Just when you thought viral marketing -- especially viral videos -- had grown stale and clichéd, Samsung and a company called Fjord Interactive Marketing have raised the bar.The campaign is called Follow Your Instinct and it launches the Samsung phone of the same name. (The Instinct part.) I gotta say, folks, this is pure genius. It's such smart strategy, you'll wish you'd thought of it first!
It's a series of videos on YouTube where viewers guide the story line by selecting the next steps within the video. The viewer chooses their own hilarious adventures. The footage is shot from our perspective and the transition between the vids is perfectly seamless. The story lines are funny and enticing; there is no way you will click out before finding out what happens next. But, most importantly, as fun as the vids are, they also demonstrate the phone's functionality and features as we use the Instinct for texts, GPS, email, music, camera, and of course, phone calls.
We've all seen game ads before, but this takes it to a whole new level of audience participation. The technology behind it is (apparently) pretty simple. They used YouTube's interactive annotations, which connects two links to two other videos on YouTube. This kind of viewer interaction actually reminds of me of plinking which I still hope will become a major revolution for consumer interaction video marketing.
Bottom line, I can't wait to see the numbers climb on this thing. Way to go Samsung and Fjord! Your creativity is inspiring! (And, great strategy from YouTube, as well; I'm sure folks will be figuring out how they can use the annotations tool for themselves. I know I'm passing this on to our creative teams right now!)
-- my two cents
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23 comments:
Brilliant!
You're right I wish I had thought of it first. This is really great.
Wow. I am completely impressed. What a clever idea. You're right, Jenn. The best part is that the phone is featured throughout!
OMG! That is sick! I want to work for Fjord Marketing!
They did such a good job of featuring the product! I am passing this on to my entire agency. Nice catch, Jennifer.
This is great! That cab driver is hysterical!
Great campaign. Thanks for ending my Friday with something so cool, Jenn.
Anybody know if Fjord Marketing is hiring. After watching that I want to work there!
Great stuff, Jennifer.
That is sick! Love it! Brilliant strategy.
Everybody is praising Fjord Marketing but I wish my clients were as forward-thinking as Samsung is. I'm still trying to get them to blog!
Adverblog said this was the first time anyone used annotations for marketing. And, Jenn you got the scoop on them BTW. :-)
Never seen anything like this! Brilliant.
I'm jealous. I'd love to have that in my portfolio.
Way to scoop everyone Jenn! How do you always know what's going on? There are only like 3 other people who have covered it so far. I swear I'm only reading you from now on. Screw the industry blogs they don't know anything.
And, this is totally awesome. I went through it 3 different times to see what the other stories would be. Get that. I went through an AD 3 times on purpose. This is the most genius thing I have ever seen.
OMG that ROCKS!
That is very clever. I will be interested to see how sales do after this runs. If the product really moves, maybe this will be the case study that finally helps us get our clients into the 21st century.
Damn! I want to work at Fjord! Why can't we do cool stuff like this?
all of the posts where people are saying they don't get to do fun campaigns like this make me worry about entering the digital marketing field. I'm a recent graduate and in school it seemed like everyone was doing cool things. Are companies really that out of touch? What makes it hard to do these things? Shouldn't they listen to you when you tell them to do it?
Rachel, It can be very hard to convince clients to try anything new, whether it is viral marketing or blogging or virtual worlds. This will always be a struggle, especially with more established brands.
By the time campaigns like this are more accepted, we will be trying to convince them to do something new. It's the nature of the beast.
Oh poor Rachel, you asked don't clients do what we tell them to do. No. They don't. We're lucky if they listen to half of what we have to say.
It doesn't help that a lot of times marketing, PR, and advertising don't even agree on what to do and if they do, they are too busy taking credit do actually get things done.
But don't fret. There are always companies who are willing to take risks as this campaign shows. Good luck to you.
Shouldn't clients listen to us? Ha Ha Ha! Thanks for the laugh there Rachael.
This is a brilliant campaign. Thanks for letting us know about it, Jenn.
Love love love love it. So cool.
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