Viral video – Editors hack Google Maps

Having just bought the new album after falling in love with the song Papillon I was quite impressed with this viral where they hack Google Maps to co-incide with the album launch. Neat idea.

Skaters play human Tetris

I have never been much of a gamer having never really got past playing Sonic and Tetris but I love this beautiful viral video which I found on the Wired UK blog. A neat viral advert from the people at Freebord Skateboards and I love it.

Post it notes

Brilliant video by a student of Savannah College of Art and Design who was obviously struggling for inspiration and then found it. Thanks to The Media Blog for bringing this to my attention.

What makes a viral video?

After a few days away in Cornwall visiting my brother I was checking my emails this afternoon. This blog has managed to get my email address on some press release distribution lists and I routinely receive announcements.

One that caught my attention was a press release announcing that The Co-operative Bank has decided to thank its customers for the recent  Which? Award for being Best Financial Services Provider by singing them a ‘thank you’ song. At the end of the release it explains that the viral is available on You Tube and it’s own blog.

Firstly. This is a blog about PR so I’m not really sure why I received this release and secondly the “viral” is dreadful.  It also got me thinking about what makes a good viral video?

Visitors to this blog will also know that I love well executed viral videos. Recently Evian’s “Roller Babies” commercial yielded millions of hits in less than a month in line with its Live Young campaign. This is a great example of a campaign which has been executed in line with proper planning, marketing and development to create a viral sensation.

My colleague Jo Jamieson also pointed out a viral video the other week which is proof that they can have a devastating affect to a brand. Dave Carroll had his guitar broken by United Airlines and wrote a song which he performed on a video. Apparently within four days he had over a million views on You Tube and many thousands of blog mentions.

These two are good examples of what makes a viral video and the different effects they can have on a brand. How do you make a good viral video? Ben Terrett has written a great post about what makes a good viral and is worth checking out. Please note that it is quite old but still relevant today.

Personally, the thing which made the Co-operative Bank’s effort so bad was the fact that just because they had created a video they presumed it would be viral. I understand it was just a bit of fun but when a press release was distributed promoting the viral it also opened itself up for ridicule.

Vendor client relationship

I am a little behind on this one but was going through some of my old notes and came accross a link to Strive Notes and in particular to this viral video. Sherilynne had found the video herself via Wadds and it is a classic.

In a time when clients always want more for less this couldn’t be more appropriate. I particularly liked the couple at the restaurant who finish the clip by saying “we will pay this time but we are going to have to ask you to show us how you made it so we can do it in house next time”. Crazy but true.

Social media = punk?

I stumbled upon this neat video on the PR Disasters blog. It talks about the links between punk and social media and there was something about it that struck a cord with with me.

Samsung viral video

As anyone who visits this blog regularly knows, I do appreciate clever viral videos which is why I was pleased when I found this one by Samsung on Chris Norton’s blog. I like how it shows off the features of the product but in an innovative way. What do you think?

Freddie and the pedalo

With Ashes fever hitting the country Sure for Men have released this neat viral. Good luck England – let’s send Freddie off with a victory. He deserves it.

What not to do…

This is pretty old (from 2007) but I hadn’t come accross it until Lem Bingley, editor in chief of the business technology group at Incisive told me about it today. I was interviewing Lem for my meet the media series (live next week) when he pointed me in the direction of this piece of footage of Ben Cohen at Channel 4 being interupted by Apple. Be careful, it is painful to watch.

Nike Viral Video

I love football and one of the first actions of every morning is to check the transfer gossip on the BBC. One player at the centre of the biggest transfer will he/won’t he this summer is Franck Ribery.

I found this viral video about pretty boy Franck(?) and just can’t decide whether it is dreadful or brilliant. What do you think?