YouTube Breaks Its Mold

“Best page takeover ever!”

“This is an idea that I would have said, ‘It will never work!’”

“One of the most brilliant pieces of digital marketing I have ever seen.”

These are just a few of the quotes I heard from friends who forwarded me a link to YouTube’s viral video takeover in support of Nintendo’s new game, Wario Land.  Check it out here and then return to this blog for further analysis….

Pretty cool, huh? Let’s delve into the Meaning and Marketing benefits.

In terms of Meaning, you have to start with the fact that Nintendo selected a media platform that is entirely dedicated to consumer engagement. People viewed nearly 5 billion videos on YouTube alone in July 2008.  People choose to go to YouTube mainly for bite-sized entertainment during their day. They are looking for entertainment, and the medium is successful in part because it does not force viewers to sit through interruptive commercials. Thus, the only way for marketers to win in this channel is to create entertainment that people find valuable. And we can easily measure the consumer value - and to a certain extent the business impact - of YouTube creative by counting the number of views of brand videos. Dove’s Evolution video has more than 10 million views combined, but this controversial Snickers ad only has about 400,000 views. You can’t buy YouTube viewers - rather, you’ve got to create work that people find worth watching.

To date, YouTube has been mainly used by marketers to host viral videos and consumer generated video contests. But this Nintendo work breaks the mold and shows great promise for the marketing on this still-new channel. Many viewers likely come to the page initially because of an interest in video games, the Wii and the Mario series specifically. But all are rewarded with a surprising, fun concept that is executed flawlessly.

We cannot see the business impact for sure, but it looks promising so far. In terms of number of views, on Wednesday, 9/24, the site had 500,000 views, and a day later it was at 1.1 million. The ad unit iself is generating free press coverage. Game marketing is a lot like movie marketing - the initial buzz and opening sales are critical to long-term success. We’ll have to track how it performs, but this is a great head start.

My one negative comment on this example is that I don’t think it’s scalable. It works as a one-hit wonder for Nintendo, but will the next YouTube takeover be as surprising or fun? And imagine the work it takes the YouTube team to both dream up this idea and execute it on their system. When you have to make a cool creative idea every time (rather than just sell mass eyeballs), it becomes a lot harder for both YouTube to sell and clients to buy.

That said, I feel more bullish on YouTube as a digital marketing professional, and I feel that both the Nintendo AND YouTube brands have provided a special experience for me.  Bring on the next one, guys.