Tag: BKW Partners YouTube Tuesday Plus

I really like this recent video produced by Woolworths (not the defunct US retailer but the South African one sometimes called Woolies). According to the date on the video, it was shot two days after Mandela died—so this was well planned well in advance. This video could easily have come off as a crass commercial hijacking of Nelson Mandela’s legacy. It doesn’t feel that way to me though.

They’re both great videos. And if the Thai one doesn’t make you cry or at least give you goosebumps….. well, I’ll just say it’s clearly moved a lot of people. Just look at the 14 million view count.

You hear a lot of talk these days about “Content Marketing.” Content used to mean the stuff in a magazine or on TV or the radio that was not an ad. It was the content or stories that caused people to tune in or subscribe so that the magazine or TV network could then sell ads. No content, no audience. No audience no ads. No ads no money. No money, no reason to be in the publishing business. It’s really no different today it’s just that now we’re all in the publishing business. This cool little video series from Intel illustrates this nicely.

There are three useful lessons from this classic video about an ATM that knows your gender: 1) Humor works… even for serious matters 2) Accessibility matters 3) Don’t just give people something to think about, give them something to do

I just love this video. I also happen to love this app and use it for email on my phone—about 100 times a day (ugh!).

The video does a great job seamlessly combining a short story (of a woman taking hike in nature) and sharing product features and benefits. And they do it in a very simple, minimalist way which is itself a nod to their simple, minimalist product.

Peter Kafka of All Things D, The Wall Street Journal’s techy  blog, writes about this interesting video from McDonald’s Canada. The popular video goes behind the scenes at a burger photoshoot to answer a customer question: how come burgers in ads and burgers in real life are, well, a bit different.

I came across this video the way I like to source videos for these posts—by just seeing it in my normal day. I saw this one linked to on Jezebel’s Facebook feed. It’s funny. And clearly a lot of people think so—by the view counts. Yet it’s not all fun and games. Like a lot of great communications pieces, there’s a lot of smarts going on behind the humor.

Now… I’m personally not really a fan of this video… it kinda grosses me out .. (and not much grosses me out). But people seem to like it.
However… I do love it when any brand (especially a big one like Kmart) takes risks. And this is pretty risky for such a mainstream brand.
Strategically I’m not a huge fan either because I really don’t get why you would want to ship pants from a store when you can just take them home with you … it starts to make sense when they get to the shipping furniture bit midway … and they do explain the real benefit at the end.

Last time I wrote about an amazing campaign (more like a part of a rolling, ongoing campaign) from Dove Real Beauty … and now they’re at it again. This is momentum marketing at it’s best. They’re knocking out fantastic, thoughtful, thought-provoking content (with a consistent underlying message) so that the new one enters our consciousness just as the old one is fading. This isn’t branding… this is brand BUILDING!