Thursday, April 30, 2009

Checkmate

I randomly came across this picture of two billboards online the other day and i absolutely fell in love with it. As a student who is interested in going into the field of advertising i thought this was one of the most creative and funny billboards i have seen. I just felt that this was a really innovative and smart ad on BMWs part and they really got a lot of bang for their buck on this one, especially cause this picture is floating all around the internet. Anyway i just felt like sharing this awesome billboard with everyone.

Cherry Chocolate Rain


Viral Marketing

A huge part of online marketing nowadays is viral marketing. Every good marketer know the value of a successful viral marketing campaign. If an online video becomes popular not only does it reach up to millions of people, but it does so at very low cost to the company. Basically the only thing that the company has to pay for is production of the video, rather than the traditional production and placement costs.
Another key feature of a viral marketing campaign is that viewers actually want to watch the video as opposed to "having to" watch commercials during tv shows. The users are engaged and entertained by an effective video and will usually sit through the whole thing, even if its several minutes long.
One of my favorite viral videos of all time is "Cherry Chocolate Rain" by Tay Zonday. Tay Zonday first came out with an extremely popular youtube video of him singing "Chocolate Rain." This video had millions of views and virtually everyone has heard it. Dr. Pepper saw an opportunity to use his popularity to promote their product and came out with a spoof of his "Chocolate Rain" rendition called "Cherry Chocolate Rain." This was to promote Dr. Pepper's new Diet Cherry Chocolate Dr. Pepper.
The song enlisted the help of famous rappers and had Tay Zonday singing about the new beverage with a little bit of his old song mixed in with a new eye catching music video. There is no way this campaign could not be considered a success as to the fact that there are over seven million views of it on youtube.