The latest guest post in our ‘Planner’s Favourite' series, is written by David Wilding, Head of Planning at PHD. We've asked David to choose a favourite between three campaigns from Old Spice, Samsung, and LG. Many thanks to David for a great post. - Ed.

Old Spice – The man your man could smell like

There’s been so much said and written about this already it’s surprising that the internet hasn’t fallen over. So in the interests of space I’ve picked out just three things to love and admire about it.

1 – The original ad itself. It’s won awards as a piece of entertainment as much as a piece of advertising and it deserves every one. With such a fertile idea using YouTube masthead ads, and promoted video was a very smart way of kick starting the path to social media.

2 – They just got on with it. Convention has it that you only use brand spokespeople in broadcast media channels – they’re expensive and have agents and stuff. Old Spice turned convention on its head with incredible results - launching a breakthrough, real-time social media campaign fronted by Isaiah Mustafa in which he created personalised YouTube videos in response to messages on Facebook and Twitter. How many brands would honestly work so hard for no guaranteed results? Many would still be in meetings talking about it now.

3 – The results. 11.5m channel views, 812k Facebook fans, 134m upload views, 164k channel subscribers and sales are up 107% (according to Nielsen). They’d only look better if you sat them on a horse…

Samsung : 3D LED TV

Samsung have used 3D Outdoor projection mapping at the Beurs van Berlage building in Amsterdam to showcase the quality of their new 3D televisions. Then to amplify this activity they’ve translated it into YouTube via a ‘game take-over’.

So at first, it appears as if you’re watching a video of the projection. But then the YouTube page seems to crack, butterflies start flying out of the projection towards you, and an image of the Samsung 3D takes over the page. You’re then invited to try to catch the butterflies flying out of the screen.

If that all sounds like rather convoluted hard work, that’s because it is. I was bored, confused and butterfly-less after about 10 seconds only to find there didn’t seem to be a “close” option. So I quietly navigated away from the site and I suspect I wasn’t the only one. The butterflies may still be flying around somewhere for all I know.

LG : The Young and the Connected

LG are using a YouTube channel to showcase a new mini soap opera they’ve created called The Young and the Connected. The content is essentially short form web videos featuring obscenely attractive 20 somethings.

It all resembles a particularly sexy episode of Home & Away with added mobiles thrown very heavily into the plotline. Characters have discussions about whether it’s best to propose by Twitter or Facebook, for example. Which all seems a long way from Ailsa’s novelty hamburger phone in the Summer Bay Diner.

There’s much to admire in this strategy – they’re working off the insight that mobile devices only become interesting in the context of how people use them and have recognised that entertaining short form video content is a great way to connect with their audience. That said it could certainly have benefited from activity to ensure more people knew about it. To date the videos have received 60k views with 10k on the channel itself. And, perhaps linked to these low numbers, the quality of the content is questionable. Not especially funny or dramatic – I wasn’t sure whether it was a spoof or whether this was serious material. (A problem I've never had with Home & Away)

So a very clear winner for me anyway. The campaign your campaign could smell like?


Guest post by David Wilding, Head of Planning, PHD

This is the 7th in our Planner’s Favourite series where we ask a respected planner from the media industry to judge a selection of campaigns that have run on our platforms. Please have a look at the campaigns below and watch this space for the judge’s verdict. -Ed.

Old Spice: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like

In February 2010, Old Spice launched “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign. They used online to amplify their TV ad, including ads across the Google Display Network, a YouTube Masthead & Promoted Video. Old Spice continued to build their YouTube community throughout the spring with another YouTube Masthead, further Promoted Video activity and additional videos.

In July, the brand launched a real-time social media campaign where the Old Spice Man personalised YouTube video responses to users, celebrities and bloggers who wrote YouTube comments, Tweets and Facebook messages.

Old Spice leveraged digital advertising throughout the year to build their audience, which ultimately contributed to the viral success of the real-time social campaign.

Campaign Results

• Old Spice videos took four of ten spots on the AdAge Viral Video Chart, including positions one through three.

• The Old Spice YouTube channel has over 11.6 million views and 165 thousand subscribers. It became the #1 viewed channel during the week and month of the campaign and #2 most subscribed sponsor channel of all time.

• Old Spice was a trending topic on Twitter, with over 94 thousand followers.

• Old Spice gained popularity on Facebook with over 706 thousand likes.

Samsung: 3D LED TV

In May 2010, Samsung was the first to introduce a large-scale commercial 3D-Outdoor projection mapping at the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam. For three nights, the projection interacted with the architecture of the building and viewers were able to experience the incredible 3D audiovisual effects. On the adjacent square, visitors were able to try out the new Samsung 3D LED TVs, and were offered a chance to win one of their own for the duration of the stunt.

In June, the 3D-megaprojection was translated to YouTube. Here, the projection was integrated into a YouTube ‘game take-over’. At first, it appears as if a normal video of the projection is being shown. That is until the YouTube page cracks, butterflies start flying out of the projection, and the new dimension of Samsung 3D takes over the page. It was the first time that a worldwide game-take-over was introduced on YouTube, whereby the video content was brought to life, allowing the user to interact with it. On the Samsung 3D branded channel, visitors were able to play a game where the aim was to click on as many butterflies as possible, to give them a chance to win a Samsung 3D LED TV.

Campaign Results

• The YouTube channel including game-takeover achieved more than 1 million views.

• One of the most subscribed sponsored channels ever.

LG: The Young & The Connected

In the spring of 2010, LG Electronics hoped to revive the classic soap opera model. The Young and the Connected showcases how unbelievably attractive and incredibly privileged 20-somethings incorporate internet-enabled mobile devices into their lives.

The series, targeting 16 to 24-year-olds, aims to show how LG’s innovative range of smartphones can enhance their lives, by constantly connecting them.
Each of the videos invites the viewer to see tools of modern communication used as dramatic devices. For example, the question of whether Twitter or Facebook is a better application for a marriage proposal, arises in one of the episodes. These programmes ran on LG’s Young & Connected YouTube channel.

Campaign Results

• The channel has received over 10 thousand views.

• The series of videos have collectively amassed more than 60 thousand views.

Posted by Selina Rennie, Agency Team

The latest instalment in our Planner's Favourite series is written by David Graham, Digital Director at Starcom MediaVest Group. We have asked David to choose a favourite between three campaigns from Kick-Ass, Suzuki and Carlsberg. Many thanks to David for being a great judge. Read on to find out his verdict... - Ed.

Universal: Kick-Ass
The key point here is that Kick-Ass is a completely new franchise with no fan base or latent interest to lean into for the launch. With no brand heritage, tapping into the massive YouTube audience and taking advantage of an environment that has established itself an effective platform for promoting big movie releases online is a smart move.
The story is about an average teenager who decides to be become a super hero, something that I’m sure many boys have imagined at some point in their childhood. Donning a pair of green pyjamas, a mask and a couple of rolling pins strapped to his back as weapons he actually goes through with it and inspires a subculture of teenage copy cats, vigilantes and other fledgling superheroes. YouTube is the ideal place to bring this to life with a competition encouraging visitors to upload videos of themselves dressed as superheroes. Of course there is the movie trailer itself, but additionally there is plenty of footage from the creator Mark Miller, Matthew Vaughn (director), Jane Goldman (screenwriter) as well as the actors to provide depth and colour to its genesis and establish the franchise beyond a hardcore comic audience. A top ten all time best sponsored channel is an excellent result, while the first week box office takings point to the success of the movie itself. All in all a commendable job well done.



Suzuki: Make a difference
Besides the basic competition mechanic, I struggled to see a clear rationale as to why Suzuki decided to establish a brand presence on YouTube. There is no additional video content about the car or the brand; nor does there appear to be a sense of an active community being nurtured. The majority of the clips have few if any comments and the entire experience is quite cold and corporate. It feels like a tactical piece of activity that doesn’t link to anything more substantial or broader around the brand. Putting a car up as a prize is a big deal for any car maker but in this case I think it was needed to have any chance of success. In the end, the competition garnered over 90 submissions which is not a bad result.


Carlsberg: England Team Talk
Unbeaten in the qualifying stages and an all star line up, England was expected to do well at The World Cup. Could this be England’s turn? As such, the banter and build up towards to competition started in earnest months before the actual event. Despite not getting to a final since 1966, the English fans are a committed, passionate and vocal bunch, with amateur pundits in pubs and offices across the country. Drawing on this passion and willingness to give our two-pennies-worth, with little encouragement, Carlsberg gives us the opportunity to show how we would encourage the team, with the chance to win the ultimate team talk to the England World Cup team in the run up to the competition. An imaginative and well laid out YouTube brand channel acted as the hub for fans to upload their team talk as well as view celebrity efforts along side. But the brand acknowledged their audience aren’t the most active when it comes to UGC, so to make it really easy, they took the Carlsberg mobile studio on a road show round England. These recordings were also added to the brand channel and the result was over 1,000 entries which a phenomenal result. A good curating job highlighted the funniest clips, while the winners’ day including their live team talk was also recorded and added to the site providing plenty of content to view and a reason to come back.
Finally, just to show how it should really be done the brand draws on the familiar “if Carlsberg did...” and produces a sports star studded TV ad that outdoes us all. Frankly, we’d have been disappointed if they didn’t. The end frame has the YouTube hub url where the ad is showcased alongside all the existing content. This campaign stands out for me because of the way it uses YouTube to bring the insight to life. They countered potential limitations through the road show and neatly used the online activity as a lead up towards the big reveal of the TV ad which itself linked back to the YouTube activity. A really well rounded and well integrated campaign.




Guest Post by David Graham, Digital Director, Starcom MediaVest Group

This guest post in our ‘Planner’s Favourite' series, is written by Jonathan Fowles, Executive Director of Strategy and Insight, Manning Gottlieb OMD. We've asked Jonathan to choose a favourite between three campaigns from Footlocker, Evian and Avatar. Many thanks to Jonathan for a great post. - Ed.

FOOTLOCKER

Footlocker have adopted a user-generated-content approach to cement their relationship with people’s obsession with sneakers. It seems they are trying to say that they share our (your?) “sneaker enthusiasm beyond reason” and are prepared to help you articulate and share this. Which is nice. As ever with UGC the results are a mixed bag (as well as mixed language as the campaign is pan-European). The two winners consist of a hit and run spoof (driver knocks over a pedestrian, is shocked at what he’s done and then you realize he’s actually gasping at the victim’s trainers, which he then proceeds to try and steal, ha ha); and some guys rapping in Italian while they try and eat their shoes (the humour is presumably lost in translation). 5 of the 6 comments about the winners that have been posted use the word “shit” but fair play to Footlocker for keeping them up.

There have been over 200 entries and I think some of them are better/funnier than the winners, the breadth is quite impressive. In a similar vein Footlocker (with adidas) have also set up “confession booths” in which customers can confess the extent of their obsession with sneakers. This adds further weight to the idea and show it isn’t just a one-off, so well done to Footlocker for really cementing their understanding of enthusiasm / obsession / fanaticism…

EVIAN

This is a key component in the recent “babies” campaign. It says that the viral nature of YouTube was a huge catalyst for its success. I haven’t seen any consumer-to-consumer viral numbers but the sheer viewing figures are pretty damn impressive – the most viewed ad online no less with 62 millions views. And there’s no doubting it’s an impressive and captivating ad (albeit slightly unsettling?!), as clever editing techniques make a host of babies dance, roller skate, jump and generally groove around in “adult” (I use the term loosely) fashion, to exaggerate and therefore convince you that Evian helps you “live young”. They have set up a “babies’s channel” to build on the idea, with the obligatory “making of” and some cute multi-lingual “interviews” with the stars of the ad. It’s all very nice and well done, but I have a couple of questions - 1) there’s no doubting that the online viewing figures are impressive, but it would be even more impressive to place a value on that active exposure relative to the more passive television exposure the ad campaign received (over 330 million impacts in the uk alone). 2) there are 16,000 odd (as in approximately although some of them do look quite odd) subscribers to the channel, it doesn’t look like Evian have addressed this audience of super-advocates which looks like a missed opportunity.

Impressive ad no doubt, but the channel simply feels to me like an extension of that ad. Nothing wrong with that and it’s very well done but it feels to me that there’s an even bigger and more engaging idea lurking within the “live young” thought that transcends an advertising execution. Perhaps that’s to come next.

AVATAR

Poor Fox. What to do with this low budget, low profile release that nobody has ever heard of…? Well they did all the obvious but right things very well – launching the trailer on YouTube well in advance, homepage takeovers etc. All rock solid and hard to argue with. And of course the creative assets are impressive without getting near the cinema experience. All very good – and necessary - message distribution but a little formulaic. More impressive is the YouTube channel, which is more than a home for exclusive content – Fox gave YouTube “red carpet presence” and some exclusive access. Best of all is the opportunity for the film’s YouTube community to interview producer Jon Landau – it’s all very well offering people extra creative assets etc. but to offer access to the talent that sit behind it is a genuine money-can’t-buy experience. This is good stuff and while it’s obviously easier for a film company to do this sort of thing rather than say one that makes washing powder, the principles of open-ness and access are still appealing ones.

But what appeals to me most about this example is not the execution but the measurement. Rather than solely lean on the crutch of “we got X,000 channel views” Fox have researched the true, real-world value of that exposure and interaction. So they know that as a result YouTube channel viewers were 25% more spontaneously aware of the film, 9% more likely to discuss / share information about the film, and – crucially – had a 15% increase in intent to actually watch the movie. Brilliant vindication of what they have done.


What campaign do I like the most…? Evian is too much of an expansion of an advertisement which rather misses the broader and deeper opportunities that the web offers. With the material available to them Avatar could hardly fail to build an impressive channel but they did go that extra mile to allow viewers to talk to Jon Landau, and I love the real-world value of the research they conducted. But Footlocker gets my vote. They have identified a space where their brand overlaps with a truth about people’s fanaticism about sneakers (please can I call them trainers?) and have shown that they understand this more than any other brand. They have allowed people to freely express themselves in all sorts of multi-dimensional ways and allowed this fanaticism to be shared and celebrated. And even where people have occasionally been critical they have been transparent enough to keep it on the site. I love this as it is the ultimate evidence for or extension of people’s ‘enthusiasm beyond reason’, so they have really taken it the n’th degree. Great stuff.

Guest Post by Jonathan Fowles, Executive Director of Strategy and Insight, Manning Gottlieb OMD

Welcome to the latest edition of our 'Planner's Favourite' series where we ask a respected planner from the media industry to judge a selection of campaigns that ran across our platforms. Please see the campaigns below and watch this space for the judge's verdict -Ed.

Footlocker: Sneakers for Life

Footlocker teamed up with YouTube to give fans a chance of winning Sneakers for Life. To win, sneaker fanatics had to upload a homemade video clip to Foot Locker’s YouTube channel – showing exactly how obsessed with sneakers they really are. The top video clips showing ‘sneaker enthusiasm beyond reason’ were narrowed down by Foot Locker, who were looking for the funniest and craziest examples of sneaker passion.
The campaign hub consisted of a competition brand channel on YouTube. Flash ads and promoted videos across YouTube and Google’s Content Network, targeting UK, DE, IT, SP and FR, drove traffic to the competition.
The channel amassed 1,106,665 channel views, 693,202 video views, 1,015 channel subscribers, 458 video ratings and 207 competition entries. Over the period of 3 months since the Footlocker campaign went live, YouTube.com/FootLocker received a massive 25% more views than the highest performing State side brand channel.


Evian Roller Babies: Viral

Danone Waters decided the heart of Evian’s campaign would be viral. They chose YouTube to power it, debuting the ‘roller babies’ ad on the homepage in 6 key markets worldwide. The result is history, with more than 62 million views. It is now the most viewed ad online and has even made The Guinness Book of Records. The viral nature of YouTube was a huge catalyst for this success. As Michael Aidan, Evian Global Director puts it ‘people click because they want to see it. If they then pass it on, that goes far beyond exposure.’ Evian have now created an Evian Babies channel on YouTube which features making of videos and 'interviews' with the babies since their success. The channel has had 1,632,538 channel views and 53M upload video views.


Avatar: Movie Launch

Fox collaborated with YouTube on one of the biggest entertainment launches of all time. The aim was to build awareness for the new franchise Avatar. 15 years in the making, it was imperative for Fox to capture interest of as large an audience as possible and deliver an experience that would do this 3-D epic justice.
Fox chose to launch the teaser trailer on the homepage of YouTube on August 22nd - 4 months before the film release. The campaign ran across 15 countries and utilised an expandable masthead incorporating an HD trailer to ensure the highest quality experience possible.
Fox then ran a high impact homepage takeover campaign (15 countries, 24hrs, 3 days) to coincide with the Avatar premiere on 11th December 2009.
To deliver an experience to their audience Fox Pictures used YouTube partners on the red carpet to interview the stars of the film. This was the first time YouTube had red carpet presence and it worked incredibly well. The red carpet footage was uploaded to a brand channel; Local Google search and the homepage takeovers also linked through to the brand channel to allow users to view the exclusive content.
Metrix Labs conducted research to measure success. The Avatar campaign drove huge lifts in top of mind awareness (+17%) and spontaneous awareness (+25%). It also had a direct impact on behaviour, driving a 15% increase in intent to watch the movie. Users were 9% more likely to discuss and share information about the film after seeing the ad.


Posted by Rosie Rankin, Agency Team

This guest post in our ‘Planner’s Favourite' series, is written by Matthew Hook, Head of Strategy at Vizeum. We've asked Matthew to chose a favourite between three campaigns from E.ON, The Royal Marines, and Carl's Jr. Burgers. Many thanks to Matt for a great post. - Ed.

Three very different pieces of work, three very different answers to the question “What is YouTube?”

EON have decided that YouTube is a place to demonstrate their willingness to engage in an open dialogue with their consumers about the future of energy. They have embraced openness, and haven’t sought to pre-edit what in some cases are some slightly silly contributions.
This approach requires a great level of commitment from the company. Some of the users clearly felt that the company’s response could have been a little bit quicker and a bit less corporate, and also that there wasn’t a clear sense of what the company would do with the feedback. So top marks for ambition, but some room for improvement on delivery so that this feels like a real company commitment.

For the Royal Marines YouTube is a chance to give exposure to a range of content that can’t be delivered effectively through broadcast media. The content and delivery of the site is of really high quality and very interesting. The numbers aren’t huge, but the strategy clearly relies on quality rather than quantity, and people’s response has been highly enthusiastic.
The only danger here is that you end up with a solution that feels just a little reliant on ‘broadcast’ thinking. It uses YouTube as a channel, rather than a platform and community. As an opening gambit this is great – but it would be intriguing to see what the Royal Marines will do with these people now that they have got them interested, and how it can use them to help others to get involved.

Then a very different approach form Carl’s Burgers. They seem to me to have the most insightful understanding of what YouTube is – a content sharing platform that has been built into a creative community by the efforts and expertise of its ‘super-users’.
Carl’s aren’t trying to change the world, and really they are just getting people to play with their advertising. But the big difference is that by enthusing super-users they have achieved much bigger numbers – including 1,000,000 video views in 24 hours particularly.
So Carl’s Burgers is my overall planner’s choice – simply for recognising that YouTube is a community that has some really powerful leaders, and engaging those leaders with their campaign to deliver enthusiastic engagement on a massive scale.


Guest Post by Matthew Hook, Head of Strategy at Vizuem

This is the fourth round of our 'Planner's Favourite' series where we ask a respected planner from the media industry to judge a selection of campaigns that are running on our platforms. -Ed.

E.ON: Talking Energy

E.ON wanted to provide a forum where people can debate the major energy issues of our time. We all want cheap, reliable and renewable energy, but sadly probably can't have all 3 - the Trilemma. They wanted an online customer service channel where they could engage with some of their fiercest critics. It is the 6th most viewed sponsored channel this month with over 76K channel views. This is a first for an energy company and a brave attempt to tackle a difficult topic they traditionally have avoided discussing in public. This campaign was supported by press activity.


Carl Jr: How You Eat a Burger (US)

Looking to grab the attention of its target customers (young men), Carl's Jr. sought out a new kind of network buy with YouTube, with which it challenged 9 of the site's most popular "stars" to create videos showing how they would eat Carl's new Portobello Mushroom Burger. The nine YT stars uploaded into their own accounts - capitalizing on their subscriber base. Each video contains an annotation which drives to the Carl's Jr. brand channel. The idea was to create a community around Carl's Jr. to leverage the target's online behavior. The channel had nearly 1M video views in 24 hours, thousands of comments and tweets, and Carl's is the #1 most-viewed sponsor channel of the day. The campaign also won the OMMA 2009 Best in Show Award.


Royal Marines: It’s a State of Mind

This follows a high-profile online and TV campaign from the British Army geared toward targeting young men interested in signing up to the armed forces through interactive gaming-style missions. The Marines YouTube channel is targeted at 16-24 yr old males and features four sections - RMC Training, Extreme VS Marines, State of Mind, and Ambush and Assault. Each section has rich video content, bringing to life the Royal Marines' state of mind - the ethos which sets the Royal Navy's apart from any other armed forces. Videos will be reviewed monthly, with fresh new content and training videos added on a regular basis. The channel has had over 50K views, is the 6th most subscribed sponsored channel.


Posted by Rosie Rankin, Agency Team

This guest post, the third in our ‘Planner’s Favourite’, is written by Greg Paterson, Planning Account Director at Carat. We've asked Greg to chose a favourite between three exciting campaigns from Trident Unwrapped, The Hangover, and Sprite's 'Green Eyed world'. Many thanks to Greg for a great post. - Ed.

Trident Unwrapped takes a simple competition mechanic and attempts to bring it to life beyond the traditional micro-site approach. While the YouTube channel itself is far from revoutionary, it keeps things simple and has clearly acted as a great lever to the rest of the campaign.

The idea in here of using the stunts and Kiss partnership to drive buzz is nice, and looks great as a campaign video, while being supported by impressive stats.

That said it still remains as a relatively straight forward competition which has taken its lead from T-Mobile and falls into the trap of being far more Beyoncé than Trident. While I’m sure the halo of the relationship with Beyoncé is great I would fear that this has shifted more records than gum?

The Hangover to me is frankly a bit of a cheat. It just not fair when you have such great content to play with! That said when you’re planning a film launch without ‘names’ to hang it off then you really are starting on the back foot.

What has been done here is to avoid the temptation to over complicate things, focussing on clear content and making sure that all expectations are met (comedy clips, UGC and Facebook links).

The street activity in this instance is about content creation, with the prize feeling less over riding than in the Trident campaign. Every element just seems to fit together and sometimes it's that comfort with a campaign which shows you exactly what makes a great piece of work.

All I can say is that when you have content like this, use it to its best potential. Warner Bros have done this with The Hangover. It would have been easy to throw in hangover ecards and calling in sick messages etc etc, but they’ve avoided getting bogged down in the widget trap and all I can say is that it’s a relief to see (for a change).

Now, having talked about keeping it simple and avoiding the temptation of going with the all singing all dancing social media approach, I have to admit that Green Eyed World to me is certainly the best use of YouTube of the three.

It’s a slightly different situation, as the campaign is a social media campaign, with unique content and isn’t driving a particular launch. In this sense it is slightly unfair to compare like for like with a competition driven campaign for Trident and a movie launch Warner Bros.

What Coca-Cola have done here is pretty much textbook in social media implementation. Doing this with the complications of being international, and with all of the baggage which comes with using a celebrity it is a pretty impressive feat.

There is a much greater focus on functionality in this campaign, and while the content is appealing, it’s the access and flexibility of the campaign which really makes this the stand out example of how to use YouTube.

While The Hangover does the job really well, it is heavily reliant on being such a great film in the first instance, so I have to say that Greeen Eyed World to me is the winner hands down.

Posted by Greg Paterson, Planning Account Director at Carat

This is the third round of our 'Planner's Favourite' series where we ask a respected planner from the media industry to judge a selection of campaigns that are running on our platforms. -Ed.

Last month, David Benson, Global Head of Communication Planning at ZenithOptimedia chose Little Big Planet as his favourite campaign from these three. This time round we will ask a new judge to choose from three recent campaigns from Trident Unwrapped, The Hangover and Sprite Green Eyed World. Details on each of the campaigns is below, come back soon to find out who wins.

Trident Unwrapped's contest video gallery

Trident Unwrapped & Kiss partnered up with Beyonce to create an engaging campaign which featured a competition to win VIP tickets to meet the star and see her perform live at the O2 arena. Fans had to submit videos to YouTube showcasing why they were worthy of this great prize and over 70 did so by recording and submitting video entries. The competition on YouTube was supported by teaser ads on Kiss FM, display on YouTube and search ads all driving traffic to the contest on the brand site and YouTube. To drum up buzz they organised a flash mob 'Single Ladies' dance in Piccadilly Circus, the video for which has been viewed over 1.6M times on YouTube, has 3K comments, 5K ratings and 12K people have added it as a favourite.

The Hangover's brand channel on YouTube

This summer’s surprise comedy hit, The Hangover was supported on YouTube through an advanced branded channel. The aim was to latch on to the positive buzz being generated on the web through engaging users via social media platforms such as YouTube. However, an unknown cast made this more difficult, especially as the lead actor, Zach Galifianakis, was relatively unknown in the UK. Warner Bros did a lot of work to get custom content for their brand channel. The channel hosted a special YouTube call out video, UK premier footage and interviews with the stars. They also had the support of the Hangover street team who went out to get UGC, giving people the opportunity to win a great prize of a trip to Las Vegas. Awareness of the campaign was driven via editorial support around YouTube through homepage features, spotlights and blog entries. Search supported the activity sending users straight through to the brand channel. Fantastic offline awareness driving activity helped drive people online and directly to YouTube by featuring the URL www.youtube.com/hangover on their outdoor activity. The film went straight in to #1 in the UK box office on week of release, grossing just over £3.1m that weekend. The YouTube channel has generated nearly 250k page views, 2036 subscribers and over 2m views of the videos that Warner Bros have uploaded.

Green Eyed World's brand channel on YouTube

For this unique marketing effort, called Green Eyed World, Coca-Cola has partnered with both YouTube and Facebook to create a radically new advertising, entertainment, social media collaboration for Sprite, while simultaneously introducing a young, talented singer, Katie Vogel, to the world. Green Eyed World is an exclusive one-of-a-kind socially interactive show in which you get the chance to tell the star, Katie Vogel, what you think through simple votes and comments. Green Eyed World combines the wide reach of YouTube with the direct connections of Facebook so the show can take on a life of its own. This is an immediate interactive experience designed to share and discuss with friends. This show is designed to be as functional on an iPod as it is on a desktop. The show’s creators listen to the votes, comments and blogs to ensure that it gets better every season based on what the fans want. The effort is supported by a marketing campaign spanning Indoor/Outdoor displays; special packaging on Sprite cans in select countries; live events; Artist Showcases in NY, UK, TBA; promotional merchandising; global diffusion of the series via mobile, peer-to-peer, broadcast; and YouTube homepage activation in 5 languages in selected European Countries.

Posted by Dom Elliott, Product Marketing Team

This guest post, the second in our 'Planner's Favourite' series, is written by David Benson, Global Head of Communications Planning at ZenithOptimedia. We've asked David to chose a favourite between three exciting campaigns from Nike, 20th Century Fox and Sony. Many thanks to David for a great post. - Ed.

Nike, the king of event lead marketing strikes again. I love the way these guys conjure up events and formats that put a twist on the day to day reality of kicking a ball, then leverage their stars to bring personality, attitude and street values to a Global Uber-brand, that, if there was any justice in the world, would be collapsing under the weight of its own success.

Unfortunately, as the brand moves from strength to strength, this idea quickly succumbs to the effects of scale. It is difficult to get a sense of place or destination among the online presence. Large amounts of average footage, shot in the mandatory “urban” grainy style, draw a few comments and the odd flame but little continuity. It feels strewn across the Internet existing in YouTube and on Nike.com without either seeming like its true home.

That is not to say the campaign didn’t work, I am sure that, on a grass roots level - for the teams taking part - it was a blast, but as a piece of structured communication, it doesn’t know where its heart is.

My heart goes out to the guys on the films accounts, having launched 52 myself, I know how hard it is getting from 0-60 in 2.2 seconds to deliver all the heat on the opening night. Doubly so when you have Wolverine, the 3rd edition of a super hero franchise film, and the much feted Star Trek movie sucking up the oxygen of publicity.

The temptation to do endless sneak peaks, Easter eggs and a Wolverine app must have been huge, but they didn’t neglect scale – on an epic form. Hence they had a great opening weekend, £6.6m vs. Star Trek’s £5.9m (Source: UK Film Council). Not only that, a quick glance at the ongoing box office suggests that subsequent weeks held well during the Star Trek release. Additionally they are using the event to better understand the value of the contact, which as the ROI Agency we can only applaud. Job done - well done.

Little Big Planet is at the opposite end of the spectrum to the previous campaigns. A quiet revolution in gaming, LBP has completely captured the hearts minds of those who play, it is invisible to those who don’t. How can you keep the heat in a diffuse community? How do you add experiences and excitement quickly, easily and cheaply? How do you get those people to take part, talk about their passion, and show off their creations? Without looking like... well, let’s not go there.

This channel does it all and in spades. The channel works well with the brand website, retaining the feel while expanding functionality and experiences without confusing or duplicating. The competitions and giveaways emphasise rather than over shadow the values of the game. The conversations generated are continuous and instructive, with people swapping build tips and favourites and, well, genuinely "communing". Given the demographics of the target audience and their proclivity for free stuff, you could be tempted to accuse LBP of having an easy task, but their strategy is seamless and execution flawless. 15,000 subscribers vs. the mighty Nike’s 10,000 says it all.

Not only am I giving Little Big Planet this month's gong, I bought the game, which is really putting my money where my mouth is.

Posted by David Benson, Global Head of Communications Planning at ZenithOptimedia, 'The ROI Agency'

This is the second round of our 'Planner's Favourite' series. Each month we ask a respected planner from the media industry to judge a selection of campaigns that are running on our platforms. -Ed.

Last month, Steve Hatch, MD of Mediaedge:cia, chose Barclaycardcreate as the winner of our first 'Planner’s Favourite'. This time round, we will ask a new judge to choose from three recent campaigns from Nike, 20th Century Fox and Sony. Details on each of the campaigns is below, we'll announce the winner later this week.

Nike's YouTube homepage takeover

At the launch of its inaugural national five-a-side football tournament 'Show Your Five', Nike invited YouTube users to enter a team and embark on a winning run to the national finals. At the heart of the campaign was their YouTube partnership, a core part of which was to enable young players to get famous and express themselves.

Faced with having to recruit over 2,000 teams within 10 days, Nike engineered the first-ever simultaneous TV commercial and YouTube homepage takeover launch at 20.31 in the half-time break of a key Champions League game. The concurrent broadcast and distribution platform launch planned to engage audiences and capture subsequent Nike 5 content searches through the YouTube Homepage. This was amplified by supporting display advertising across releavnt sites within the Google Content Network and YouTube.

As the competition progressed, the NikeFootball YouTube Brand Channel showcased the best edits of the action giving bragging rights to the better players who were featured. Additionally, the channel gave team members and football fans from across the YouTube community the opportunity to video edit and publish Nike content, tournament footage and their own photos and video through a Video Masher tool. Community involvement was also given new meaning, as Nike directly involved one of YouTube's super-users (Smivadee) to attend tournaments and produce video content.

All regional winners went through to the final play-off held at Alexandra Palace - which was broadcast on YouTube on Sunday 10th May @ 21:30 - the first time a brand has created an "appointment to view" experience on YouTube in the UK.

Fox's Wolverine YouTube homepage takeover

In April 20th Century Fox embarked on the biggest YouTube homepage takeover yet to coincide with the launch of their latest blockbuster movie 'Wolverine'. Fox ran a multi-market campaign using one of Youtube's newest and most impactful formats - the masthead takeover across YouTube homepages in 11 different countries simultaneously.

In conjunction with the campaign they also partnered with Google to conduct bespoke research evaluating the success of the format in driving a wide range of metrics from buzz generation right through to purchase intent. The research study aimed to go beyond standard metrics, as the client and agency were keen to measure things that most brands do not take into account. For example, they wanted to measure user likelihood to search for Wolverine content after seeing the ad and whether users wanted to discuss, pass on or share information about Wolverine; thus they hoped to map the likelihood of ongoing engagement. The results will be published soon.

Bettina Sherick, Vice President of Digital Marketing, 20th Century Fox International, said: "X-MEN is one of the biggest superhero franchises, and it seems only fitting that we promote X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE with the biggest YouTube homepage takeover ever. We know fans will want to spread the word, and YouTube will give them the opportunity to do so."

Sony's Little Big Planet channel on YouTube

There's a whole world of possibilities in Little Big Planet, a unique game for the Sony PS3, combining an amazing platform adventure with a huge social community enabling consumers to play, create and share their gaming. The launch in October 2008 was supported by a considerable marketing push. A second phase of communications designed to add longevity and maintain sales through 2009, started in February 2009, driven by a YouTube Channel including competitions, Google Maps mashups and continuous dialogue between 'Sackboy' and his fans on YouTube.

The 'Around the world in 80 Sackboys' competition offers two round the world tickets to the user who builds (and then uploads a video of) the most inspiring Little Big Planet level (voted for by users) based on their favourite world location. In addition, to give something back to the LBP community on YouTube, the first 5000 users to subscribe to the channel received a free knitted Sackboy toy in the post. As word got out, subscriptions skyrocketed from 5000 to 15000 in under a week, making it the number one most subscribed UK YouTube Sponsor Channel of all time. To keep users coming back, new competitions will keep replacing closed ones.

Posted by Dom Elliott, Product Marketing Team

This guest post was written by Steve Hatch, MD of Mediaedge:cia. Each month we will be asking a respected Planner from the media industry to judge a selection of campaigns that are running on our platforms. This month we have 3 fantastic YouTube campaigns from T-Mobile, Barclaycard and Sony PlayStation, read about them here. Many thanks to Steve for being a great judge, you can read his verdict below. - Ed.

Thanks YouTube for this tough gig, as the agency for Nintendo, Orange and Visa I’m going to have to be at my most partisan judging Sony, T Mobile and Barclaycard. On top of that they’ve made it doubly hard by all three of them being very good indeed. All in their own way are fine examples of how we as an industry are getting to grips with multi layered communications.

For me whilst I like the PSP work represented here its having to work very hard to overcome what at its heart is a bland idea with Your World Your PSP. Great use of the channel and a worthy third place but partly hamstrung from the start. Which leaves T-Mobile lifesforsharing and Barclaycardcreate.

A battle between head (oh my god look at the numbers, I mean 8.1m views! and they can’t all work in marketing) and heart (yeah but these guys made an 8bit retro game version of a waterslide as a homage). Between corporate slick (really, that TMobile channel has production values that would make Simon Cowel blush) and the home grown empathy. Between the superficially alluring (I like Kelly Brook as much as the next guy but doing the T Mobile dance?) and authentic creativity.

Any right thinking person would of course go with the head, let me remind you 8.1M views, over the heart but not today... Whilst the T-mobile channel is fun and obviously extends the reach of the campaign it still feels rooted in the world of TV and exactly what Logie Baird had in mind when he legged it down the patent office. Barclaycardcreate is different, though born in TV, it feels organic and home grown, its exactly what Tim Berners-Lee had in mind when he invented the web, didn’t leg it down the patent office and instead gave us all a gift.

For me, in capturing the spirit of the web, the very worthy winner of the first YouTube award is barclaycardcreate from Walker media.


Posted by Steve Hatch, MD Mediaedge:cia

Each month we will be asking a respected planner from the media indusry to judge a selection of campaigns that are running on our platforms. This month we have 3 fantastic YouTube campaigns from T Mobile, Barclaycard and Sony Playstation. 


Barclaycard is offering a tour of the world's finest water parks (or £10,000) to the YouTube users who come up with the best home-made water slide out there, films it and uploads the results to the YouTube brand channel 'Barclaycard Create'. This is an extension of the Barclaycard glide campaign to encourage user engagement and give the campaign longevity. A homepage Expandable Autoroll on YouTube launched the contest on 20th February out of Walker Media. This is supported by Display activity across YouTube and Google Content Network including Partner Watch in-video overlays. Entries closed on 22nd March and we are now in the voting stage. Check it out!


T-Mobile launched their campaign on Jan 16th by staging the famous dance at Liverpool Street Station. The next day the TV ad aired during the entire ad break during Celebrity Big Brother. The call to action was to see the ad on YouTube, putting the T-Mobile YouTube channel at the heart of the campaign. The channel hosted a video wall of aggregated dancing content from across YouTube. During the first week the ad on YouTube had 3 million views and became the most viewed video of the month, by the 2nd week it had 4.5 million views and the channel had amassed 750K viewers. The campaign was supported with search ads and the video of the ad was so popular on YouTube that is started to appear in universal search on Google.co.uk. During the second phase the campaign went regional creating new versions of the dance, using celebrities and 'making of' videos to keep users engaged with the channel. The second phase of the campaign also invited people to personalize their own video by up loading their face onto characters to 'Join the Dance'. These videos could be uploaded to YouTube or shared with friends offering a simple and effective viral element, adding longevity to the campaign. 


Your World. Your PSP. Sony are running a film-making contest, offering the all-new PSP 3000 and 20 top games to users who follow their lead and shoot videos of themselves holding their 'Whole world' in their hands. At the end of the competition a team of judges will review the entrants, and award the prizes based on a range of categories. The campaign was promoted via ads across the GCN & YouTube and editor spotlight in the games area of YT. Head for their channel and look at the efforts that have been shot to date. Entries closed on 31st March.

Posted by Rosie Rankin, Google Agency Team