Soft Branding in Viral Videos

Even though viral video's are one of the latest buzz terms when considering digital marketing channels, a lot of brands and companies are still trying to figure it out. Here is an example of great 'soft' branding through a video that is actually viral, as opposed to blatant product pushes.

This example from Ray Ban is considerably effective as it created a buzz in forums and video sharing sites - because people noticed a sneaky insertion of the campaign tag line in the video, and started discussion about who made the video and is it / isn't it Ray Ban

If you watch the video, look at the car window right at the end and you will see the soft branding. It seems that a video which people will actually send on to friends coupled with really subtle branding is proving to be an attractive formula for creating viral videos

Pub Web de Ray Ban
Uploaded by ol-optic

User Generated Advertising

User generated media has yet another angle for monetization, and it seems to be gaining momentum. Zooppa is a new social network created around the idea of user generated advert creation. The Ital-American start up explains the concept as "we give you a brand, you make an advert, you rate the best ones, and the winner gets paid"

Well known brands that have used this so far include Tom Tom, Havianas and Global Warming. Here is the complete list of winners so far

This is an unique advertising business model, for now that is. Businesses supply advertising briefs - what their product is, who they're targeting, any brand-specific design elements, etc. - and users create advertisements for the company, uploading them for Zooppa users to vote on.

This is an attractive model for people to create revenue from user generated content while the You Tube's of the world figure out their revenue sharing models. For brands it's a cost effective way of seeing what consumers think of the brand, and at at the same time giving immediate feedback on what adverts they relate to the most.

Simple. Cheap. Effective

Great spoof of the advertising industry

It's scary how close this resembles the truth....