9 impressive social media campaigns using video

Use of online video is increasing drastically for brands, as many are exploring ways of integrating video into full social media campaigns. The uses of online video are extensive, and I wanted to look at some of the best social media campaigns that use video as part of an overall campaign, as opposed to ‘pure’ video campaigns, such as a viral video produced by a brand.  The campaigns shown below are intended to give an overview of how video can be used in your campaign, across a range of budgets.

Ariel Fashion Shoot

Starting with something on a pretty adventurous budget, Ariel in Stockholm gave us an impressive video campaign earlier this year with their real life ‘fashion shoot’. The campaign used live-stream video integrated onto their Facebook Page, to engage users in a new way. Via the Facebook Page, you had the ability to control a game that was put up in the centre of Stockholm, to squirt jam, chocolate etc.. onto moving white garments. Anyone could come along and play on the Facebook Page, and if you were lucky enough to hit one of the items of clothing, you were then sent it as a prize, having been washed in Ariel of course. The campaign showed how live stream could be used in a two-way interaction with fans : using it not only to show them something live, but to give them the chance to interact in real time.

Domino’s Pizza in Times Square

Domino’s took a bit of a risk earlier this year, with their campaign integrating live stream video with customer feedback. In July 2011, they put up a stream on a giant billboard in Times Square, that showed the comments they were receiving via customer feedback forms, live. Some may consider something like this to be a bit opportunistic, but it shows a brand that is serious about fixing their reputation, following ‘that’ Youtube video from 2009. It shows they are willing to use new technology to improve transparency around the brand, with new ways of interacting with customers and importantly, making this public.

Interactive Zombie Story

Another campaign from a pizza brand here, this time from New Zealand. When Youtube introduced annotations on videos, allowing you to click to other Youtube videos within the video itself, Hell Pizza ran a completely original campaign that made use of this new functionality. They created a fictional horror film ‘Deliver Me To Hell’ that made use of this feature to offer interaction to fans. The campaign launched at the end of July 2011 and took people on an interactive story set in Christchurch, where a pizza delivery boy has to encounter zombies on his quest to deliver a pizza to a stranded woman. At different points in the story, users were given the option of what they wanted to do next, meaning you could construct your own storyline and decide the outcome. The full video was then later released by Hell Pizza, showing their version of the storyline in full.

Honest Tea

The organic drinks company Honest Tea, used video in a campaign to show how honest people were, and which was the most honest city in America. The campaign involved a public stunt, as special tea stands were put up in different cities across America. Passersby could take the drink if they wanted, but were encouraged to pay $1 for every drink they took. The videos released then showed how ‘honest’ people were, and whether they decided to pay or not. The campaign received huge recognition online as using video to bring the product message to life. Remember that if you’re filming the public in this way, you have permission to show their image online.

Vodafone – Who Should Upgrade?

This campaign comes from Vodafone Holland (disclaimer – Vodafone are a client of ours) in 2009. They used video in a Twitter campaign, to let their followers decide who should receive an upgrade. The campaign ‘Upgrade a Stranger’ involved live streaming 2 customers that were picked from a street in Holland. Users could then vote via tweeting, to decide which of the 2 were deserving of a free upgrade from Vodafone. An interesting way of using live stream with online followers, to impact something in the ‘real world’.

Interactive murals

When the Canadian tourist board needed a campaign to promote Canada as a holiday destination to Americans, they decided to use live video to show people on the street what was so great about Canada. The live Twitter mural, showed a video stream of live tweets and photos coming in online from tourists currently on vacation in Canada. This is a video campaign taken to the extreme, as people could also interact with the live stream, clicking on certain tweets or enlarging images. It’s a great example of interactive video advertising, using real time content to let others do the talking for you.

Oprah on Skype

An interesting campaign using Skype here, which is rarely used in social media campaigns. Oprah (the one of talk show fame!) embarked on a live video campaign via Skype, with writer Eckhart Tolle who had just released her new book ‘Awakening to your life’s purpose’. The two held a live video class in which the book was discussed and key learnings disseminated for online viewers. The campaign was a significantly high profile use of Skype by mainstream media, showing the ability to integrate traditional and digital. What’s encouraging about this campaign though, is that while in this case it had the big budget of an international talkshow host, a video campaign like this is accessible no matter what size your budget. It’s about using a different site than you might normally consider, to encourage interaction in a new way.

Ashley Boo

When Rounds wanted to promote their video chat client for Facebook (which may now sadly be redundant thanks to Facebook’s own offering), they appropriately decided to use an innovative Facebook campaign to do so. They achieved this through the Ashley Boo Facebook profile, which starts off by looking like a normal Facebook profile, but is actually an interactive video app. Through the status update bar ‘what would you like to do together?’ you can enter in updates which trigger certain actions by Ashley. So if your update contains a trigger keyword such as ‘sleep’ , Ashley will fall asleep while a lullaby plays. A great example of an interactive video campaign.

Draw a Stick Man

A slightly different campaign here, that uses animated video. The website ‘draw a stick man’ was launched by a software company as a completely new way to promote themselves. The campaign is run via the ‘drawastickman.com’ microsite and takes user interaction to a new level. It also possibly the most fun you could have in 3 minutes online. The site takes people on a story using your own stick man you’ve drawn, who you then have to navigate through a series of challenges. For example when it starts raining you need to draw an umbrella to protect him. Though it may not be a video campaign in the ‘traditional’ sense, it uses animation to bring your creations to life instantly, showing the unique uses for digital video and how it can be used to entertain your fans.