Clicks Win Prizes

Us creative types never turn our noses up at the chance to create a visually stimulating campaign for  a sexy brand. In fact ThePeloton's team is busy producing one as we speak. However, our usually cold hearts were warmed by the news that Xerox and its agency Young & Rubicam had won a gong for its 'A World Made Simpler' campaign. They won the Grand Prix Content Award at the Braves - the Oscars of the branded video world - at a red carpet event in central London.

http://thebraveawards.com/winners/

Business video is often where the greatest challenge lies; how to create a compelling narrative around a seemingly dry subject. And subjects don't come much drier than photocopying. Amidst the more glamorous winners such as Hyundai and Sony, the Xerox film stands out as a great example of a good visual idea combined with strong storytelling with emotional resonance.

The film uses Xerox's iconic copier paper to build a narrative about how technology is making life simpler. Its marketing message is how Xerox has transformed itself from a copier company into a leading business service provider. To date, it's had over 650, 000 views on YouTube. Not bad for a business video on a dry subject that - unlike some of the other winners - clearly didn't have an astronomical budget.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEnRQAz2Fqg

So congrats to Xerox, a worthy winner. We'll never think of you as just a photocopying company again. See, it worked on me!

www.thepeloton.tv
adrian@thepeloton.tv

The Science of Social Video.

The viral video isn’t dead it’s just grown up a bit and been renamed ‘social video’. Social videos are proper content that engages audiences. They’re shared around because they’re so compelling. And the good news for brands is that they’re being consumed, enjoyed and shared despite being for used for marketing purposes.

 http://www.unrulymedia.com/blog/2012/6/28/social-video-lab-launch-brand-prevalence-has-no-negative-eff.html

Our good friends at Unruly Media are taking it so seriously that they’ve set-up the World’s first social video laboratory. Its ambition, no less, is to turn social video into a science. They intend to find out about what kinds of content is most likely to be shared and allow brands to predict the effectiveness of videos before they’ve invested in a campaign.

http://www.unrulymedia.com/news/2012/6/27/unruly-opens-worlds-first-social-video-lab.html

Well us shiny, happy Peloton people don’t get to wear white lab coats very often (which is a shame). But if we did, we’d tell brands to make stuff that’s visually stimulating, emotionally resonant and offers interactivity (and possibly a damn good tune).

An excellent example is the new BA ad campaign; Take a Plane Down Your Street. Firstly it asks you to enter your postcode. Then, using Google Street View, you can witness a BA jumbo jet going past your front window.

http://taxi.ba.com/

 It doesn’t take rocket science to see why it’s already become one of the UK’s most shared interactive video. It’s just a shame that you can’t watch it on your iPad. Watch this space for a major announcement on HTML5 and interactive video. 

Adrian@thepeloton.tv
www.thepeloton.tv

ThePeloton.tv; A Rallying Cry.

ThePeloton.tv were fortunate enough to film the B2B Marketing Summit this week. We have worked with the team at B2B Marketing for some time and jolly decent they are too.

While capturing wonderful content from various delegates extolling the virtues of their various marketing concepts, our business cards were being ripped out of our hands (at one point a fight broke out between up to 10 middle aged marketing managers, keen to get their hands on our contact details). B2B marketing is getting mighty keen on video.

We have been working in the B2B marketing sector for a couple of years and there lies the rub. We are always happy send over our recent work to new contacts which of course we will... really happy if it wasn't so...erm.....dull.

Now, please don't look upon this as a reflection on us. We try and push people to be more creative and spend a little more than we are usually offered as they will get better production values and a more engaging film by doing so. The B2B sector however is (fair enough) enormously budget conscious and often accepts the norm of getting some middle aged experts - some with tie, some without - to talk about their chosen topic.

It looks OK and is technically sound... it's just really boring. That's the problem, boring film = bored audience = little gain is made. Just because this has become the norm in the market, it doesn't mean this is what you should be doing.

Our rallying cry therefore is this: B2B marketing sector you can make great gains in thought leadership if you start getting more creative with your video (and that doesn't just mean infographics). Take a look at news and business TV channels. Similar features can be written and be highly thought provoking. Every business has an interesting story to tell and potentially beautiful pictures to go with it. Let's start telling the tales and using these pictures.

jon@thepeloton.tv
www.thepeloton.tv

Feeding the Family.. And their Subjects.

You are about to have 4 days off work, the country has turned extremely patriotic, the nation's high streets are a dazzling red, white and blue. So, when you have your friends around this weekend, what do you cook them? ThePeloton.tv's friend will be getting spaghetti bolognese as that's all we can cook.
But William Sitwell at John Brown has come up with a very classy alternative. He's been working with top chefs to develop the Jubilee dish for 2012, Jubilee salmon, click on the link below to see how to impress all and sundry. Naturally, the filming was carried out by ThePeloton.tv. The crew can vouch for the recipe, they got the chance to try it out for lunch.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJLfUkpCSU4

Content Connection

It is very apparent that brands, like Waitrose, are now content creators and they're distributing their stuff through YouTube channels, customer publishing, Facebook apps etc. What are publishers doing about this? Brands are now stepping into their space and, in more than a few cases, beating them to it. ThePeloton.tv wants to know more.... Can they live side by side? Will the user buy into branded content as independent? We think a gathering is needed to get to the bottom of this and we're going to host it. Clear your early September diaries, we'll be sending out invites soon

jon@thepeloton.tv
www.thepeloton.tv
 

The Peloton Visits Google

We are often asked to give our thoughts on digital video. It's mainly because we're really good looking and say things like zeitgeist.

No less than Google invited us into their offices and, of course, when Sergey and Larry ask (well kind of) who are we to thumb our noses. We were taken up to the best conference theatre we have ever been near and asked to take our seats (on our way, we walked through the canteen and someone was eating mussels in the staff canteen... And it was free, served by their own chef!!).

The great and good of the advertising industry made their way to their seats, high-fiving and piss-taking each other as they went. This was looking pretty scary.

Google has launched its new player technology that essentially allows users to view just the first few seconds of the pre-roll ad (the often overly long TV ad you get before content starts). We were asked to debunk the myth of TV advertising. Mostly about cost and the rest about process.

We reeled off examples of TV advertising producers charging oodles of lolly and then having no money to distribute and we generally cocked a snoop at some of the more outlandish extravagances that are not required when creating a digital video ad. Then we showed some of our perfectly formed but inexpensive ad work and aired some thoughts on how ads should be produced with the new Google technology in mind.

No-one hit us, no-one booed and all in all a thoroughly enjoyable time was had. (Adrian was the best, Matt talked too much and Jon, didn't really say anything of any use).

We still have the presentation somewhere. Get in touch if you would like a copy. Otherwise, we'll see you in Cannes xx

jon@thepeloton.tv 
www.thepeloton.tv

The Peloton and the B2B Marketing Summit

The Peloton will be filming the B2B Marketing Summit on June 14 at The Brewery in London. Why should you attend and what's it all about...well read on.

Social media marketing.

Do you know that you can generate an additional 18% of traffic to your website if you let customers share reviews of your products in social networks? Just one good review on Facebook can pull in 2.5 times more visitors than all ‘Likes’ collected per month.

Good feedback can do wonders for your business.

The latest research has revealed that positive reviews in social networks are the second most popular deciding factor to buy from you. One in three people are more likely to make an order after reading through good reviews of your brand whilst 38% still consider the price the most important criterion.  

It’s good to have bad feedback, too.

Surprisingly, a negative review is not as bad for your sales as you think. Seven out of 10 customers trust online reviews more if there’s both bad and good feedback available in social networks. Moreover, 38% tend to read only negative reviews of products before making a purchase and 95% will still buy a product or service despite negative feedback. And finally, what one B2B customer considers bad can be a positive thing for another one. You never know!

There’ll be a lot more valuable information on social media marketing at the B2B Marketing Summit held on June 14. The event will be filmed by the highly reputable ThePeloton.tv and is going to cover 4 hot topics: content marketing, social media, data insight and lead generation strategies. You can find more about the summit, presentations scheduled and bookings here at www.b2bmarketing.net/summit2012 . It’s time to go social! 

www.thepeloton.tv

adrian@thepeloton.tv

 

Paid for Comment, Part Fifteen.

It's all change in Publisherland.

We hot footed it over to the PPA Conference at the rather grey Hilton on a rather grey day to hear some thoughts, plans and tactics underway at some of the UK's leading magazine and digital publishers.

When listening to publishers you get the feeling that life hasn't been that kind to them over the last few years. You also get the feeling that they are (in general) trying to do something about it. Publishers have had to cope with revenue disappearing on both fronts - reader revenue and advertising revenue. This has led to heavy cost cutting and generally defensive measures. But this year there was a sense that if you did a good job you were likely to see the results.

Traditional publishers have generally been useless at riding the internet wave. They are stuck in a print model and find it difficult to break out of it. Last year there were one or two exceptions to this. This year that list has expanded.

The Economist talked about the rise of the intellectual trend and clever ways to reach them.
Haymarket and Dennis showed off some some jolly good apps.
And Future talked up the tablet.


We got the chance to interview some of the great and good at the PPA Conference. Here's the CEO of Future talking about the exciting challenge of creating video content.

We also finally heard from senior people that their teams are making branded content solutions and this was to be an important revenue generator. Hoo bloody rah. We've only been saying this for 3 years but there you go.

So as well as patting ourselves on the back for being right all along and generally quaffing as much wine as we could at the free bar, we left Bauer's Mark Frith to answer what his favourite TV programme is and wandered into the rain soaked streets of London with a realisation that Paid for Comment has done its job and it's time for a new series.

So keep an eye out for the first instalment of Video Click - it's all about interactive video don't you know.
jon@thepeloton.tv
www,thepeloton.tv