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Friday video special: Can you say “YouTube”?

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Back in 2001 I tried the first video pitch – falling a little too hard for a client’s claims about their streaming video, I just knew that the best way to communicate all the video goodness of the service was to use it to introduce the firm. Hey, if it worked we’d be the first agency to use video and that would totally rock. Yeah. Woo.

My friend (then colleague) Steve Green still does a scathing impersonation of me whenever we meet up for a pint: "Hi. I’m A – A – A- A- ntony Mayf ——ield. And I want to talk to yo-o-o-o-u about…". Then it would stop for a while, typically.

Needless to say it was very poor. But if you’re pioneer you’ve got to take a few knocks.

Now, in the age of YouTube other people are trying the technique and it’s working much well a bit better. Unfortunately this one still stuttered on the brand name, just like my pitch did all those years ago… Maybe they should have used YouTube. ;-)

: : More embarrassing is Coke Zero’s latest attempt to "get down" wit the web yoot (and probably their bad selves with these YouTube videos. Yep, in agencyland "YouTube" is the latest must-have word for pitches. This comment summed up the lukewarm response (not the first time Coke Zero’s digital marketing has got less than stellar online reviews):

   

       

I think it’s funny but I wonder the intent and response they are looking for with this faux consumer generated content. Either be a corporate video or be a fan video – anywhere in the middle I think will be mediocre response-wise.

   

What’s next I wonder. Probably this…

: : :  …Agency.com walking the fine line between genius and cheese by pitching for a new client via YouTube. The video, posted last Friday, is, of course, all about the making of the video. Some of the team get jobs at Subway and turn around a nifty online video and then post it on YouTube. Watch it here folks:

In a telling scene, one of the team implores a couple leaving church to "pray that our video goes viral", which is a bit an insight into the nature of "viral video" itself – it’s far from an exact science.

They posted it last Friday – the marketing world waits with baited breath to see how they did. In the meantime, we can exclusively(ish) reveal that already by the middle f the week (graph below grabbed on Wednesday, "Subway sandwich" entered as a comparison) Agency.com’s buzz stock was rising – so the canny team are seeing a benefit for their brand before the result on the pitch is even called.

Agency_dot_com_blogpulse_2

By this morning "Agency.com Subway" had wa-a-a-a-a-y overtaken "Subway sandwich":

Agency_dot_com_blogpulse_1

Judging from the comments on YouTube the whole exercise has gone down better among fellow marketers than the aforementioned yoot / digital natives, but the former would really be the target audience so it’s treble sanwiches all round at Agency.com’s HQ…

: : Stuart Bruce  kindly points to Steve Rubel who has called Agency.com video "lame" and provoked a really good debate in the comments section.

Tags: , , agency.com, ,

Antony Mayfield

5 responses to “Friday video special: Can you say “YouTube”?”

  1. Stuart Bruce - BMA PR Avatar
    Stuart Bruce – BMA PR

    Great analysis – especially after reading Steve Rubel’s opinion and the comments it generated.

  2. Antony Mayfield Avatar
    Antony Mayfield

    Thanks a lot, Stuart – I’ll check ’em out.

  3. Ed Lee Avatar
    Ed Lee

    From where I was sitting the whole thing from concept to execution was just awful. Re-inacting the moment the bus dev guy got the call, rubbed his hands together and then got his entire agency to drop whatever work they were doing for clients (and ignore deadlines) to work on an overindulgent, poorly scripted, worse wardrobed and borderline anti-semitic video could be construed as a work of genius. Taking a potential client’s brand and riding roughshod over it inherent values and core messages is a risky strategy at the best of times and, while agency.com is certainly getting a lot of publicity at the moment, from what I’ve heard, their reputation as an online marketing agency that knows the space has taken a severe battering.

    Ed
    ps you may enjoy the soundboard that wasted up many of my billable hours yesterday. Zinger.
    http://clients.mediatavern.net/werollbig/soundBoard.html

  4. Jackie Danicki Avatar
    Jackie Danicki

    Agency.com, from what I’ve seen, doesn’t really understand why this stuff works or how. Their European chairman, Andy Hobsbawm, was at a conference I helped produce earlier this year and made a big song and dance about how he was too elevated to read blogs, that Clay Shirky’s “more considered” essays were what esteemed professionals like him would be reading. Total us vs them mentality, total failure to connect the dots, total frankness that he’s happy to co-opt this stuff despite loathing it. After he said his piece, he went back to the paperwork he’d been completing before opening his mouth.

  5. Antony Mayfield Avatar
    Antony Mayfield

    A lot of agencies, escpecially digital and advertising in my experience don’t get it. Or at least they get that there are bright shiny things called “blogs” and “youtubes” on the web that they can impress clients by including in their creative concepts. But they do not understand it at a strategic level, they don’t understand how it works.

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