Viral Insights At Evian Roller Babies? Male, Scale & Long Tail
The viral insights from Evian Roller Babies might be interesting to marketers? Learn about male, scale and long tail.
To make it easier to understand, I blocked some data.
I only took the International version of the Evian Roller Babies viral video on YouTube, and neglected all clones and all other video portals.
But first, watch the Evian babies one more time:
From Mad Men to Math Men?
If you are connecting the dots, and value the power of big-data, you might reckon a shift in the advertising industry. We are turning mad men into math men.
Marketing used to be an art, now it is a science as well. Great content is king, distribution is queen but metrics is the emperor. Especially on the social web.
The video’s initial seed happened on 1 July 2009. On YouTube and Facebook. The day I created this story, the stats of this specific viral video on YouTube show us:
– 61,308,212 views
– 153,369 favorites
– 65,080 likes
– 5,555 dislikes
– 12,533 comments
Next to the reach, buzz and engagement of this viral video, how about all earned media attention? The massive online and offline buzz around this video? It’s ranking in several viral video charts and Viral Friday?
Viral Insights
But to go beyond the ROI on Evian’s media investment by using a smart mix of POE, how about the actionable insights the social web are offering you?
Probably only a few strategists in the world, could have found these insights in their creative brief: Male, Scale and Long Tail.
If you take a short look at below insights from YouTube, I will next summarize them for you and blend-in my opinion.
Male?
The product that is promoted in the video? The in-video message is clear:
The product and messaging are clearly targeted at the most powerful buyers in our households: Women. To be more specific; Moms.
Not only moms, but fresh moms who are striving to get their bodies back in shape after their 9 months pregnancy and tough delivery. A process that men would probably only survive for a period of 2-3 months?
So can you imagine the insights and creative brief from the agencies’ strategist? To target and to connect to fresh moms, we need babies in the video. Women will find that cute and appealing.
Next to the babies our messaging will connect to these moms: water that supports your body’s youth. Hit bingo!
But looking at the data and insights, reality tells us a different reality:
The audience demographics tell us that it was not the target group moms that was reached and engaged most by the Evian video message.
The main group that watched the video was: #1 a Male audience 35-44 and #2 a Male audience 45-54. The #3 most watching audience was Female 13-17. The group that hopefully does not have a baby yet?!
So great viral effect. Did it reach and engage the right target audience? Nope, it did not.
Learnings? Viral videos can be powerful weapons of mass affection.
But when the initial seeding is launched in the wrong target audience or when the distribution is going out of bounce, what’s next?
The strategist with his creative team, the media strategist or the social – viral seeding specialist should have told the Evian CMO this: Based on the current videolytics, we should use paid media the get back on our planned track.
Upfront planning and insights are cool.
But big-data and a great videolytics tool should have activated adaptive planning during the campaign.
Scale
Scaling the video worked pretty well looking at the numbers, reach, costs per contact and engagement.
I believe that #1 target market was the US, so that worked well. But were the Philippines and France really the #2 and #3 core target markets for Evian?
Again, big-data and videolytics can help you with valuable and actionable insights, during the campaign.
If your viral video travels into the wrong markets, anticipate with adaptive planning.
If the insights tell you that the Evian video is extremely popular in a market in which is not being sold yet, or sales numbers are below target in that market?
Follow the insights.
Start sampling and selling in that market or extend the viral by a guerrilla, OOH or offline campaign in that market, area or city.
Long Tail
Going back to the videolytics and insights, we see that a viral is not about 6-8 weeks campaigning, like we tend to do with our TVC’s.
Viral video is long term brand programming, with a subscription to a videolytics tool for 3 years, not 8 weeks.
The big-data dashboard will help, if you are with your hands on the buttons to adapt the planning when needed.
My Opinion?
It might take mad men to create stunning viral videos or great content marketing.
But what if the rest of your value chain fails?
You will by now have connected the dots yourself: Mad Men need Math Men.
Certainly in an era where marketing is not only an art, but also a science.
How About You?
What big-data steps are you taking in 2013? What viral learnings can your share with the global marketing community? I would love to read your feedback in the comments below.
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About the Author
Igor Beuker was CMO at 3 listed companies, chairmain at the IAB, jury member at Webby, AMMA and Esprix awards, founder of 2 agencies (both sold to WPP) and global chief social officer at Mindshare. Now he is ‘freejack’ consultant and a sought after keynote speaker.