Video-Campaigning 2.0

Here is what looks like the English translation of this post (in German) from a blog on video work for NGOs.

• Interactive (web 2.0)
• Personalised
• Live and Direct
• User Generated Content (UGC)
• Multichannel and Crossover

An example for an interactive video campaign from the “Düsseldorfer Kindertafel”, an organisation which provides the appr. 16000 children from poor families in Düsseldorf with a daily meal:

Watch Your Web An awareness raising campaign by the German Ministry for Family, Elderly, Women, and Youth and the "IJAB - Fachstelle für Internationale Jugendarbeit der Bundesrepublik Deutschland e.V" on personal privacy on the internet.

One of the campaign clips may be personalised and then send to a friend - with her name within the clip. That is a feature used in the USA for a couple of years (e.g. MomsRising).

This campaign was able to generate a six digits click rate - which was mainly due to extensive seeding and use of official channels like ministries and educational facilities.

• Know-How: Using Adobe Flash or free-ware programmes you may insert click-buttons and other interactive elements into a clip which then link, e.g., to other videos. Youtube does support this functionality, other players may need additional plugins.

• Commercial: Find some personalised commercials and non-commercials: The 7 Best Viral Interactive(!) Video Campaigns of All Times.

• Creativity: BooneOakley, probably the first website consisting entirely of interactive videos on Youtube.

Oxfam Trailwalk as Livestream on the Internet

OxfamGermany broadcasted the 30 hour 100km trailwalk ¹⁾ as livestream via webcams. Another example of live broadcasting for political purposes was the GreenAction²⁾ stream out of the main station in Stuttgart.

• Know-How: Almost every webcam is capable of generating a livestream using free-ware like Adobe Media Live Encoder. Platforms such as Livestream.com offer free hosting/streaming though they are not very flexible. Other livestreaming provider come at a cost of about 100 EUR per day.
• Commercial: Skype send a guy named Rob out in the wild where he camped next to a phone box. Viewers were asked to call that guy using Skype.
• Creativity: Skype's idea is great - it also adds a personalised and interactive experience to the project.

An example of “user generated content”: 24 hours of Darfur (2007)

As early as 2007 was UGC used for campaigning (Darfur). Later on, US-President Obama used it in his election campaign. Today UGC is a common tool of most political and NGO campaigning - as was demonstrated recently by regime changes in North Africa.

A study by digital markets researchfirm comScore, Inc., found in 2010 that UGC has reached the effectiveness of professionally produced TV ads. ³⁾. Furthermore, about 40 % of marketers in the US planned in 2010 to make use of consumer generated video ads in their campaigns ⁴⁾.

The rules are, however, somewhat different: UGC is not so easy to control in a top-down approach, users are not that easy to exploit. Thus, every successful campaign has to see the user as part of it and has to blend in the users every-day, real life experiences accordingly.

There are three common ways of including user generated videos in a campaign:

• Contests
• Personal Forwarding/Greetings
• Witness Reports

More Examples

• Negative example: The campaign for cosmetic brand “Dove”⁵⁾ (by Unilever), introduced by starlet Sara Ramirez.
• Positive example: German Rapper Thomas D. crowdsourced together with German Telco giant “Deutsche Telekom” “million voices” for a remix of “7 seconds”. 11.200 people participated the voices of which were then re-mixed by Thomas D ⁶⁾.

The way ahead:

• Livestreams in Facebook pages
• Link online videos with offline campaigns (see, e.g., above the campaign of “Düsseldorfer Kindertafel”)

Video & Augmented reality: Frauennotruf Nürnberg

WWF-Tiger-Campaign The World Wildlife Fund created augmented reality t-shirts in an effort to raise awareness of the threat that poachers pose to Siberian tigers. When people in trendy clothing stores in Moscow tried on the shirts in front of mirrors, the mirrors displayed images of the wearer getting shot in the chest ⁷⁾⁸⁾.