Top 18 Viral Promotional Videos of All Time

By now we are familiar how powerful video marketing  is. If your current promotional tactics aren’t working, it’s worth trying to create promotional videos designed to go viral. But what elements make a video viral?

Well, to spark your creative juices, I’ve compiled a list of viral promotional videos of all time. These are videos that were created not just purely for fun but to promote a product, a brand, an organization or a business.  I only included those that received over over 1,000,000 views as counted by Viral Video Chart.

18.) Verizon Droid (1,868,559 views)

Advert for the new Motorola Droid smartphone.

17.) Sony Bravia Play-Doh (2,047,882 views)

This one is lost on me and I actually find it freaky. But apparently “over a period of 3 weeks, 189 bunnies, a 30ft giant rabbit, 150 cubes and on 10ft by 20ft purple wave, all expertly fashioned out of Playdoh, were taken to the streets of New York” to create this viral advert.

16.) 8-bit Stop Motion Trip With Legos (4, 593,284 views)

This video apparently took about 1500 hours of work. Wow.


15.) Sony Bravia Palline (4,655,835 views)

Sony successfully produced a viral ad by releasing thousands of small bright-coloured balls down a quiet street.

14.) Apple Macintosh 1984 Superbowl Commercial (5,167,289 views)

Funny how advertising has changed. Take a look at Apple’s first Macintosh computer. The product positioning is obvious- Apple is breaking the mould.  Is it just me or the man on the big TV screen looks like Bill Gates?

13.) Will It Blend? iPhone Video (7,672,405 views)

Will it blend? Oh no not the iPhone! See Blendtec’s CEO Tom Dickinson’s latest experiment as he use his phenomenal blender to blitz the iPhone and turn it into a glass of smoky, black powder.

12.) Google Wave Presentation (8,086,221 views)

Google Wave Developer Preview presentation at the Day 2 Keynote of Google I/O. You think Google had a hand as to why this went viral?

11.) Cadbury Eyebrows (9,431,712 views)

Weirded me out, this one.

10.) Heineken Walk-In Fridge (9,449,813 views)

A parody that shows how extremely funny it is when men emulate stereotypical women’s behaviour.

9.) TheFunTheory.com’s Piano Staircase (10,914,552 views*)

www.thefuntheory.com is an initiative of Volkswagen. Notice how they cleverly positioned their brand by releasing a series of videos dedicated to the pursuit of injecting FUN into things we usually don’t like doing.

* the number of views pertains to the Swedish version, but I am displaying the English version here for obvious reasons.

08.) Samsung Extreme Sheep LED Art (11,285,333 views)

This video used Sheeps and LEDs to get their message across. Talk about Baaaa-d Ass Advertising.



07.) Durex Get It On (12,233,418 views)

Rubber like you’ve never seen it before. Never had rubber been so sexually hilarious.

06.) Gorilla Ad for Cadbury Dairy Milk (14,830,617 views)

Put together a chocolate, a gorilla, and drums and what do you get? A viral video that went on to becoming one of the most successful advertising campaigns in history.



05.) Playing For Change (16,347,589 views)

A great message from http://www.playingforchange.com

04.) T-Mobile Dance (20,109,212 views)

Watch the moment Liverpool Street Station danced to create this special T-Mobile Advert.

03.) Dove Evolution Ad (21,879,167 views)

Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ Campaign successfully demonstrates why it’s unrealistic for real women to attempt to look like the women they see in magazines.



02.) Obama Yes We Can (32,443,228 views)

Music video dedicated to the presidential campaign of senator Barack Obama.



01. Evian Live Young Baby Roller (33,791,618 views)

This is an ad by Evian. Presumably it went viral because they feature babies.  There yah go – whatever promotional video you plan to make, just make sure you deliver your message using babies.


Did I miss anything? Please feel free to add it below on the comments section! Cheers! ;)
Posted in Social Media | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Marketing is Dead: Why Your Business Must Change Now…or Die

Marketing as We Know it is Dead

Marketing as We Know it is Dead

I made two new friends last week at a christmas party. One of them, Brenda, is a self employed life coach, and the other, Sandra, makes bespoke luxury kitchens. Both are passionate about what they do, so naturally the conversation eventually ended up about business.

Like many of their peers, they have joined and regularly attended networking events and  business networking groups. Their main lead generation tactic was inviting anyone remotely interested for a free consultation session or product demo and then hope that they buy afterwards. Sadly few of them ever did, because “they couldn’t afford it”. They had been running their “businesses” at a loss for the last 8+ months.

They have both tried “everything” – yellow pages, promotions, press releases, print ads, brochures/leaflets, cold calling, open house, door knocking, and even turning their cars into advertising tools. Still, they weren’t getting enough leads or paying customers.

They both didn’t know what to do anymore.

“Well, have you tried marketing online?”I asked them.

Blink, blink.

They just stared at me as if I just said something gibberish – in Urdu.

More and more businesses and solo professionals are now experiencing first hand that what used to be very effective lead generating tactics do not work very well anymore. Brenda and Sandra are not alone.

Consumers now do all sorts of measures to block out all the noise that barrage them day in and day out. We mute the radio or  TV or switch between channels when the advertisements come on. We’re rude to cold callers and door knocking salespeople. We ignore print ads, and even if we do, few of us really believe what they say anyway. We accept leaflets and brochures when they are being handed out just to be polite, only to stash them in the nearest bin we see.

Marketing as we know it is as good as dead.

Marketing (as in old marketing) – no longer works, not because the media themselves are no longer effective, but because consumers have changed.

Consumers Are Changing

Consumers are a lot busier and more impatient so their attention span is extremely short (and expensive!).

They’re so jaded that they no longer believe us (salesmen or marketers) – they’d rather ask their next door neighbor, friends or pets what they think about our products (how dare they!).

They’re getting more and more savvy. They  know that someone, somewhere has got what they want at a price they are happy to pay for. More and more of them know where and how to get the information they want at the exact time that they need them. Thus they are quick to dismiss messages that are irrelevant to their current train of thought (dammit).

They are spoilt for choice so more and more of them are refusing to settle for mass-produced, mass-marketed, average goods. No – in fact, they demand remarkable products specifically tailored with their unique needs in mind that truly work for their specific situation, and they expect a fast, reliable impeccable service.

They even demand to know how you made your product, who made them, what materials were used, what your carbon footprint is like, who you do businss with and how, how you train your staff, where you came from, why you do what you do…

And if you piss them off, they make damn sure they tell everybody. And by everybody I mean their friends, ex girfriends, ex-boyfriends, family, neighbours, colleagues, pets, grandparents, the folks that used to bully them in kindergarten, the folks who they used to bully in high school, their old high school teachers -  and these people in turn do the same and so on.

All that at one push of a button. One single click.

So What Now for Businesses?

Clearly, interrupting people and shouting our generic messages to as many people as possible and hope that enough of them buy our generic products no longer works.

What are marketers supposed to do?

Well, there is a short answer and a long answer. The short answer is:

  1. Target a specific group of people whose problems you can solve well. Join or build a community of these people. Listen to what they have to say. Engage, enthuse, empower and add value to them.
  2. Deliver messages for them that are compelling, relevant, valuable, useful, amazing, and if you dare, mind-blowingly cool. The trick is to give them what they want to become happier, better, richer, sexier, or whatever it is they want to be.
  3. Make it super easy, fun, and even rewarding for people to interact with you and ultimately to want to pass your message on to others.
  4. Rinse and repeat.

The long answer is well, basically the same answer, just err… longer. The long answer deals with the tactics and tools and details. And the long answer depends on who you ask and who exactly is asking and when and where the question was asked.

It’s so easy to get lost in the details and get all so fancy. It’s so easy to forget that at the end of the day the media you use per se doesn’t really matter – it’s the value of your message that matters, and how that message is changing the very people who hears it, not necessarily just the ones you crafted the message for.

Your  Challenge as a Business Owner

The challenge we face today as marketers is not, “how do we get the most people to buy my product?” but “how do I really listen enough to  people so that I am able to serve their needs?”

The challenge we face today is not, “how do we invent a story that will make more people buy?”   but “how do we muster enough courage to tell our true story and still be able to create something of real value?”

Our real challenge is listening more to people, not shouting at people.

Our real challenge is creating something truly worthy to the people we hope to serve.

Our real challenge is about being authentic enough and being willing to connect and share as much value as we can with those we have chosen to serve.

If you can do all that and use the right tools in the appropriate and timely manner then you need not worry about making enough sales, because the market will find you.

And buy from you they will.

Posted in Social Media | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Top Coolest Tools and Websites for Online Entrepreneurs

Over the years we’ve used some tools but recently there’s been a lot of really awesome tools that it’ll be  a shame not to share them with you. Now I know anybody can benefit from cool apps to help get things done more easily and efficiently, but the list I’ve compiled below are ones that are particularly helpful to those who do online-based work (like bloggers, writers, infomarketers, virtual assistants, etc.) or have internet-based businesses.

Get inspired by great minds in TED Talks

Get inspired by great minds in TED Talks

Many of these tools and applications are free or have free versions. Enjoy!

Get Organized

Mindmeister.com, Bubbl.us, Mindomo, and Mind42.com – free mind mapping tools with sharing capabilities.

RememberTheMilk.com – Never forget the milk again. Getit? Free online to-do list.

ActiveCollab -  Project management and collaboration tool.

Ubidesk – excellent team collaboration tool. Share files, documents, and project manage collaboratively.  (Thanks to Ashley from Ubidesk for sharing this with us)

Web-Appointments.com – let others book appointments with you online.

Doodle.ch – Schedule dates and times that work for everyone who wants to attend.

Google Docs – needs no introduction.

Productivity Boosters

FocusBooster – boost your focus when doing a task by timing yourself.

RescueTime – Awesome tool that measures how much time you end up spending on which tasks.  Perfect for scatterbrained workers prone to distractions and procrastination but would like to be more disciplined and focused when they are working.

Evernote – An idea pops into your head. Quick! Jot it down before you forget! And make sure you remember where you actually wrote your idea down, so that you can access it again in the future. Eeerr, yeah right. Well, Evernote lets you do exactly that for free! You can put type notes, clip a web page, snap a pic, grab a screenshot , whatever. You can index them, tag them and organize them in folders to make them searchable, too.

LastPass Password Manager – Never forget a password again. Auto log in saves so much of my time. Especially helpful for those who frequently encounters password amnesia.

Content/Info Product Creation

Screen Steps – Create step by step tutorials easily. Great for creating info products or sending instructions with screenshots to your team/clients.

Sclipo.com – A must tool for thought leadership. It lets you publish, teach and manage online courses. You can lead live classes & webinars for 100+ attendees. It’s even got a library you can use to store and share  all types of files. You can organize off-line events and stream them live. You can even collect payments on the courses and events you conduct.

Need-an-article.com - pay someone else to write articles according to your specifications for as little as $5.50.

MTurk.com -  Get small tasks done for dirt cheap.

iStockPhoto, FreeDigitalPhotos and sxc.hu – get free, royalty free stock photos/images.

Audacity – free, open source software for audio recording and editing. Great tool for creating audio content to add to your info product.

Kunaki -  have your CDs and DVDs created, distributed and manufactured – on demand. They will even dropship your CDs and DVDs for you.

Gliffy.com – Get your ideas easily understood by others by creating professional-quality flowcharts, diagrams, floor plans, technical drawings, and more.

Super – a simple tool to convert (encode) or play any Multimedia file.

TED – Videos featuring today’s greatest thought leaders. Worthwhile watching everyday to feed your mind as an emerging thought leader.

Get things Done Better, Faster Cheaper

Get things Done Better, Faster Cheaper

Video Marketing

TubeMogul.com – Like Traffic Geyser but don’t have the budget? TubeMogul will distribute your videos to numerous video networks for free.

Animoto – Create videos using pictures and video clips easily, quickly and cheaply. Choose your music/song and the clever software edits the video for you.

Heyspread – Cool tool that lets you mass distribute your videos. You can also manage, analyze and track your videos’ performance. Very affordable prices and you can even pay as you go – nice! (Thanks to Eric Fontaine for the heads up!)

Online Survey Tracking/Creation

Zoomerang.com – perform marketing research and get customer feedback easily and in an automated fashion using this free survey tool.

Survey Monkey – Find out what your customers / prospects want with this free survey tool.

Survey Pirate – Create, post and publish your surveys all for free. We love free. (Thanks to Linn Lindström for suggesting this).

File Storage/Backup

DropBox.com Free file storage, sharing and remote backup from a folder on your desktop!

Mozy – Simple online backup solution

SugarSync – Online File syncing/storage

Testing/Tracking

If you have a business online and you’re still not testing and tracking, you’re going to be out of business soon. Harsh but true.

Testing and tracking is a must because they let you determine what is working and what isn’t, allowing you to discard the duds and focus on the things that make returns.

Google Website Optimizer – lets you conduct split testing and multivariate testing for free.

StatCounter / Google Analytics- gain detailed insights about your website traffic and marketing effectiveness

Clicktale – view videos of how exactly your visitors are interacting with your web pages. It’s like looking over your visitor’s shoulders! Freakingly awesome.

Crazyegg / Clickdensity – See Heatmaps and track your visitors’ clicks, mouse hovers, entry pages and exit pages.

Woopra – Got loads of websites you need to track and measure? It’s all so easy with Woopra. Great for those building an online empire.

Communicate

Adobe Connect now – free webconferencing for up to 3 people. Handy when you outsource work overseas and need to meet with them regularly.

FreeConferenceCall -Does exactly what it says on the tin. No need to schedule, up to 6 hours conference call, and up to 96 participants per conference call.

Pamela – Manage and record your Skype calls, videos and chats. Make sure the wife knows Pamela is not a woman.

Google Voice –Transcribe voicemail, low cost overseas calls, get SMS via email, and much more.  By invitation only.

Other Cool Tools

Jing – free screen capture/sharing tool. Handy for those moments and situations when words aren’t enough to explain your ideas.

VSO Image Resizer – create e-mail friendly versions of your images, load them faster, move them easily from folder to folder, change their format, edit large numbers of image files/batch image resize and thus save space on your hard drive.

Amazon S3 – store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web.

Pixlr Image Editing – Free alternative to Photoshop.

Crossloop.com – Need technical support about anything? Don’t freak out. Log on to Crossloop and find Expert help instantly, 24/7. A real savior for the non-techies like me.

Logmein.com – Access and back up your computer from anywhere with an Internet connection. Even access your desktop from your iPhone!

We haven’t used all of them…yet. So if you want to share your experiences about these services please feel free to share them here.

We’ve probably missed out a lot of other cool tools and websites so if you have a suggestion just pop the details below on the comments section and we’ll add them here.

Thanks!

And oh, if you love this list make sure to share this post with other entrepreneurs. Put that on your to do list, will you? :P

Posted in Self Employment | 15 Comments

Subscribe to our RSS feed, follow us on Twitter, friend us on Facebook or sign up to our exclusive Newsletter below for further insight which will help you boost business!

  • Categories

  • Tag Cloud