Putting YouTube to Work

I'm often asked how to integrate Web 2.0 opportunities such as YouTube into marketing programs. YouTube is a tantalizing distribution channel, reaching millions around the world. But it's also an unruly universe of user-generated content that's hard to steer in a specific direction, and the highly diverse audience requires further segmentation to deliver much value. Making the most of YouTube and its Web 2.0 peers is a tough challenge, but one that marketers must solve to capitalize on the opportunities offered by today's technology.

I recently came across a great advertising campaign that camps onto the YouTube phenomenon in some smart ways. It's a good case history in marketing via web 2.0.

Last year Freixenet, the Spanish sparkling wine manufacturer, working with mega ad agency JWT, hired renowned film director Martin Scorsese to make a nine-minute commercial couched as a film within a film. Titled "The Key to Reserva," it's an homage to/spoof of Alfred Hitchcock movies. Scorsese worked with friends on the project and seems to be having fun...plus he was no doubt well paid. In any case, one of the things that makes the concept work so well on YouTube is an exclusivity that closely maps to Freixenet's target demographic. People who would gravitate toward a Scorsese/Hitchcock video are an urbane lot who may well enjoy sparkling wine. It's a lot easier to extract needles from the haystack with a powerful magnet.

Note that Freixenet could have make the same investment in another top director, say Steven Spielberg, who might have drawn an even larger YouTube following. But quantity could come at the price of quality, with viewers who were unlikely to buy Freixenet while potential customers stayed on the sidelines, not sufficiently motivated to watch the film. A tight match between content and audience is essential to uncovering value in the YouTube distribution channel.

Freixenet and JWT did some other things right. Viewers remain engaged with the brand for more than nine minutes, a huge amount of time compared to conventional 30- or 60-second spots. The choice of a suspenseful Hitchcock-like format almost guarantees the audience will remain glued to their monitors for the full run time. The film doesn't feel like a commercial; the Freixenet brand is mentioned but downplayed until the end. The "Hitchcock" portions are full of rich details that satisfy even the most avid Hitchcock buff. And YouTube's social focus makes it easy to share the video with friends who have similar tastes, driving the "virality" so highly prized by online marketers.

Bottom line, it's easy to label a splashy marketing effort like "The Key to Reserva" as a stunt, but in this case it's an example online marketers can learn from. New media require new methods. As Alex Martinez, an executive at JWT Spain who worked on the project, put it: "We wanted to produce something that would be pure entertainment, something that was true to our philosophy that it's not enough now to 'buy' audience time--we need to create advertising that the audience chooses to spend time with."

Kudos to Freixenet and JWT for some creative ideas that expand our thinking about new ways to reach audiences and build brands in the world of Web 2.0. And now, have a look at "The Key to Reserva":