El Espectáculo de Sombras Chinescas Más Impresionante del Mundo

The world’s largest shadow puppet show – filmed at a live football match in Valencia.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The video is part of a Europe-wide integrated campaign that we’re seeding for the agency JWT to advertise Trident Gum. How does a video of giant shadow puppet chickens playing football advertise chewing gum? I hear you ask… Well the clip is just one of a whole bizarre series from The Pointless Collective, designed to spread the word that ‘chewing Trident Senses Gum is pointless yet fun’.

The campaign features a collection of films, events, quirky artwork and funny stories that follow the adventures of three masked super heroes as they come up with elaborate ways to bring pointless fun to the world. Check out their website and Facebook page if you want to read more about their various crazy escapades.

Diversity | Street Dance For Change

Now, any Britain’s Got Talent fans out there will remember the 2009 wining dance group, Diversity. Well they’ve teamed up with insurance firm Aviva to make the Street Dance For Change video as part of the Street to School programme, committed to raising awareness of the 100,000 young people who run away every year in the UK.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Through the initiative, Aviva are supporting street children projects in the UK and around the world, with the aim of helping half a million street children get back in to education or training by 2015. In the UK, their charity partner Railway Children is dedicated to supporting vulnerable children living alone on the streets, where they suffer abuse and exploitation.

If you fancy yourself as a bit of a ‘Mover-groover’ why not have a go and upload your own 30 second dance video, not only will Aviva donate £2 to the charity every time the video is watched but you might also be in for a chance to win tickets to Diversity’s 2012 tour and meet Diversity themselves!!

Check out the official Facebook page for more information on how you can get involved and watch some of the best uploaded dance clips.

This time we had some double feline battle action, with Meme-Master Meow up against Viral Kitty, in a fluffy cat-fight of YouTube awesomeness. Followed by Festival coordinator Rosie Fairchild taking us on a whistle-stop behind the scenes tour of the Bristol Cycle Festival.

With an amazing program of events ranging from guerrilla knitting, challenge rides and cycle speed dating to secret sing-a-long cinemas, the festival was brought to life with no budget by a whole host of dedicated volunteers, all passionate about the beautiful invention that is ‘the bike’.

And… we all got special stickers, did some roll play cycle games and wondered why Brit Eckland needed a bum-double in the famous wall banging scene of the Wicker Man!

Among the highlights from this week’s meme battle were Nonononononononon Cat, (I’m not quite sure what his problem is, but he definitely does NOT agree.)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Vs Jedi Kittens Strike Back (both cute and geeky, got to be a winning combo.)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Then over to the bizarre TV commercials – If you liked the Chuck Tester taxidermy ad that we featured in the viral chart rundown last week, then Cuban Gynecologist: Local Car Commercial, (another hilarious offering from comedy duo Rhett & Link), will be right up your street.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Vs the heavily parodied Flea Market Montgomery with a cameo on The Cleveland Show.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the ‘best journeys’ category we had the awe inspiring What Does It Feel Like To Fly Over Planet Earth Vs Gamer Commute, one man’s epic drive to work, (if only real life was that exciting!)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Finally, the Horsemanning song. Ever since the Planking phenomenon took off, the internet has been looking for ‘the new planking’. We’ve had Owling, Stocking, Cone-ing, Plumbking even Scarlett Johansson-ing! Well this little tune takes us through the art of Horsemanning.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So, who won the war? Drum roll please …

Da da da daaaaaaaah…. Congratulations to Viral Kitty!!! Yes it finally happened, Chris’s winning streak has been broken. Is Meme-Master-Meow loosing his touch? Let’s see if he can steal back his crown in the next battle.

Which brings us to our first exciting announcement… We’re planning a #KittenCamp Christmas spectacular on 14th December. Not only will we have a whole host of extra special guests, activities and prizes but we are moving to a new venue. Since we appear to have outgrown our lovely little space at Goldbrick House we are heading to pastures new and our Christmas party will be at the Big Chill Bar. Places will go fast so reserve your ticket now to avoid a sad face later!

Second exciting announcement…. There is now an official #KittenCamp Tumblr! We will be posting all kinds of fun clips and bits & bobs on there so keep an eye out, and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Meow for now!

YouTube is by far the most well established video-hosting platform on the market and with Google now including YouTube videos on their main search results pages, it’s essential to get the SEO right if you want your video to be noticed.

Over 13 million hours of video were uploaded to the site last year alone and competition for views is higher than ever, so we’ve put together a few handy tips on how to optimise your video to give it the best chance of being found…

1 – Titles & Descriptions:

Yes it sounds obvious but worth a mention, try and use as many relevant keywords as possible in your title as it’s the first thing people will read when skimming through search results.

It’s important to spend time writing the video description because it will show up both in YouTube and Google search listings. You should try and repeat relevant keywords again here, (being careful to avoid keyword stuffing). Remember that only the first few words will be shown in search results but keywords from the additional text will be detected and help make your video more easily searchable.

2 – Keywords:

Think carefully about the keywords that are most appropriate and do some research to find out what search terms are popular. YouTube have a handy Keyword Tool that allows you to view search volumes for individual words, analyse the demographics of people searching for them and generate suggestions. Avoid the temptation to include words simply because they are popular if they don’t have a direct relation to your video, it may result in an initial traffic boost but you will end up with high bounce rates which will tell YouTube to make your content less visible.

3 – Video Thumbnail:

Choosing a good thumbnail image for your video can dramatically increase the chances of it standing out. We’ve all heard of the expression ‘judging a book by its cover’ and rightly or wrongly that’s exactly what people do on YouTube. When presented with a list of thumbnail video images, viewers tend to skim down the first page and pick those with the most striking pictures.

After uploading your video you will have 3 thumbnails to choose from. These images are not randomly selected but calculated on fixed positions within your clip so it’s possible to manipulate the video to control your options.

You can calculate the exact position of your thumbnails by following the equation below…

X = Video length (in seconds)

Y = X divided by 4

Y is the 1st thumbnail.

2 x Y is the 2nd thumbnail

3 x Y is the 3rd thumbnail.

If you find that a bit too much to think about in advance you can always tweak your video directly in YouTube and see how your edits effect the thumbnail images selected.

4 – Links:

Google will use the number of links to your video to determine its position in the search rankings, so you should create links everywhere you can. Use your website, write comments with links on relevant blogs, you can even build up links within YouTube itself by creating video responses to other relevant clips, (again be careful not to over do this or it might be identified as spam). Don’t forget to leverage social media sites and post regular updated links on Twitter, Facebook and other services and make sure you enable embedding so other people can post your video on their sites.

A really good way to boost the number of links to your video is to use a seeding service like the Viral Ad Network which will distribute your video and links across hundreds of blogs encouraging the viral sharing effect to really get your clip noticed!

5 – Be aware of user signals:

YouTube want to keep viewers engaged with its content, so in order to make the most relevant videos more easily searchable it uses an algorithm that tracks user interaction.

It’s worth keeping in mind some of the following signals that it takes into account…

It may sound obvious but the best way for companies to leverage Facebook as a social platform is to share fun, compelling content that keeps their fans engaged and encourages them to share with others. We’ve worked with brands to help promote a variety of games, interactive campaigns and competitions all designed to build their fan base and encourage consumer loyalty and one great way for organisations to get their Facebook page noticed is to create a teaser video about it to drive traffic through to the website.

BMB recently created a behind the scenes video to promote the launch of a Facebook competition by Pretty Polly inviting members of the public to send in their photo entries and vote for the person that they thought should represent the brand as the new ‘Legs 11’.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We seeded the video to a UK audience targeting specialist female interest and fashion sites, the clip received 49,210 views on YouTube and was a great way to raise awareness of the competition and encourage people to take part.

The interesting thing about Facebook competitions is that they change the motivations behind getting involved. Aside from the obvious incentive of the potential prize on offer they also give people the chance to share a bit about them selves with like-minded people and have their say on what other people are up to.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Walker Media created a short clip to promote a fun competition for Panasonic that asked people to upload photos and videos of themselves and their friends having fun in the summer in exchange for the chance to win £5000. Fans were then given the chance to view all the submissions and vote for their favourite, giving people an extra incentive to encourage friends to join in and vote for their pictures. The competition got 4,718 fans and the video received 146,205 views on YouTube.

If you are thinking about planning a Facebook campaign you might want to check out this article from Social Media Examiner on the Top 10 Facebook Pages and why they are successful.

Read it, it’s good!

You may also have seen a giant ice cream cone wondering about… there will be exciting antics happening on 11th -12th August so if you are based in Bristol or London keep an eye out on twitter for the great #icecreamcrawl – details to follow soon!

Kicking off with my personal favourite clip of the evening and with just shy of 32 million views and counting, already a viral classic – ‘Cat mom hugs baby kitten’

Click here to view the embedded video.

(Aw super cute!)

Followed by the latest Masterchef Synesthesia – ‘Buttery biscuit base’…

Then, Fabio Vs Mustafa – we were wondering what Old Spice were going to do next and when Fabio popped up online I have to admit I was slightly disappointed but Proctor & Gamble have stepped up the pace with an epic war of words – starting with Fabio’s latest dual challenge…

To which Mustafa responded with…

The challenge is on!

Now, we’ve all heard of ‘Planking’, then we heard that ‘Cone-ing’ was the new planking, well apparently the latest craze to hit the net is ‘Owling’ – crouching in various different locations pretending to be, um.. an owl – enough said!

Other highlights include, ‘Kids react to Nyan Cat’…

and the rather bizar Clark Retirement Community LipDub…

Finally, with a 3-2 score in the LOL battle, this month’s Standing Cat Award went to … Meme Master Meow!! – try harder next time puppy!

Don’t forget to join our #KittenCamp Facebook fan page to see more pictures and keep up to date with the latest news and follow us @viraladnetwork to find out about the great #icecreamcrawl!

Promoting tourism, like many other services is all about selling intangible experiences and video is a really effective way to capture consumer imagination. Customers are more likely than ever to research their travel and leisure options online before making a decision and what better way to wet the appetite than offer them a window into all the wonders the destination has to offer.

This video that we seeded for the agency DraftFCB shows that you don’t even have to picture the location to plant the idea that maybe it’s time for a holiday!

Click here to view the embedded video.

With a targeted media spend of £25,000 the clip received 213,476 views through the Viral Ad Network and has now reached almost 250,000 YouTube hits and counting. The video was placed on over 50 selected sites across the network with UK geo-targeting, sharable social buttons and a click through link to the campaign microsite.

Social Sharing…

The great thing about using a seeding service to give your video the initial push is that once people start to notice it the organic spread will happen naturally as it’s shared across social networks and it moves higher up the search ranking. The video has already been shared nearly 1,000 on Facebook.

Just a small push…

You don’t always need to have a big budget to get your video off the ground. This video produced by Consolidated PR for Tourism Ireland  is a great example of a low cost promotion. With a seeding budget of £4,000 the clip received 51,098 targeted UK views through the Viral Ad Network and a click through conversion rate of 2.25% and now has over 64,000 views on YouTube.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What about a video series?

Sometimes a great way to pique a viewers interest is to offer them a collection of clips so if they enjoy one they’ll naturally click next to see more. With a budget of just £1k The Viral Ad Network seeded a series of 3 short clips for the Western Austrailian Tourist Board, show casing the countries beautiful landscapes and underwater activities including this awesome video of Purnululu National Park. Collectively these videos have now had nearly 66,000 views and continue to be shared across social networking channels.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In collaboration with JWT and other agencies, we’re doing our bit to spread the message and help the situation in Japan. The video is now live on the Viral Ad Network, and we’d really appreciate it if you could share the video in any way you can – tweet, post to Facebook, blog – every little helps.

When planning a viral video campaign and associated seeding activity, we think YouTube provides the perfect home for content. Don’t just take our word for it – 94 of Advertising Age’s top 100 agencies have run YouTube based campaigns.

Here’s what we feel makes YouTube the perfect platform:

- People are familiar and comfortable with it. Whether on YouTube.com itself, or viewing an embedded video elsewhere, people know what to expect when they click “play”. Removing any element of doubt should increase willingness to engage with the content.

- It’s easy to share. YouTube make it very simple for people to share links or embed the content on their own sites. This promotes natural sharing and spreading of content which is key to viral success.

- It allows discussion. The ability to easily comment means you’re able to gauge audience sentiment (good or bad).

- There’s a strong link with social media. Being able to quickly tweet or share to Facebook maximises the reach of the content. It’s worth noting that on average, 46.2 years of YouTube video is watched on Facebook per day, and a single tweet sharing the video results in an average of 7 new YouTube.com sessions.

- Content is viewable on a variety of devices, including mobile (crucially on iPhones and iPads).

- You can track campaign performance easily. Not only with the obvious increases in view count, but with the insight YouTube provides.

- Channels allow you to build a branded experience, building loyal subscribers over time.

- Even when bought media (seeding) promotion ends, the content remains on YouTube for people to search and view with no hosting costs, increasing long term value of the activity.

By using a version of YouTube’s syndicated player, the Viral Ad Network is able to harness the advantages of the platform to add real value to advertiser campaigns. Check out our example ad units here to get a better idea of how it works.

Facts and figures from Website Monitoring.