Viral Friday is the weekly viral video chart of ViralBlog, showing the 10 most popular viral videos, commercials or user-generated videos, carefully selected and ranked by popularity, viral impact & spread.
This year’s last Viral Friday #1 position goes to Goodneighborstuff.com with Jamie Lynn Speaks Out. Jamie Lynn, Britney Spears’ 16 year old sister, and her 19 year old boyfriend Casey Aldridge got pregnant. The Los Angeles based comedy group Good Neighbor made a hilarious sketch about her pregnancy.
The runner up spot is for a Katalyst Films with Ashton Kutcher Christmas Card. In this satirical Christmas video we see how Demi Moore, dressed as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, has an inappropriate relation with Santa, played by her husband Ashton Kutcher, in the copy room. The video parodies the striking scriptwriters in Hollywood, who are out on strike for eight weeks already. Kina Grannis’ Gotta Digg completes this week’s top 3. After last year’s highly successful Crash The Superbowl Doritos contest, the tortilla chips brand once again opened a contest. This time 10 bands battle for a contract at Interscope Records and 60 seconds airtime during the Superbowl.
Do you want to see this week’s list from 1 to 10? Go on then, and have a look! We’d like to hear your opinion about the virals. Have fun!
Through the daily newsletter from SFN Blog I came across, what they think might be a challengers to Facebook, Badoo. It’s an ad free social network which already has over 12 million members and was labelled as second ‘fastest rising’ company by Google, even ahead of Facebook. According to Alexa stats they are in the top 100 most visited sites.
So far so good, but what are the pros and cons of their business model to the user and can they actually challenge Facebook?
I just want to say to our viral community: I wish you Merry Xmas and a very healthy and happy 2008! If you are interested in the future of social and participatory media in 2015, just read along.
Googlezon is the name of a fictional future company created when Google merges with Amazon.com, according to the film’s creators, Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson. See the video Googlezon below or read Wikipedia about Googlezon, also called Amazoogle by insiders.
What are your thoughts on this video? Or share our readers your ideas on the future of social media! Hope to see and your friends in 2008 at ViralBlog again! Niels of LaComunidad, thanks for the tip.
Viral Friday is the weekly viral video chart of ViralBlog, showing the 10 most popular viral videos, commercials or user-generated videos, carefully selected and ranked by popularity, viral impact & spread.
This week’s Viral Friday #1 position goes to Ford with Homemade Ford Balloons. During last years Champions League final, Ford launched it’s new commercial. In the commercial several cars are flying through the air carried by balloons. Three guys from Auckland, New Zealand now try to get a real car airborn with the use of just 5.000 helium filled balloons. The runner up spot is for a capella group Straight No Chaser. The American group made this hilarious version of the classic ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’. Evil Eye Baby completes this week’s top 3. This cute baby shows its alter ego on command.
Do you want to see this week’s list from 1 to 10? Go on then, and have a look! We’d like to hear your opinion about the virals. Have fun!
With my friend Stephan Fellinger I have been doing interactieve marketing workshops for many years. It’s a delight to help with brand marketers ignite their digital brand revolution. But Stephan and I keep each other sharp as a razor too.
Last course he told a shocking but true story about Hennes & Mauritz, the fashion brand that has embraced e-commerce. In april 2005 the 18 year old Dutch Frits Kranenborg started the H&M Hyve at Dutch dominated social network Hyves (5.000.000 members).
This user created H&M Hyve (simply the best!) has today 149.472 members!!! It’s one of the largest communities in Holland. In NRC Next, a Dutch Daily Newspaper Frits stated he has never ever heard of H&M?!
When H&M was asked:”why don’t you participate in this community or reward these loyal members?” the H&M spokes person stated:”No we don’t do much with it. We think participating will cost to much time and we will not be able to steer te discussion”. Further the spokes person declared:”At your own website you can control everything, not in a community like this”.
Also H&M states:”We don’t think we can interview these members, we already have our own customer panels”. Frits has placed a link to this NRC Next article where H&M Hyve members can read the H&M statements. Why doesn’t H&M tap into this great UGC community?
Isn’t this community marketing and engaging consumers from the stone age? Can’t H&M fire it’s brand manager and hire a social media marketer? If I would have been brand manager at H&M, I would have hired Frits immediately!! What happens if the community will turn against H&M and 150.000 consumers stop shopping at H&M for a month or 3? Can companies be too busy to reward 150.000 loyal members? Share us your thoughts on H&M’s approach?
We discussed pre-roll video ads, branded skins around videos, viral internet commercials, BGC and UGC and the video case study 2007 by the Online Publishers Association. The brand managers asked for more cases and research, so why not share some more studies?
That video will beat search in eyeballs in 2008 is a no-brainer. The number of watched online videos watched per month in the US only will hit 10 Billion in 2008 easily! The attending brands liked that trend.
The latest study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that the next generation at least is switched on and producing content. The the study tells, 59% of all American teenagers engage in at least one form of online content creation.
Of those 35% of all teen girls blog, compared with 20% of online boys, and 54% of girls post photos online compared with 40% of online boys. Boys however like their video, with 19% of boys posting video online vs. 10% of girls.
Online retailer Net-a-Porter, which sells women’s designer clothes and accessories, has devised an ingenious method to drive men and women to its site this holiday season. They have launched their first viral marketing campaign called Santa’s Helper, that creates a personalized video message narrated by a sexy flirtatious blonde, that women can email to their husbands or boyfriends to tell them what they would exactly like for Christmas. It couldn’t be easier to get the perfect Christmas gift!
All the sender has to do is enter information via a series of drop-down windows, including the guy’s pet name (choices include e.g. sweetie, cheeky monkey, darling, hot stuff, muffin, pumpkin, sugar and big boy), a self-description (are you stylish and curvaceous? Minxy and petite? Smart and leggy?), a description of him (witty, rich, handsome, thoughtful, macho), and of course the desired Net-a-Porter item(s) to personalize the video message a little.
Okay, I must admit: I do not really have a social life, but lots and lots of social media though Sometimes it’s hard to keep up all the daily messages, if you are active in so many social networks and communities. But you also learn a lot. Dutch social network Hyves is growing fast, and just celebrated member number 5.000.000!
One of my Hyves friends, just caught my attention with the campaign Use Your Hyve To Save A Life. It’s a very smart campaign from STOP AIDS NOW!. You can skin your Hyve like Pauline did. And you can send a text message to donate for this campaign.
The viral mechanism of this campaign kicks in very smart. You can see the number of total Hyvers participating. But, you can also see how many many donations each participant has realized through his network. So if you participate through me, you get 2 unique words, that you will have to text to Dutch mobile short code 2020. Each person that donates through me, will make me move up one space in the list of donating social influentials.
You can easily pimp your Hyve with the STOP AIDS NOW! widget. Check my Hyve to see it in my gadgets. If you are Dutch and visit, don’t forget to donate one text message! And pimp your Hyve too. I feel this campaign combines the power of social media, viral and mobile in a superb way! And advertising to STOP AIDS NOW! in a social network, that’s what I would like to call: great social marketing! Do you agree?
Where most other companies use images of snow and snow men, a cold winter landscape and Christmas trees, Virgin decided to take the Christmas celebrations onto a whole different path.
This is Jesus’ birthday 21st Century, Virgin style!
This is something Virgin have become experts at. They take something normal, or something people would never think of as being any different and they completely turn it on its head. We recently blogged about their new airplane safety instructions, which are very similar in that this too turned something common upside down and surprised or even shocked the viewer.
No doubt they’ll get plenty of complaints about this video, but I think it’s another great piece of viral marketing from the Virgin team!
You can become the 2008 buzzword wizard! Just learn about Wombagging? This exercise tries to protect, or sandbag, your brand from negative or undesirable word of mouth. Conversational tracking might be a must have for your brand? Improving your products or services might be the long tail solution though?!!
What about Blog Groveling? This is the already-getting-old process of sucking up to bloggers and key influencers to try, test, or sample your new product or service. Usually it involves hokey headlines, repetitive phrases, and an unmistakable hint of desperation. Just don’t make mistakes like Axe did. You will need to know how to approach bloggers. Being authentic and compelling might help your brand!
Did you know MicroTubing? This is what’s happening in TV and video development. New content forms are proliferating and appealing to smaller audiences. Small publishers, even mom-and-pop players, will continue to make inroads into the video publishing zone, many getting snatched up by brands and publishers for ongoing content. Start your own online theme channel might help you? (more…)
Sometimes it’s hard to keep up all the daily messages, if you are active in so many social networks and communities. But you also learn a lot. Dutch social network 
