Emma Brooks | Digital Media Enthusiast

Ah, all these kids are after my own heart… :)

For all those advertisers reading out there, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Making a video go “viral” is always a tough request to hear, as anyone in digital knows. This request is generally not possible because getting a video noticed online in the mass array of noise is always a combination of a stroke of luck and a strong enough idea.

A recent Wired article, titled, “Screw Viral Videos. You Heard Me. Pass It On.” seems to back this up. As Jim Louderbac writes, “By its nature, viral videos are designed to surprise, titillate and entertain. They are, by nature, unique; the 27th keyboard cat, or the 12th dancing baby is just plain boring.”

And this is so very, very true. “Socially shared” videos (my new term for viral videos – it may not be good but I can’t stand the term viral anymore and anything is better) posses some of the three fundamental pieces that help them succeed:

• 1. They are unnaturally funny.
• 2. They are shocking.
• 3. They are completely different than anything seen before.

A good video will posses one of these three things. A great video: two. I’m can’t think off the top of my head of one that contains all three – but if you can, please leave a comment.

The latest public service announcement for City of Toronto fills one of the above. No, not that it is unnaturally funny – it is quite funny but not astoundingly so – but for a PSA from the City of Toronto, this is something completely different than any citizen has seen before.

And therein lies its success. So far this video has generated over 17,000 views and is one of the most popular videos on their uploads list, where most of their video views range from 8 – 1,000 views. It has been featured on CBC National, National Post, many local news stations, and now, CNN. A huge accomplishment, for sure – especially when a tiny PSA for Toronto is being played alongside a video made by Proctor and Gamble in the US, that is a mini-movie unto itself (at 4 minutes) and made specifically for online.

So, congratulations, City of Toronto, for doing well and getting noticed in the mess of “viral” videos.

Full disclosure: My agency, Publicis, created and produced this PSA for the City of Toronto. I’ve been helping them with the digital strategy on this.

I admit it, I freaking love the Knorr Sidekicks commercials as of late. Created by DDB, Toronto, it all started with this gem:

Adorable. People liked it; they felt sorry for poor ol’ Salty. It conveyed the message well (thanks to Knorr, you won’t need Salty around anymore) but kept it lighthearted. And Salty was so cute!

But it seems the ad idea is now bigger than the product it is trying to sell. Let’s take a look at an ad I found today:

The product isn’t even mentioned. Heck, you don’t even see it until a minute in, in the final lockup. And the copy doesn’t even speak to the brand benefits. Is this an issue? Well, no, I don’t think so. Because what it does speak to is the ability to get your own FREE salt & pepper shakers by visiting their website (sidekicks.ca) I can’t lie, I’m now checking this out to see how I can get them. I’m sorry, they’re just so cute!

So… clearly the high value task here has shifted between the first ad (buy our product) to this ad (visit our website). Upon looking at the site though, the user has two options: buy the s&p shaker now for $14.99 plus shipping (an additional $7.29) or buy 3 packages of Knorr Sidekicks plus shipping.

Hm. Pay more monies ORRRR get tasty foods and pay less monies. Gee, wonder which one most people will go with. Just another indirect way to sell Knorr Sidekicks. But with the added bonus of a unique hit to their website. It’s win-win. Also win for consumers who will get a cute Salty’s in their daily lives. I’m seriously considering buying these. I wish I was joking.

Some other cute Salty’s ads can be found here and here.

In any case, you can check out Salty’s Twitter, Facebook fan page or his YouTube channel. Few items I need to off shoot and rant here about regarding these properties:

1. Most of the Twitter stuff pushes to product pages, which is fine – IF labeled as such. Instead, they’re just teaser copy and links, without disclosure of what the link is. Kind of annoying, clicking on a link thinking you might see something funny or of value to you only to find yourself on a Knorr Sidekicks product page.

2. The Facebook fan page wall is linked to the Twitter account, so all status updates on the wall are the same content as on the Twitter account. This basically says to me, “Why bother following Salty on Twitter? You can get the same content and more (ooohh, a photo album with 8 photos, if you could call that more, so impressive) on Facebook.” Don’t duplicate content. Doesn’t work in SEO, doesn’t work in SMO. Give users a reason to follow each individual account if you’re going to be on these properties – an incentive, if you will: exclusive content, funny tidbits, etc – that you can’t get already on another property. It’s fine to link out to the other social media properties, totally fine, but offer more than what is basically a RSS feed. And if that’s the case: Don’t bother signing up to that property.

2. No sharing of YouTube videos? Are you kidding me? What’s the point of putting it on YouTube then? You might as well just embedded a Quicktime video onto your site and called it a day. Lot of good non-embeddable content on YouTube does me, or anyone other fan out there. I don’t want to link in my blog posts, I want to SHOW.

Ok, rant over. I’m done now.

So what do you think? Think this ad idea has enough legs to stand on its own and support a product it barely talks about anymore? Let me know in the comments.

This is one of the most creative commericals [sic] I have seen in the whole of my life!

I made an ad. Yeah, I know. I am allowing each and every one of you a sneak peek into the genius that is me. My artistic ability, coupled with my intense and brilliant advertising strategies will soon make me a household name in the advertising world.

So I want to warn you.

What you are about to see? May change the way you look at the world. It may shake you to your little advertising core. It may cause simultaneous weeping, laughing and jaw-dropping.

I am warning you because I care. About you. About this industry. About being upfront and honest. About being the best I can be. About only showcasing what matters, what really matters, to this world.

I can’t be any more – or any less – than that.

So, please, sit back and be prepared to change your life. Because of me. Because of how awesome and super-cool I am. Because I… am Emma Brooks: Digital Media Enthusiast.

Okay, so maybe I just haven’t updated in a while and I’m exhausted. And when I’m exhausted I think I’m funny. But really, you gotta admire the mad Paint skillz I possess. No, sir, as I told you before: I am not for hire. $10,000/hour? No sir, the world is not ready for my skillz. Not yet. Call me in 2 years. We’ll talk.

If you’re behind the game, here’s a link explaining The Great Write Off of 2009. You can find links and discussion to all posts by checking out the Twitter trending topic, #WriteOff09.

So I was looking up lyrics today and came across some great Scientology ads on a song lyrics website, Sing365. Just thought I’d capture these for my lovely readers and share them with you! Really not sure why a song lyrics website is the best place to capture potential Scientologists: anyone have any ideas? What’s the demographic of these sites?

In order to answer my own question, I turned to the internets to find out. And according to Google Ad Planner, 60% of the visitors are female, 41% don’t have a high school diploma, 37% are 0-17 years in age and 67% make between $25,000 – $75,000 a year. So basically they’re targeting young, rich kids? Sounds about right. Way to go Scientology!

And here are the great ads for you!

Square Banner Ads

Vertical Banner Ads

How great are these? “Love! Hate! What is the answer?”

Hmm. Tough one. I’ll let you guys decide! Feel free to comment with your ideas on what the answer should be? Love? Or hate?

I saw the following video pop up on my Twitter feed this afternoon at 1pm on the Leo Burnett Twitter account, with the tweet, “#culturalfuel Vendor-Client relationship in real life situations: Just found this on FB. No comment..”

I watched this video, laughed and marveled at how true it rang and then re-tweeted it on my account.

Since then I’ve seen it pop up at least 4 times on other accounts I follow on Twitter and on advertising blogs, such as AdJoke.

As of 5.47pm, this video has been viewed over 2,500 times and my guess is the majority of them were today. Already it’s received well over 63 comments – a much higher view/comment ratio than one would normally find on a YouTube video. It’s also been favourited 524 times, so clearly the video is clearly hitting a nerve in the ad industry.

Comments include things such as, “This made my stomach hurt. I have had this same type conversation three times this week alone” (shawngoesgreen) and “Five stars isn’t enough” (jforrest55).

This video was added to YouTube 5 days ago on an account that was made 6 days ago. Sounds like someone’s trying – and succeeding – in making this thing viral. Should be interesting to see what the numbers are like in a few days. I’m also curious to see whether “Mr Bennett” really did see this thing on Facebook or whether it was actually created by Leo Burnett itself.

This is an apparently very old ad (from 2005 – holy, that’s ancient!) but it’s still absolutely hilarious and messed up.

This is exactly why I love advertisers. They are so, so weird sometimes. So weird.