Outrageous, distasteful, it works and why we love condom ads…
Today’s top tip is all about using video for viral marketing and like it or not when you combine sex with humour and some basic, graphic moves, you have something that people like to see, it seems 88,000 people have seen this.
According to Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans, over 800,000 people have viewed Durex videos 2m times. Later in their post they talk about “the theme of sex being a proven winner on YouTube”. It works for me.
As well as the reader numbers – which is tv quantity of traffic if ever there was, more than “400 blogs have seen fit to link to the ad or comment on it in some way. That’s pretty good buzz on the cheap”. Plus the sensors can’t really stop it – or I and probably more that 400 others are likely to be arrested…
If you are arrested by my opinion I think it is funny and very definitely toilet humour. It is also product centric and it has succeeded in getting the message into the public eye. Would I like to commission something similar, yes I would. I would love to have the opportunity! In my dreams – it is just a matter of time until our video team pull something like this off.
But many marketing conversations are all about achieving results where we try to work out how to best ’sex it up’. The key top tip here, something we discovered once we invested in our video production unit that when we undertake video projects more gets said in less words. We already know that video’s embedded in posts get watched more often…
Admittedly there are other just funny videos that work well, and not all brands lend themselves to sexual reference. But if this is an extreme, what is the other extreme? a big gorilla selling chocolate? How was that humour? Sexual?
Your opinion?
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3 Responses to “Outrageous, distasteful, it works and why we love condom ads…”
#1
¬ Conrad
February 2nd, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Where viral media, social media and sex come together ! POWERFUL !
Pity it didnt have some rock music by a famous band, a drum kit and a guerilla !
Great advert …. Buy Durex shares NOW
Thanks for pointing it out
#2
¬ John
February 23rd, 2009 at 11:49 am
It did get the message across.
I guess the economics of this always come into question though and how long does it take to see a return on a video? This advert got 2M impressions. Is that a lot and what did it cost to have the concept/production/consulting/legal (considering the risque nature) etc.?
Many times the awards are given to these campaigns but the economics don’t add up.
The reason why viral videos/community participation works is the economics stack up. The jury is still out on Youtube by the way.
What can’t be denied is the need for video in the search campaign, now how do you go about that effectively?
Maybe weboptimiser has the answers..
#3
¬ admin
March 4th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
There are a number of reasons for employing video, one is for straightforward communication of educational material, another is as entertainment in order to target viral opportunities. We would suggest that all your video be entertaining except if the subject matter prohibits it. But it has to be said that not all our videos are entertaining. Sometimes you just need to get the message out, and they are modified over time and so can become more entertaining.
Budget is always a consideration in our experience. In these economically focussed times a formula needs to be applied. Starting with knowing how much your profit margin is and then assessing what is a reasonable time period after launch to allow for sales to occur and then factoring in volume are the key issues.
One you have the main focus of the program – your entertaining video – what you are going to sell, profit margins, redemption rates estimated, then you need to add in some cheeky wins, some specific augmented marcoms activity to promote the promotion.
You will need a launch and relaunch, a soft launch, a hard launch, an update [launch] and so on. All of the programs and the video and the concomitant activity needs / must have a call to action with a clear statement of what to do i.e. buy the product. I cannot see the condom add actually doing that… So to us, this looks like a highly entertaining ad, where the call to action is implicit, whilst the action is er…, almost explicit!
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