Move over Old Spice, Tippex has taken on the viral video advertising mantle. And while the new campaign doesn’t use social networking as the source of inspiration, it uses YouTube to its full potential.
Viral Video Advertising
Companies are becoming increasingly keen on using video technology and the viral nature of the Web to sell their products.
Viral video has the power to spread across the Internet at a rate of knots, with embeds and linking via social networking sites disseminating the message to all corners of the Web.
Some firms have taken a subtle approach, hiding the brand or product away somewhere. Others, meanwhile, have taken the more direct approach, putting the company name or product center stage.
From Old Spice To Tippex
Old Spice is the most recent, and possibly most famous of these campaigns. Over the course of several days in July, a team of producers worked with the Old Spice Guy Isaiah Mustafa to create videos on the fly in response to tweets and updates, mainly by celebrities.
Now Tippex has launched its new video campaign on YouTube. The ingenious ads begin with a video titled ‘NSFW. A hunter shoots a bear!’, which then offers viewers a choice of whether to shoot the bear or not.
Whichever option is chosen, the viewer is taken to a new YouTube page. The hunter Tippexes out “shoots” and invites you to fill in the space. Depending on what word is added, a video is played showing that course of action.
While not all the possible inputs are covered, many are. Which means there are dozens of videos which can be watched, all of which subtly advertise Tippex.
Conclusions
The Tippex campaign hasn’t yet gained as much attention as the Old Spice one, but both show that viral video is a strong weapon in a company or brand’s advertising arsenal in this day and age when we live a substantial part of our lives online.
