Capturing the millennial vote with video

Jonathan Bowers, February 8th 2008, 3:28PM

In the film Wag The Dog, Robert De Niro is a spin-doctor drafted in by the US Government in a time of crisis. The President has been accused of sexual misdemeanours with a firefly girl and it's about to hit the news just weeks before Election Day. De Niro needs a diversion and he turns to Dustin Hoffman's Hollywood producer to create him a war - something that will unite the American people behind their leader. The information is delivered to the people via TV and newspaper. In the end, the President is re-elected and the manufactured war actually turns into a real concern.

It is a clever film and a great watch - but ten years later, it would never work. Why? Because the internet would easily have exploded the myth Hoffman created. And millions and millions of people today are influenced by the information they access online. The television is still of course a massively important conduit but the internet like never before has the capability to create a majority. Few understand this better than the US Presidential candidates who are well aware that there is an online battle to be won.

In this battle Barack Obama appears to have the upper hand - as well as a little help from his friends. The Viral Video Chart reveals that a new video posted just 6 days ago has already been viewed by over 5 million visitors. It has been linked to by more than 2000 sources and commented on across all social media platforms by many more. The video is the 'Yes We Can' Obama Song by Will.I.Am.

As The Campaign Spot (National Review Online's blog) points out and as De Niro knew a decade before, Hollywood can provide a very powerful message. It is no wonder that 18-30 year olds (the millennial voters) are turning out in record numbers. It is also no surprise that Barack Obama is winning the majority of this vote on nearly every occasion.

Tags: pr, video
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Empower business with online video

Jonathan Bowers, January 4th 2008, 11:03AM

As ever there are many blogs about what the big trends of the next year will be. Some say widgets will guide growth online, others believe personalisation of online services will be the focus. In the business community I believe we are going to see media empowerment. Written content will continue to be the main format for business commmunication but online video is going to prove to be a very potent force allowing a stronger voice in ways that we haven't seen before.

As a hosting provider, UKFast is able to look at thousands of businesses and draw conclusions about excellent business practice from those who are competing at the top of their chosen fields online. What we can see is that the companies growing at the fastest rate are those who are truly engaging with their audiences and communicating with them through multimedia formats.

Imagine how much more Northern Rock could have done to bolster customer confidence in the aftermath of the crisis if they had taken a more personal approach to informing their customers. The website included a list of FAQ's regarding the situation but they could have posted video from senior management talking direct to each customer. This would have been much more effective.

Crisis management is just one area where video is priceless. I think we are going to see a boom over the coming months in video being employed directly on company websites as a new element in the drive to build trust with the target community.

Tags: communication, video
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Driving a double message in web 2.0

Jonathan Bowers, May 18th 2007, 4:58PM

My viral video chart this morning alerted me to a great example of brand building. I hadn't come across GOODMagazine.com before but a recent viral video posted on YouTube has certainly brought them a wider audience. It has been online now for 10 days and received 657,871 views to date.

It's called Internet Porn, which might explain why it has enjoyed a huge amount more hits than any of the other videos in the series. But it's not what you might expect. But then maybe it is. No, it's not - it's better, because it delivers two messages. One about the online porn industry and one about the organisation behind the video.

As companies in the UK question whether social media avenues are appropriate for growing their business, innovators across the Atlantic are getting better and better at making it work.

Tags: social media, video, viral
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YouTube a short term phenomenon?

Jonathan Bowers, March 2nd 2007, 12:23PM

Viacom's announcement that traffic is substantially up on its various video content sites is dangerous news for YouTube, which was instructed to remove all content belonging to the media producer just over a month ago.

According to Google Trends it's less than a year since YouTube's traffic overtook that of MTV, Viacom's most successful website.

The big question is, how long would it be before the trend reversed back again if all content providers demanded their content be pulled, leaving only user generated video on the site. There's obviously a huge mix of content on the site but a quick glance at the most viewed videos on there at the moment indicates that seven out of the top ten are big studio music videos, broadcasted animations or televised content. Two of the remaining three are adverts, most likely posted by the brand themselves and only one of the top ten is user generated.

A worst case scenario would be a YouTube where 66% of the viewed content is adverts. How long would YouTube last?

Obviously, YouTube has put some deals in place to make sure this is not so, but would it be such a bad thing if YouTube were to revert back to user generated content as its mainstay? Afterall, that's what made its name.

Tags: viacom, video, youtube
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TV Times

Chris Norton, May 23rd 2006, 12:38PM

This year Big Brother rolled out its uber-trashy all-seeing televisual eyes amidst a welter of warnings - 'kiss goodbye to your summer' cried everyone from Heat magazine to BB's own increasingly cartoonish Davina McCall. There's a grain of truth in that, at least for those of us who can't be bothered putting up an impenetrable, culturally cool acceptable front... in fact half of us round these parts of the office are already discussing Shahbaz every morning, like the bunch of gossiping old fishwives we really are.

The real-time nature of BB, and the fact that it generates those 'water-cooler' conversations (you know, the sort all the media journalists were going on about a few years ago), well it makes me think. There's all this buzz online about iTunes selling episodes of Lost (another of our favourites, especially now the plot seems to revolve around people sitting in a room doing inexplicable things with computers) and the new plan to sell 24 (yeah, we love Bauer too) on myspace.

But this narrowcasting approach, treating TV shows like music, seems a little foolish - TV is completely different, and nowhere near the solitary experience the naysayers wibble on about. In fact, I think it's the most social of modern media. Discussion of last night's crop of big shows is a vital office bonding experience... Daz got quite annoyed with me because I missed Lost the other week, and fair enough, I was a bit miffed myself. Not because I missed it, but because we all need a bit of fuel for talking outside of the world of SQL queries and web form design. OK, and because I missed it.

Hey, if you can't gossip openly about your colleagues, at least you can gossip openly about the people on TV - and to do that you need to be tuning in as it happens, in synch. Now where's my copy of Heat?

Tags: bigbrother, conversations, media, myspace, office, tv, video
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