Clever online videos…

YouTube

Using video is clearly one of the most dominating trends in online advertising. The proliferation of digital camera/camcorder and today’s multi-function cell phones, together with social networking websites such as Facebook and YouTube, practically anyone can up & download and share videos with very little effort. The key to using online video to advertise and promote products is that people actually like to watch videos; they like to talk about it, share it and often get involved in it. It gives brands and brand managers an opportunity to tap in to that natural social tendency and get tremendous word of mouth spread of their campaigns.

Even more exciting part is that online advertising/marketing still has a huge gray area that hasn’t been fully examined and studied yet. While many earlier studies suggested that online video is highly effective for driving and changing behavior among consumers, it is yet too early to draw any conclusion on its effectiveness and efficiency. In other words, there are still new tools and tricks that haven’t been used, and personally it is quite exciting to see how and where advertisers and marketers out there would extend the idea of online advertising beyond what it is today. Clearly, the rules have not been written yet.

Having said what I had to say, I would like to share some videos that I believe are very creative and effective.

Here’s the first one~

As I’m assuming many of you already have seen this video before, this is the video clip for Samsung’s new HD camera phone that directly targeting YouTube users. They directly confront and ask YouTube users: “here’s the challenge YouTube. How did we do that?” By simply asking a question it gets your attention and interest. Did you maybe watch the video again to figure out what’s really happening? Did you maybe read some other users comments to see if anyone has figured it out? If so, they were clearly successful at what they were doing. It’s a remarkable way to engage consumers by showing a short, but interesting enough to make you curious and want to watch it again, video clip. (by the way if you haven’t seen this one before and want to know the answer, I’m sure you know where to find the answer)

Second one I would like to share is MSI’s video clip for their new laptop series, x-slim. Check it out.

So, what do you think? It’s fun enough to watch till the end, yet it’s clear enough to understand easily what the message is they are trying to get across.

Apparently, these two videos rely on two very basic feelings of human: curiosity and humor. These are two very powerful emotions as well as the most dominant purpose for most of us to watch online videos. Not only these videos are fun and interesting to watch but also cleverly convey the products’ core value. Creating a video clip that is not only Intriguing but also has the clear message, and putting it on a site that reaches over 72 millions user people in the U.S monthly, and people voluntarily share & spread it and eventually brings a positive effect on a company or a product. One 1-2 minute long video can be that powerful.

Online advertising is still developing, and video is a very big part of it. As a consumer and marketer, I am excited what will be coming next. I hope to watch more interesting and clever videos like those ones above. “Here’s the challenge Marketers and Advertisers. Surprise me!”