Awesomely Amazing Examples of Success through YouTube!
YouTube has become almost synonymous with online broadcasting. With millions of visitors per day, have you ever considered YouTube as a potential pool tool to build your brand and create customers?
Though a highly competitive medium, YouTube helps you reach your niche – whether you’re an aspiring film maker, makeup artist, politician or a comedian. Lately, we have seen many new ideas coming up in this medium and there is no limit to how creative or even eccentric you can get in grabbing attention.
Why It Works
When you see an interesting video on YouTube, you tend to post the link on Twitter, Facebook, or share it by emailing it to friends. They pass it on to their friends and the effect just multiplies and your message spreads rapidly, resulting in massive exposure. This approach, also known as viral marketing, doesn’t even have to be expensive. The reason we connect with these campaigns is because we understand the product better and the brand has a face. We identify the brand, making the whole experience personal.
Here, I have listed out some of the most innovative viral marketing hits on YouTube that you can learn from!
1. Will It Blend: The first campaign cost Blendtec, a company that produces blenders and mixers, less than $50. The team filmed a video featuring Blendtec’s co-founder Tom Dickson who said, “Will it blend? That is the question.” He made a smoothie of salsa, tortilla chips, Buffalo wings and Budweiser in the blender. Five days later, Blendtec’s marketing director excitedly told him that they hit 6 million views on YouTube. This was later followed by videos of blending golf balls, a crowbar, a video camera and iPod. My favorite is their latest, the iPad. Their online videos are still a rage and Blendtec’s online sales have grown by 500%.
2. America’s Got Talent: This is the latest one on the block. Their auditions are being done entirely on YouTube. You can record your performance even at home and upload it right away, giving an opportunity to many more. You can sit back at home while the judges and voters (viewers) decide whether you have it in you to take you to the next round. NBC and the producers of the show have partnered with YouTube to process the auditions online. Are we seeing the latest trend for reality shows here?
3. Best Job In The World: YouTube was the platform for the Australian Government’s ‘Best job in the world’ campaign as a caretaker of islands in the Great Barrier Reef. Applicants were asked to post a video of why they were fit for the job on a dedicated page. They received over 34,000 applications from 201 countries. The website got 8 million visitors and user generated content on YouTube went up to 610 hours. It even scooped the two top awards at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.
4. Michelle Phan: Three years ago, Michelle Phan was turned down for a behind-the-counter job at Lancôme. She started off giving makeup tutorials on YouTube, and now, after Lancôme knocked on her doors, she is now their video makeup artist. She is the most subscribed YouTube Guru and her videos have been viewed over 150,000,000 times. She also owns a skin care line IQQU. Who would’ve imagined something like this a decade ago?
5. America’s Election Campaign: I will admit that Barack Obama’s Harvard degree wasn’t all; the online campaigns did get to me. It made me feel like I know him personally. Obama’s strong presence on YouTube made him accessible to everyone as he spoke directly to YouTubers about his plans to uplift the US. It clicked, especially among the American youth and resulted in a high voter turnout among them, a task that was once considered impossible. Obama has given politics a new face and a new platform for presidential campaigns.
6. Movie Trailers: There are a bunch of us who love reaching cinema halls on time, just to catch the movie trailers showcased before the movie. Trailers leave me wanting more. When trailers started being available on YouTube, producers started targeting YouTubers for viral marketing campaigns. Cloverfield, a monster movie, had scary teaser trailers on YouTube, but without the title – a big risk that paid off well. The buzz was created well before the second trailer with the title was introduced. There were no big names among actors and the budget was comparatively small. The movie secured the biggest January opening of all time in North America and all the credit was given to these campaigns.
7. Greyson Michael Chance: Chance is a young musician who had posted his performance of Lady Gaga’s ‘Paparazzi’ at sixth-grade music festival on YouTube. It wasn’t viewed much for a week or two until Ellen Degeneres reported it on her show. The number of views shot to over 1 billion (we’re still counting). Ellen even decided to sign Chance up as the first artist promoted by her newly formed record label eleveneleven.
You can see in these examples how people have broken boundaries oftime-tested marketing campaigns and succeeded. If you have come across any such interesting campaigns, do share the link with us. It’s time you start thinking out-of-the-box and find yourself a unique way to create that connect with the audience. Who knows, maybe I’ll feature your story here someday!
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