The page updates throughout the day to show the latest videos by views.

Stay tuned as well add more content providers.

The following is a brief excerpt, read the full article, Video Marketing 101, or their blog entry, “Web Video Marketing 101: TubeMogul Formula - or at Least Best Practices“.

Like everything else, there is no “free lunch” - the video-sharing sites don’t charge to host your content, but getting your target audience to watch and forward your video is no easy feat. That’s where we come in. Since we are tracking videos across the major video-sharing and social networking sites, we know a thing or two about what works and what doesn’t.

“Secret Formula” - .5C + 15.M + .20T + .15P = Success

50% C = Content and Production - this is storyline, style lightning, production, etc.
15% M = Metadata - the text title, keywords, descriptions, and categories that help people find your video
20% T = Thumbnail - the packaging which draws people in when displayed on the page
15% P = promotion - just good old fashioned marketing

Read the full article, Video Marketing 101.

In their own words:

TubeMogul is the first online video analytics and distribution company serving publishers large and small who need independent information about video performance on the Internet and automated upload to the Web’s top video sharing sites.

TubeMogul’s analytic technology aggregates video-viewing data from multiple sources to give publishers improved understanding of when, where and how often videos are watched, track and compare what’s hot and what’s not, measure the impact of marketing campaigns, gather competitive intelligence, and share the data with colleagues or friends.

In addition to reading the articles, you can rate them and comment on them.

This contest boasts huge clout for your demo reel and massive exposure, thanks to the opportunity to showcase your video in a national commercial during the 2008 Rose Parade® in Pasadena!

Oh, did we mention that the Rose Parade® coverage pulls in approximately 37 million viewers?

Download the music now to get started (choose from 5 available mixes, or compose your own) at http://www.memelabs.com/CenterStage and be the first to get your video up.

Originally posted at: http://www.memelabs.com/about/5-best-executed-viral-marketing-campaigns.html

5 Best Executed Viral Marketing Campaigns

Following up to the post I wrote about the 5 Worst Executed Viral Marketing Campaigns, I thought that I’d put together a post of the 5 Best. Enjoy.

5. LOLcats

Over the past year the LOLcat has sprung up all over the internet, now I know that this is technically an internet meme not a viral marketing campaign, but how could I resist including this on the list - its cute pictures of little kitty cats. Mix cute pictures of cats with funny poor – but phonetically correct – grammar and you have a LOLcat. They have become so popular and ubiquitous, that they even have their own facebook application. Bask in the following LOLcat cuteness.

Here are a couple of links to websites that are devoted to LOLcats, the last one lets you create your own LOLcat (warning: going to these websites will seriously reduce you productivity at work - don’t say you weren’t warned)
I Can Haz Cheezburger

LOLcats

LOLcat Generator

4. Mentos/Diet Coke – Geyser Video Contest

This actually started off as an internet meme and not a marketing contest by either Coke or Mentos. It all came about as a science demonstration when someone dropped several Mentos into a two liter of Diet Coke and filmed the subsequent reaction. This video made its way around the internet and tons of imitation videos began to pop up. In reaction to the wild success these videos were having on the internet – Mentos decided to cash in on this success and set up the Mentos Geyser Video Contest. The contest hosted on YouTube in conjunction with a contest microsite. The contest received 126 entries and had almost 2000 members. The contest was an unqualified success.

3. Smirnoff – Tea Partay

After the LOLcats, this is by my favorite entry on this list. In order to promote their two new tea coolers, Smirnoff created a series of videos that parodies stereotypical rich white kids and plays on the East Coast – West Coast rap rivalry that existed in the 90’s. The result is two of the funniest videos that I’ve watched in a while. I’ve watched each of these videos at least half a dozen times each, and passed them on to countless friends, and each time I am as thoroughly amused as the first time I watched it.

Smirnoff has set up a campaign microsite that allows you to watch the videos and has included links associated contests and information about the two new products. The videos, which have been uploaded to YouTube, have both received over 3 million views.

2. Dove – Evolution Video

The Dove Evolution video is part of the companies larger Campaign for Real Beauty. The video is a time lapse of what it takes to create the images of women that we see in magazines everyday. Dove uploaded the video to YouTube and to date it has received over more than 4 million views. After they uploaded the video, and it started making its way around the internet, their campaign website received triple the traffic that they received after their Super Bowl commercial the previous year.

The video became such a large internet phenomenon, that it crossed over to main stream media and was featured on the Ellen Show and The View. At one point, according to Technorati, it was amongst the top 15 most linked to videos.

1. Blendtec – Will it Blend?

The entire premise behind the Blendtec Will it Blend video series is ingenious. I can just imagine the brainstorming session that the company had when they came up with this idea. I’d imagine that it went something like this:

K, we have a really powerful blender and need to sell it, but we don’t have any money available for advertising. Hey I’ve got an idea lets put things that no one in their right mind would blend, film it, and upload it to YouTube. Brilliant idea lets do it.

Now at most companies this idea would have been tossed out immediately, but the marketing people at Blendtec are not your average in-house marketing team. This is why they have been able to become on of the most popular video channels on YouTube, have tons of subscribers, and have had millions of people view their video…all for almost zero cost. Below is a selection of some of my favorite Blendtec videos. Sit back and enjoy (oh yeah and don’t try any of them at home).

As if the campaign videos were not funny enough, after they blended an electronic item, the guys at Blendtec decide to try and return the item - and they video taped the attempt.

Originally posted at: http://www.memelabs.com/about/5-worst-executed-viral-marketing-campaigns.html

5 Worst Executed Viral Marketing Campaigns

5. Starbucks – Free Coffee Promotion

In August 2006, Starbucks sent an email coupon for a free iced coffee to their employees in the Southeast United States and asked them to forward it to their friends and family. Now this was not intended to be a viral marketing campaign, but that’s what it became when they chose to use the internet as their marketing medium. Within hours, the coupon had spread across the internet and reached a much larger audience than Starbucks had originally intended (I received one that day and I live in Canada and was quite looking forward to my tasty free iced coffee).

The problem arose when Starbucks decided that they were not going to honour the coupons. Instead of taking the opportunity to build good will with their client base and introduce new consumers to their product, they issued the following response:

An email offering a free Starbucks iced coffee was distributed to a limited group of Starbucks partners (employees) in the Southeast United States on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 with instructions to forward to their group of friends and family. Unfortunately, it has been redistributed beyond the original intent and modified beyond Starbucks control. Effective immediately, this offer will no longer be valid at any Starbucks locations.

We apologize for any confusion and inconvenience as a result of this offer.
In response to this marketing blunder, a Starbucks competitor, Caribou Coffee announced that they would honour the now defunct coupons – a much better response than the one put forth by Starbucks. I have no doubt that loyal Starbucks customers, as I am one, will forgive and forget, but I have to wonder how many occasional and new customers they lost due to this customer relation disaster.

4. Malibu Banana Boat – Youtube Video Contest

This campaign makes the list not because the campaign itself was bad; in fact it got a lot of very good entries, received very good website traffic, and in general created a really good level of interest in the campaign. The campaign asked for people to create a video advertisement for the new product launch with a $25,000 prize or a banana grove in a tropical locale for the winning entry (http://www.youtube.com/MalibuBanana).

The problem occurred when the company decided the winner of the video contest. The company said that it would take into consideration the votes that the videos received on YouTube along in conjunction a panel of judges. When the winner was announced however, the company did not publicly give a list of finalists. This caused many of the contestants to claim that the contest was rigged – one contestant went so far as to create a conspiracy video about the contest. This lack of judging transparency took a really good video campaign and mired it in controversy.

3. Resident Evil – T- Virus

Prior to the release of the new Resident Evil video game, CE Europe launched an advertising campaign to pique people’s interest in its upcoming release. Text messages were sent to people’s cell phones with a cryptic message that referred to a plot component of the video game. These messages were being sent from the campaign website designed to promote the game, in which players defend themselves against zombies by shooting their heads off with a shotgun. The website allowed for the unsolicited text messages to be sent to peoples cell phones claiming that their phone was infected - done without the permission of the phone’s owner. A typical text message is below:

Outbreak: I’m infecting you with t-virus, my code is ******. Forward this to 60022 to get your own code and chance to win prizes. More at t-virus.co.uk

What better way to promote your new game launch than freaking out your target demographic by making them think that their cell phone has been infected with a virus. Since this was not an opt-in advertising campaign, the recipients of the text messages had no way of knowing that this was an advertising ploy for a video game.

2. Chevy Apprentice– Create and Ad

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time, when Chevy and The Apprentice TV show teamed up to promote the new Chevy Tahoe. They set it up so that visitors to the website could create their own advertisement for the Chevy Tahoe. The campaign website allowed users to take stock footage and insert their own captions.

The concept as a whole is not bad, the problem occurred when people uploaded the ads; it went live without anyone reviewing them. Well you can just imagine what came next…

The best part was the brilliant marketing team at Chevy left the less that complimentary videos up on the site for everyone to see.

1. Sony’s – All I want for Christmas is a PSP

And the title of worst viral campaign goes to Sony’s – All I want for Christmas is a PSP. I don’t even know where to begin on where this campaign went so terribly, terribly wrong. Sony started what could have been an incredibly effective marketing campaign leading into the busy Christmas season; instead they ended up alienating their target market and making themselves look like a joke and treated their consumer like idiots.

First, they set up a fake website pretending to be PSP fanboy’s, produced a video with a cringe-inducing rap and follow this up with fake comments praising their campaign. The website has since been pulled down, but below is the website copy and the video that Sony posted to YouTube:

here’s the deal::: i (charlie) have a psp. my friend jeremy does not. but he wants one this year for xmas.

so we started clowning with sum not-so-subtle hints to j’s parents that a psp would be teh perfect gift. we created this site to spread the luv to those like j who want a psp!

consider us your own personal psp hype machine, here to help you wage a holiday assault on ur parents, girl,

granny, boss — whoever — so they know what you really want.

we’ll let you know how it works for us. pls return the favor.

more to come,
c&j.

I don’t know about you, but I think I just threw up a bit in my mouth. This campaign is just over the top. Here is the video that some gamers put together in response to the failed campaign.

Once they had been busted, Sony followed up with an apology for the marketing stunt that went oh so wrong. The apology isn’t any better than the actual campaign. To me this wreaks the same way that the campaign that started it all did - insincere, but don’t take my word for it, here is a copy of the apology that Sony issued.

Busted. Nailed. Snagged. As many of you have figured out (maybe our speech was a little too funky fresh???), Peter isn’t a real hip-hop maven and this site was actually developed by Sony. Guess we were trying to be just a little too clever. From this point forward, we will just stick to making cool products, and use this site to give you nothing but the facts on the PSP.

Did they not learn their lesson the first time around? A simple contrite apology would have gone much further than the one the company issued. Personally, if I’d been busted for being a poser and poorly imitating youth pop culture; I would avoid using phrases like “Busted. Nailed. Snagged.” and “too funky fresh”.

In their own words:

Memelabs is a consumer- and audience-driven tool combining the powerful, contagious, targeted force of online viral video marketing with the dynamic, inspired interactivity of a fast-paced online contest. As a platform, viral has become a hotbed for targeted promotions, as evidenced by the fact that the phenomenon is proliferating at an exponential rate. Memelabs maintains active with new trends and applications keeping the platform as user-friendly and interactive as possible.

We added a new resources page to list tools and services to help content creators.

Check it out here: http://www.ugcdb.com/resources/