BLURRING OF THE LINE: CONTENT OR ADVERTISING?
Today at Omma Video, Brian Cusack, Sales Manager of YouTube, laid down some serious food for thought for the audience. Simply put, the line between content and advertising is grey enough that the audience cannot tell the difference. Here are some examples.
Levis Commercial: Jeans Jumping
User Generated: Jeans Jumping
Levis created the top video to pre-empt a television campaign. The top video has garnered just fewer than 4 million views and sponsored a variety of user-created attempts like the video below it. Notice that there is absolutely NO Levis branding in the top video. So, is it a commercial or just cool online video?
Here’s another example:
McNuggets Commercial: Second City Chicago Style
Two cast members from Second City Chicago were on their way to rehearsal and feeling a bit hunger town. So, they stopped off for some McNuggets and decided to make a rap about their experience. Called a friend, shot a quick video and sold it to McDonald’s. Nice.
And finally:
Jay Z HP Commercial
User-Generated HP Commercial
The original Jay-Z HP commercial spawned user-generated editions. How’s that for a user interacting with your brand? Finally, most of us are very familiar with the original Soulja Boy video. That video brought it home with 29 million views. That pales in comparison to the 500 million views garnered by user imitations. Here’s my favorite. Like whoa.
