First Newsletter of 2008!
Even though it feels like we've only been back at work for a week, January has flown by in a blur of busy-ness and business. After the viral frenzy of the run-up to Christmas, all the designers have packed away their santa images and snow-effects and are back into the serious creative stuff. Once more, we give you a quick rundown of what's happened this month.
Quick Links
News Round-up:
Rubber Republic Launches the Viral Ad Network
We've officially launched the Viral Ad Network - a specialist ad network distributing viral advertising campaigns across the UK and Europe.
The Viral Ad Network is a network of over 2400 sites in the UK and Europe, with a reach of over 14 million people. The Network is made up of a number of different types of sites including video sharing sites, portals, social networks and blogs. Existing publishing partners include Kewego.com, Pigsback.com and Rugbyblog.
The Viral Ad Network has been tested in beta for the last 6 months, running campaigns for brands including Nokia, O2, Hewlett Packard, McCain and the BBC.
The network is divided into a number of different interest groups, with a particular focus on sport, automotive, entertainment and technology sectors, and has the capacity to seed both game and video virals. Campaigns are run on a "cost-per-view" (CPV) model, similar to the cost-per-click model, and are tracked to ensure campaigns are fully accountable.
The Network gives power to the publishing sites in that, as well as getting paid for each view of a viral piece, they also get full control over which ads they feature, to ensure that they can meet the expectations of their users.
Find out more about the Viral Ad Network
The Establishing of Viral Video as Social Norm?
Net measurement firm Nielsen Online and Pew Internet have reported a notable growth in activity within the burgeoning online video sharing realm during the latter third of last year. Nielsen and many other observant eyes on the web are beginning to conclude that 2007 was indeed the year that video sharing went from taking tentative steps to leaping bounds on its journey to an established, every day form of media. Tim Wintle, our very own internet mastermind had pointed out these trends to us last week, and his data correlates strongly with that produced by the aforementioned web watchers.
So are we experiencing a genuine online revolution, or merely an inexplicable blip?
Well, the statistics and the graphs certainly suggest that a boom in online video usage is underway, with the news making national and international press. According to Nielsen, 48% of US net users visited a video sharing site last year, and interestingly, around 22% of Americans make their own videos and 14% of these share them online. Tim pointed out in his data that the number of views per video on YouTube alone had doubled its value during the final quarter of 2007 in when compared with the first. It wasn't just YouTube that enjoyed this rise in interest; according to BBC News , Crackle's average also audience doubled throughout November and December.
During these uncertain and early stages a number of ideas have been put forward to try and explain this flourishing activity:
Firstly, the consequences of the Striking of the Writers Guild of America (WGA). It could be said that due to the threat of, or a genuine lack of 'official' or 'traditional' entertainment being caused by the WGA strike since November 5th, many have sought an alternative through the creation or the consumption of online videos. However, as plausible as this is, the data suggests that following the announcement of the strike, a significant enough surge in activity to render this an explanation is somewhat lacking. This notion would also rely on the public, as an audience, reacting in unison, completely independently of one another during a very short period of time. I would expect that for a pattern to emerge from a factor such as the strike, the data would have to be studied over a much longer period of time, or at least until a 'dropping off point' (the tail-end of work - previous to the strike - drying up) had been established.
Secondly, this trend could be at least partially explained by a maturing relationship between online video and memorable TV moments, or as Chris put it, "Is TV the real internet star?". Many users use online video sharing sites to view the best bits from television shows, like a memorable line, a funny moment, a great goal, a funny blooper or generally people acting or behaving ridiculously; and many of these moments derive from Television programming. Sites like YouTube allow the viewer to neatly view, share and voice their opinions on these highlights at their will, and it is arguably these elements - as the defining of the niche - that have gradually driven people towards the benefits of Viral Videos. Consequently, this could be the beginning of a new generation (70% of YouTube users are said to be under the age of 30) of mutual dependence between Television and Video sharing sites; with good TV as the catalyst for successful virals. This can be further clarified by seeing the rise in online video activity following memorable TV moments of 2007 such as Miss Teen USA or Rachel on the X Factor as demonstrated on Tim's white paper.
During these early stages, it is difficult to determine the definitive reason for this trend, or to clarify whether this is a permanent change or a manic three months for Viral Videos. Either way, it is going to be particularly interesting first quarter of 2008 for Viral lovers worldwide, and maybe, just maybe, some real and permanent patterns will emerge from this very interesting development!
See Tim's white paper for more information on the changing trends in YouTube views in the final quarter of 2007.
Debug goes live
Earlier in the month we launched Debug- a fiendishly addictive game that has been designed to increase WOM and registrations for the InfoSecurity 2008 Exhibition , run by Reed Exhibitions.
With this game, Reed are investigating the use of a viral game within a particular industry to raise awareness of an industry event- hence the theming of the game to tie in with a data-security...erm...theme.
Debug
Sports Hat-Trick
Having just won a contract for the England and Wales Cricket board for a funky new viral that will come out soon, we sat back to inspect our stable and realised the marvellous clean-sweep of top sports that we have produced virals for- for the uninitiated, here's a quick rundown
Our Rugby viral, Flick'n' kick for the Principality Building Society has run for 2 seasons so far, alongside their sponsorship of the Welsh Rugby Union Team in the Six Nations Championship.
Our Football Viral, Euroball is flying at the moment for JVC, as part of their sponsorship of the UEFA Euro 2008 championship. This campaign is pan-european in a number of languages with great prizes up for grabs.
And now we have the ECB on board too, this time for Cricket Viral which will be up and running very soon. Watch this space for more details.
...and we didn't even mention golf and football stuff done with other agencies.
Customer Requirements.... Send to Friend
In the new year, open yourself to a new way of thinking.
New viral builds now include, as standard, a Send-to-friend function. Send To Friend is, sadly, on it's last legs. In the same way that our mobile phones now make it unnecessary to remember phone numbers, so our email address books and social networks have made it unnecessary to remember email addresses.
When you've played a great little game or seen something good on Youtube, it is much easier to "Share on Facebook" or "Digg" an item than it is to complete a Send to Friend form. On top of this, an item posted to a network profile page will get many more views (potentially across all your friends) than mailing it directly to the select few whose email addresses you can remember (without having to open you address book, copy and paste across)
In response to this, all our new game builds include a Viral Toolbar to help users in the process of sharing, for an example, visit our EasyJet Ningotiators game.
Next time you are defining the requirements of a viral campaign, the ease with which people can share the campaign should be top of the list.
5 of the best
Apparently December saw record levels of SPAM as advertisers tried to hit that Christmas window. Luckily for us, this month has seen a select batch of quality virals come out- here are a few of our favourites.
Hewlett Packard- Happy is a finely Tuned Business
Office Orchestra is one of our seeding campaigns running at present. The campaign is aimed at SMEs in the UK and is linked to an office makeover competition. Really popular across film upload sites, the slick execution outshines the JWT Grads offering of last year.
Brawndo
"Brawndo will make you win at shouting!" Just one of the fact-based claims in this film for new Energy drink, Brawndo. Childish, silly, ludicrous but great entertainment (and strangely educational about what is in the drink too)
Human Tetris
Pure genius, the hours of filming and planning that must have gone into this (let alone the number of people necessary) were totally justified. After Japanese tetris a couple of months back, the game is proving a rich vein of quality viral content.
Debug
Debug's comic book style sees a super-villain rampaging godzilla-style through a microchip city. The game is easy to pick up and annoyingly frustrating. A little gem of a game.
Hyperblast
This one didn't make it in last month due to lack of space, but this is game for Intel is a great 'gamer's game' that really brings an offline feel to online gaming. Fans of Wipeout have just found a lunchtime activity that will engross them...
