This is the first blog post I have had time to do in the last 1.5 months. If I worked at Expedia, I could have designed and built an entire website and produced two videos as a joke.
Honestly though, a great viral marketing campaign!
CBC’s Hockey Anthem challenge is a contest searching for a song to replace the long-standing Hockey Night in Canada theme.
Since this campaign is built upon Filemobile’s Mediafactory platform, a number of “Engagement” factors can be measured, such as views, shares, digs, ratings, comments, etc…
A great article about this type of engagement, and how some are proposing to synthesize these metrics, is Terms of Engagement: Measuring the Active Consumer, by Mark Ghuneim.
One might assume, that the cream would rise to the top and the most engaging song would indeed be the finest piece of music submitted. I’m happy to say, that this clearly the case with Logan Aube’s opus entitled Hockey Scores. The statistics and comments speak for themselves: Canadians have a very odd sense of humour.
This week, we delivered a video wall with the capability of being installed and distributed by users on social networks and blogs for the Canadian Idol Last Chance Online Auditions website! Posting videos in Facebook or MySpace is no big deal, but when sharing is combined with the Mediafactory, our clients can now effectively program users homepages. CTV uses a “saved search” collection that is constantly updated with the latest submission to the website. This content is updated in real time, and all deployed widgets reflect the contents of the collection. At any time, CTV can change the content of an installed video wall.
With the addition of a call-to-action in the widget, you can now extend your brand and drive traffic back to the mothership. Did we mention we record all stats including views, geo and sources? Nice!
Click on the share button and install on your profile!
“What other roles can users fill within the communications value chain besides that of content producers?”
The value of users creating content is that your customers can be participants, and interact with your message instead of just being spectators. With a well-considered moderation plan, this user-generated content (UGC) can create brand credibility via public advocacy.
Case in point: CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada presents Bring Home the Stanley Cup.
Videos posted by hockey fans (particularly the finalists – currently posted from last year’s campaign) display passion for the game of hockey, the history of the NHL and Stanley Cup, family values and national unity. What better messages for Canada’s National broadcaster, a network for the people and of the people (via tax dollars), and the National Hockey League, striving to present family-friendly entertainment to an ever-fickle, globalized consumer? The winning videos are even shown during a HNIC broadcast.
Although this is a great example of brand-focused, successful UGC campaign, most user-generated content is just plain bad. Read more…
Filemobile, Media Technology, Online Advertising, Social Media
In describing the “Virtual Value Chain”, the authors of “The Move to Artist-Led Online Music Distribution: Explaining Structural Changes in the Digital Music Market”(2005) claim that “the emerging digital music market supports dramatically reduced production and distribution costs”. Since the same recording is used for both physical and digital distribution, recording costs stay the same. According to the RIAA, “there are many factors that go into the overall cost of a CD — and the plastic it’s pressed on, is among the least significant. CD manufacturing costs may be lower, but it takes more money than ever before to put out a new recording”(RIAA, 2003). Read more…
Digital Music, Media Technology, Online Advertising, Social Media
