Buzz Builder

United Airlines Finds Path to YouTube Infamy in Broken Guitar Song

I just caught my wife cracking up as she sat in front of her computer watching the latest YouTube sensation. Canadian musician Dave Carroll released a hysterical music video in which he sings the blues after United Airlines workers at O'Hare smashed his guitar and the carrier refused to pick up the $1,200 cost to repair it.

The video, which was only posted four days ago, has already had more than 641,000 views. To learn the details behind the story behind the song, visit this article on the Chicago Tribune's website.

The video is a great example of how we're living in the Age of the Empowered Customer. Companies that ignore customer complaints are now just one small step away from YouTube infamy.

The Story Blog Explains How Banco Provinicia in Argentina Creates Interest with an Edgy TV Ad

On The Story Blog, which the excellent team at Creative Brand Communications produces focusing on bank marketing, credit union marketing and branding, I came across an unusual TV ad that Banco Provincia ran in Argentina.

In the post, which includes a streaming version of the TV ad, Maija Klarin wrote:
"Set in Buenos Aires Province, the spot features an elderly man who is moved by his bank to change the way he thinks about the town’s transgender hairdresser. He realizes that Banco Provincia loaned money to the woman with full knowledge of her transgender status, which causes him to reconsider his past treatment of her. The summarizing statement in the commercial is, 'Your life changes when there is a bank disposed to change'...

My feeling is that it will be a while before we see marketing as 'risky' from a US bank. Like many other industries have already done, I’d like banks and credit unions to tackle social issues and taboos in our country. Purely from a branding perspective, I think it would help financial institutions connect with consumers on a personal level and differentiate themselves."

Last December, my wife and I were lucky enough to spend two weeks traveling in Argentina, a beautiful and fascinating country well worth visiting. Perhaps because of all the old buildings and run down infrastructure, the country didn't strike us as being particularly progressive. But, I agree with Maija's take that advertisement demonstrates a remarkable degree of progressive thinking - particularly for a state-owned bank.

I can't understand why so much marketing for banks and other financial institutions in our country is so staid and safe. Of the billions of dollars that these companies spend, how much is remarkable enough to be remembered and discussed? Clearly, one bank in Argentina has discovered that creative marketing can stir conversations and makes positive impressions.

Matt Weinstein in "What Bernie Madoff Couldn't Steal From Me" Video

Last December, my wife and I were extremely lucky to travel in Antarctica for nearly two weeks with a group that our client OCSC, a sailing and adventure travel company in Berkeley, had organized. The trip was even more spectacular that we had hoped. The scale and grandeur of Antarctica never ceased to amaze. But, we never expected to learn so much from a fellow traveller.

On our boat, we met Matt Weinstein, a successful professional speaker and all-around great guy. Midway through the journey, Matt was called up to the ship's bridge to take a satellite phone call from his wife Geneen Roth, an accomplished author and healthy eating expert. Geneen told Matt that they had lost nearly everything that they had saved for retirement since they had invested with the infamous Bernie Madoff.

Unable to rush home since there are no flights out of Antarctica, Matt still had about a week left on the journey. During this time, when we talked with him, we were amazed that he didn't demonstrate much anger or grief. Surely, we thought, he must be in a state of shock which would morph into rage as time passed. But, over the past few months, we've seen that Matt possesses an amazing ability to reflect on what's really important in life. While he and Geneen will likely only recoup a small percentage of the money that Madoff stole, he has earned something of greater value.

Below is a video of Matt presenting an insightful and entertaining speech on "What Bernie Madoff Couldn't Steal from Me." It's the best eight-minute presentation I've ever seen. If you like it, please forward it to a friend. Here's wishing that Matt gets a lot of groups to hire him to speak about what's really important in life!

Viral Marketing Lesson in an Animated Short Video

This fun animated short captures what's so wrong with advertising and marketing today and offers an interesting buzz alternative.

I like how the piece concludes with the customer being able to learn more about the product on her own terms. It's great that DKNY made it easy for the customer to forward the video to friends directly from its website with just one click of her mouse. The lesson: if you have a video or something else on your website that you want to see spread across the Internet, it's essential that you provide people a mechanism to easily forward your message directly from the page on which it's posted on your website.

Failing Your Way to Success in Buzz Marketing

Today I attended a luncheon with many small business owners in attendance. I was asked to provide buzz marketing tips. Following a brief presentation, somebody came up to me and asked how they could know what idea would work best. Honestly, when it comes to creating buzz, it's hard to know which tactic will be the best one. Sometimes the most effective way to find out is to experiment with various approaches and see which one works best. If you try something that bombs, don't worry. View it as a temporary setback not a failure and move onto a new method. I stumbled across this excellent video on YouTube today which illustrates that failure is just one small step on the road to success:

 

Oil Spill Video & Humor: A Good Example of How to Make A Video Go Viral

You don't need a big budget to create a viral video. A friend of mine just sent me the hilarious video below. While it appears to be true, it's really just an excerpt from an Australian comedy television show. A few months ago, The Wall Street Journal did a great article about the secrets of successful viral videos including how to use humor - it's certainly worth a read.

Ryz, a New Portland Footwear Company, Builds Buzz with Crowdsourcing and Traditional PR

On Friday, 6/27/08, there was a great article in The Oregonian about Ryz, a new footwear company in Portland that is tapping into crowdsourcing and traditional media outreach to create buzz. Check out pictures and the back story behind the first shoe Ryz is introducing in Brent Hunsberger's Playbooks & Profits blog post for The Oregonian. I'm impressed with how Ryz is building buzz and I talk about this in the below video.

My Buzz Marketing Video in High Quality on YouTube & the Future of Online Videos for Companies Seeking Buzz

A few months ago, my friend and client Anthony Sandberg at OCSC Sailing let me use his beatiful club room in the Berkeley Marina overlooking San Francisco Bay to give a two-hour seminar on "Galvanizing Your Business with Buzz." Max Fancher, the owner of Maximize Video Productions, shot and edited the below clip using two high definition cameras. If you're looking for somebody to shoot your corporate video, I highly recommend Max for his creativity, professionalism, and reasonable pricing. You can check out his work here.

If you have a high-speed connection to the Internent, you'll note that the image quality of the below is much better than what you've typically seen on YouTube. Although it has not been widely announced, YouTube now allows the uploading of high quality video. If you're interested in seeing the difference between standard and high quality video as well as how to watch or upload high quality video on YouTube's website, check out this excellent post on Jimmy Ruska's blog.

Small companies, which can't afford television advertising, now have a tremendous opportunity to create buzz for their businesses posting high quality videos to YouTube. Blendtec, a small commercial blender company based in Utah received more millions of views of its YouTube videos (all in low definition) and increased sales 43% in less than a year (see this article in The Wall Street Journal for details). I'm sure that the advent of high quality video on YouTube means that there will be a lot more success stories like Blendtec since YouTube's already huge audience is bound to increase now that watching online videos doesn't mean putting up with grainy images.

STORViNO Video Creates a Powerful Marketing Platform

Online video is a powerful way to make your products or services stand out in a crowded marketplace. It can be a surprisingly reasonable expense to create a professional video that highlights uniqueness and builds buzz.

Bob Stonhaus, one of my firm's current clients, is leveraging video in effective and inexpensive ways that many entrepreneurs should consider. Bob invented a unique wine storage product called STORViNO  which is made of 100% post-consumer recycled plastics like bread crates and milk container storage trays. If you speak directly with Bob or watch the video below, you can't help but feel the enthusiasm that he has for STORViNO. Working with the talented Max Fancher of Maximize Video Productions, Bob created a three minute video that captures the STORViNO story in a fun and interesting way.

Bob's video is serving many different marketing purposes. A link to the video is prominently displayed on STORViNO's home page. This is proving to be an effective tool  for driving consumer and retailer interest in the product. The video is also posted on YouTube and other popular video sharing websites with a variety of tags that a typical web searcher might use. I find it useful to send bloggers and journalists to the STORViNO video so they can learn about the product and experience Bob's enthusiasm in a visceral way that words can't describe. At trade shows, Bob plays the video on a continuous loop so people can learn about the product from him even if he's engaged in conversation with somebody else.

I love marketing efforts that you create once and can use time and time again.

Barack's Video Buzz from Black Eyed Peas Singer Trumps Hillary's Hallmark Moment

After the Iowa caucuses, I predicted  that word of mouth not advertising would tip the balance in favor of one of the Democratic candidates for president. Recently released data is proving this prediction true.

Before the Iowa Caucus, Hillary Clinton spent approximately  $7.2 million on advertising in Iowa yet she came in third place. The day before Super Tuesday Clinton likely spent millions to buy a block of prime time on the Hallmark Channel, which reaches about 84 million households, for the "nation's first televised town hall" which gave voters in the 22 primary states an opportunity to ask her questions. The scripted questions and answers produced dull television. Although ratings aren't available, it's doubtful that the show had much impact on Super Tuesday's results in which Clinton and Barack Obama finished in a virtual tie.

In contrast to Clinton's reliance on advertising, Obama has been racking up primary and caucus victories based largely on the enthusiasm of his supporters lobbying friends and family on his behalf. Over the last week, a new video by the Black-Eyed Peas singer will.i.am featuring Scarlett Johansson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar and others has become the most popular YouTube video.  The Obama campaign had nothing to do with the creation of the video nor with its dissemination. According to The USA Today , more than 3.7 million watched the video online its first week which far surpassed the size of Clinton's Hallmark audience. It's a certainty that people will continue forwarding the video to friends. As word of mouth spreads, more members of the media and blogosphere will report on the video which in turn will create more buzz.