Tip: Shooting outside is great, you have all the natural light you need.

Editing

Okay, so you may think this is the hardest bit of the process, it's not! With ShotClip, it's easy and you don't need to get confused with complicated editing software or processes. After you have planned your story you can "Make Your Movie" in the editing section of the website. Simply upload your clips and rearrange them, cut, trim, or add text and effects to make it look professional and sleek.

Tip: Take a look at our blogpost about royalty free music to add to your video! 

When you have rendered and published your video, you will have created rich compelling content for your website as well as a personable video that can be shared on social media and with your customers. Upload it to youtube and embed it on your site and get sharing!



Siobhán. 

Tips for a creative wedding video

As wedding season approaches we here at ShotClip realize what an important keepsake your wedding video is. It will be cherished by you for years to come which is why we think it should be as unique as you are!

Add some personality to your wedding video and get creative! Here are a few of our tips on how to make your wedding video special.

Record the preparation! 

The wedding day starts from the moment you get up and the excitement starts. Why not get one of the entourage to record some footage of the hustle and bustle of the morning of the wedding. Getting ready, flowers arriving, and leaving for the church. If you have a special message to your partner before the big moment this is the time to record it! With Shotclip it's easy to quickly edit your clips and have it ready for the reception where it can be shown as a trailer during cocktail hour to entertain guests.

A wedding music video.

This is becoming more and more popular, all you have to do is get a few of your guests to sing along to a few lines of a special song, (Examples!) and then with Shotclip you can easily later edit the music video! It's a great keepsake to later share with your guests! 

A Love Story Slideshow. 

Do you have a proposal video, or special moments you have shared together. Put together a slideshow of special moments, like holidays and events you were at together,  add a romantic song and you can play it at the reception for your guests!

Its easy to edit all these, you don't have to be a professional just follow our Guides on the website and make a great video for your special day! 

We also have a Pinterest board where we pin all our favorite wedding ideas!!  Check it out here! 

Enhance your Videos with a Soundtrack

The soundtrack to your video is often vitally important. It can really set the tone for your movie. It conveys happiness, inspiration, emotions in your viewer! It can make your video even more exciting and get more viewers. However when your are editing your video you can't upload any track you like for fear it may be subject to copyright and if you re uploading it on you-tube it's in danger of being disabled. So how do we solve this problem? Well we wanted to give you a few tips and links that may help all you Shotclippers editing your video online with us!

Incompetech  Is a royalty free music website where you can download original music with a by creative commons licence  but don't forget to credit where you got it from! 

Jamedo  is another awesome free music website that has thousands of tracks and tells your clearly the kind of licence the track has! 

If you don't mind spending a little bit to get exactly what you need FriendlyMusic lists tracks by mood and 

Rumblefish have plenty of tracks and they won't break the bank either!  

You can also try YouTube's feature AudioSwap will let you add the music they have listed as licensed songs.

If you are in anyway musical of course the best way is to get totally creative and make your own soundtrack!  If you play an instrument but no audio recording software there are options available. Audacity is a free music recording software. For amateur Video makers who want to use their own soundtrack this could be a great way to get started recording your own.  

We love creativity and collaboration at ShotClip!We hope you get some ideas from this on how to use great audio that is affordable or even better FREE to make even better ShotClip videos! 

Happy Editing! 

#BuildYourStory

Go Pro Videos are Awesome!

Lately we have been awed by all the cool Go Pro videos we have been seeing all over the internet space! The Go Pro is a small durable, light camera that captures beautiful high  quality point of view action shots. It's become even easier to become an excellent video maker with these cameras and document and build your story. 

That's why at shotclip, we just had to make a guide and give anyone who Go Pro a few tips on shooting their clips as well as editing in Shotclip to make the most of their videos. 
Often it can be tricky with reels of action footage to pick the best shots and to make an actual story of the footage, (that everyone wants to watch!) 

We wanted to do the work for you! So we created this Guide. 

http://www.shotclip.com/node/31591

We give you hints and tips on how to shoot interesting clips, as well as build your story and editing tips! Creating a professional video with your go pro just got easier! 

Oh and we wanted to share our favorite Go Pro Videos with you.. (just for fun!) 

This Trombone player!

Frisbee madness...

Crazy Ski Jumps! 

Crafty Videos: Show of your craft skills.

Hey Everyone,

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!

Our Etsy haul, ready to be crafted.

Make an awesome Christmas video card with ShotClip.

It's Christmas time! And that means letting friends and family know you are thinking of them! Instead of sending out the same old boring Christmas card why not  we want you do do something a little different! Why not get your friends to collaborate on a video. This is a really cool way of letter friends and family that are scattered around the world know that you are thinking of them!

It's really easy to make a Christmas video card, our GUIDES can help you put together your greeting card. Choose between, Christmas shout out, Sing along Christmas, and Christmas day Highlights!

Have a great holiday and remember to capture all your Christmas memories and build your story!

Crowdfunding Videos made easy!

Are you thinking of creating a crowd funding campaign on on a website like Indiegogo or Kickstarter? Us too!!  One of the most effective ways to boost your campaign is to make a video to accompany your campaign. Slava Rubin the CEO of Indiegogo tells us that having a video to promote your campaign will raise 114 percent more money than if you don't have a video. We can guide you through how to make a successful professional crowdfunding video from start to finish.

ShotClip makes it easier for you to plan, record and edit your crowd funding video and make your campaign as effective and successful as it can be. ShotClip will provide you with a guide to making your crowd funding video with step by step instructions on how to film and edit the shots for your video campaign.

ShotClip is both a web and and a mobile app that works together to make your video. you can record your video and edit right on your smart phone to make video. We want to help you make your campaign compelling, successful and exciting.

We need your help to make ShotClip even Better!!

We have already launched an alpha version of the web app on http://www.shotclip.com including the online video editing software.

However we want to bring ShotClip to your smartphone. The mobile app is the key feature that will enable users to interactively build their story on their smartphone. If you love using ShotClip and want an even easier way to edit and build your story why not help us out with our Indiegogo project. If you decide to help us there are a list of perks that you will get in return of will make building your story even better!We have just started this crowdfunding campaign to help make this happen.


http://www.indiegogo.com/shotclip

You can really help us by doing any of the following:
- Goto http://www.indiegogo.com/shotclip and Facebook 

 like it
- Or tweet about it.
- send it to anyone who might be interested
- make a contribution (note: all contributions get fully refunded if the campaign doesn't get fully funded.).

Help with any of the above would be much appreciated.

Movember: Moustache is King.

It's November which means one thing Movember. The Month where moustache is King. Every year Handlebars, Sellecks, Dalis, and Walrus' sprout on the top lips of the male population and this year is no exception. What is it for? It's a fundraiser to raise vital funds and awareness for men's health in particular prostate cancer.

There are a few rules set out on the Movember website such as  No Joining the mo to the sideburns, that's considered a beard, or the handlebar to the chin as that's a goatee! And of course every Mobro must conduct himself as a true gentleman! 

The Support for Movember has grown every year with more and more celebrities sporting a mo for the cause and creating awareness. The Irish Rugby team have been some of the supporters of the mo and have made a video campaigning for awareness. 

Here at shotclip we support the cause and have made a handy guide to Making your own Movember Movie. Whether it's uploading your Pictures, pleading for donations or something a bit more creative like "The Moustache Movie" Which was selected for an Honoree at the 2012 Webby Awards.

Team Coco: Celebrity social media success

Team CoCo

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 the I’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, YouTube and Tumblr. 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.

Adidas taking the Stage.

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 had video 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.  

The Hunter and Bear: An Unconventional Friendship

Hunter and Bear

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 channel showcased 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.