The “Contrexperience” video shows a tidy row of purple stationary bicycles in the middle of an unknown French city. Slowly, a crowd of women takes enough interest to try out the bicycles. The first woman only sees a purple neon line, but as more women join and begin pedaling, the neon strips form a well–built 2D animated man doing a strip–tease. As the excitement increases, they realize that the faster they pedal, the faster he sheds his clothing. Visibly tired-out by this impromptu workout, the women reach down and find by each cycle a bottle of the Contrexperience calcium-enhanced water.
Now showing the water bottles next to the bikes is great brand integration. But why has this video gone viral when so many other stripper based videos sit unwatched? Maybe it’s partially due to the fact that flash mobs are very popular. In fact this video caught my interest simply because I thought it was a flash mob, then was surprised when I realized it was an ad. Despite this switch in my expectation, I found myself enjoying the video.
Following the comments on youtube, it seems that this video has traveled family and social networks worldwide several times over. It is quickly being passed along from girlfriend to girlfriend, as well as also among family members. However, the comments also reveal a backlash developing. It has sparked a lively conversation between two camps: women who love the video and find it funny and even in one case “inspiring them to work out”, followed by protests from women who find this kind of sexuality “droll” and “going against everything women fought for all those decades ago.” What I find most interesting is that by sharing their disdain, the offended are driving up views and repeat comments. In short, they are driving some of the campaign’s virality.
This might be one way that marketers can drive attention to online videos. At a company with whom I worked with many years ago, when our numbers were down, some of the staff would go into the comment boards and post inflammatory and somewhat borderline sexist comments to inspire conversation. In every instance of this kind of comment spiking that I saw, we had a corresponding increase in comments and page views. Seemingly, these negative comments led to a much stronger following than using positive messages.
The kind of attention that is being paid to the Contrexperience video, should also be driving sales–at least that is the hope of any online video marketer. According to Reuters.com Nestle owned Contrex (the company that manufactures Contrexperience), did raise their sales goals in October. Is that a sign that the online video is working? No one can say for certain and even the best advertising metrics have a hard time directly coordinating video views with sales. That is partially because some marketers pay syndication agencies to artificially drive up page views, thereby polluting any sales data that might be drawn from a video’s perceived virality.
Whether you love it or hate it, if you gauge this video by only the number of views, its a success. No, I don’t believe this video is a worldwide hit merely because of the stripper. It’s success is owed to a combination of the video’s creative storytelling, lack of language barriers and, of course, the sexuality and humor. Sounds like a winning template to me.
If I wasn’t almost-totally against the idea of bottled water, this would work for me (i do occasionally cave if it’s the only thing around that isn’t soda). I’m also not usually a fan of strippers, male or female, but this was done tastefully enough that I think anyone–however prudish–can appreciate it (It’s not like you are actually watching a strip show). Totally cool idea.
I agree with you on the Language barrier thing. With a self explanatory story line, the controversy can be discussed in every country. What I’m really getting here is the effectiveness of creating just enough controversy for people to start talking. The old saying “Any kind of publicity is good publicity” never ceases to fail. I think that part of the “Internet viral video” template is to take advantage of the 3 minutes you have to develop a commercial, as opposed to the 30 seconds you have on television. If you’ve kept a viewer around for that long (probably because your commercial is more interesting than something they would have seen on TV) then they are probably more likely to take an extra 10 seconds to link the video onto another social media website.
Even though this ad looks like a bunch of actors, I like that viral videos are still trying the spur-of-the-moment thing (like the T-Mobile ‘Angry Birds Live’ ad – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzIBZQkj6SY). The “real life” effect is starting to feel a little like a re-run though, just like flash mobs are kind of petering out. You have to wonder, is the life span of a cool viral video idea getting shorter and shorter with each idea?
A good viral video is the integration of a great storytelling , a controversial topic and successfully reaching its target customer. Personally,I think this video fits the standard.Like Sam said,people would like to spend 3 mins to see an interesting online video but not to give a glance at a lame 30 seconds TV commercial. But in my opinion, the role of viral video is to spread the product’s awareness among people.It especially works for those new ones, since it’s the most efficient and comparatively economical method. But I don’t think it will lead to trigger purchasing that much. It depends on how long will the effectiveness of the viral video last as well as the nature of the product itself.
I love this video! I think it’s a great idea to engage your customer in a place that is familiar to them. Whether or not the people in the video or actors or not, it feels like this would be easy enough for an ad agency to pull off and leave it up to strangers to discover.
While, I am not personally able to purchase the water because it’s in another country, I remember the name and know that they are ultimately selling bottled water. I will also remember the company as a fun, clever, and active brand.
A fun video that was recently shared with me doesn’t have as many hits and was made by a customer and not the company is the REI Match Test video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8BY6AbHL9w). This video goes on for over minute with proof that these matches won’t turn off. This may or may not drive sales, but I think it speaks to the quality of the product and eventually leading the customer to trust the overall brand.
As always, if the story is great and it makes people smile the crowds will come! Wether it a video on youtube or a TV commercial on NBC – great advertising is great advertising. I am sure this might have been a topic for discussion around the water cooler had it just been aired on TV. So I guess the question really is – does it sell more product just because its defined as viral video as opposed to a TV commercial? We all know about the product now – but can we buy it if we aren’t French – so from the marketers point of view what use are we? The Old Spice Campaign worked not only because of the videos bit because of the smart way social media was used to engage with an audience beyond the original idea. It would be interesting to know if there was any other activity to support the commercial (which is what it is).
I thought this was very funny and light-hearted. I can understand that stripping may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but the way it was executed was discreet and harmless. I can see why it was so successful. While unique, it leveraged much of the Old Spice format. This shares a great story in a very unexpected way. Even though this was served up to me via Maren’s post – I had not seen this video before – the quality was such that it kept my attention. It didn’t come off as a commercial, but much more spontaneous like a flashmob. It would be interesting to find out about the campaign as a whole and what other activities contributed to its success.
I was thinking along the lines of what Patrick said also. Although this commercial is entertaining and helped me learn about an international product that I would have never heard about otherwise, I am curious about what other legs this campaign has. Doing a quick search, I didn’t really come up with any extensions. I wonder how long the virability for this video will last.
I did, however, find on Contrex’s website that their products are sold in France, Switzerland, Germany, the Czech and Japan. So doing a video that speaks to the international language (of women enjoying a [2d] strip tease) seems like a pretty brilliant plan. No need to dub, no need to relocate the shot, no need to translate. As we expand to a more global network of communities, I think successful non-verbal videos like these will continue to do really well.
This is pretty genius. We, as a modern media consumers have become very efficient at tuning out commercials. I can often spot them in the first few frames. We don’t want to be sold to anymore. But, we don’t mind it when a company makes a fun video, with a great story that just happens to feature their product at some point.
And, the fact that you don’t need language to get the story is brilliant!
Reminds me of another brilliant and similar campaign on MTV, sponsored by Verizon. Valemount University. A product-placement serial story that revolved amazingly enough around a phone. There is no way teens (or adults) would have watched a typical commercial, but by making it much more subtle and more like a service (i.e. providing the short show) they garnered a lot of brand recognition among their key target audience. If you haven’t seen it, you can watch here. http://www.mtv.com/videos/misc/440887/episode-1-family-reunion.jhtml#id=1623869.
I think the bottom line is hard-sells are out passive product placement is in.
A very interesting way to integrate a brand in an activity relevant to its consumption. As an ad, it’s a great idea with good production values and good camera work. After all capturing spontaneity, especially when it’s choreographed is not easy. I do hope this idea has been extended via some on-ground activation because there will be many viewers of that video wishing they could be on one of those spinning machines.
Technologically permitting, on a smaller scale, just imagine a ground event, where a spinning machine is kept for shoppers to hop on to and after spinning for a minute and getting the neon figure to complete the dance a free bottle of Contrex popped out for them from the vending machine. Videos of real people in action posted online would create a meme of sorts for the campaign benefitting the brand exponentially.
Genius or not, it’s still unbelievable. We’re expected to go along with it, but it’s still unreasonable. Even if viewers click to share and chat it up with others, they’re probably thinking that sex sells, and they’re helping to advertise by sharing. I suppose we are expected to just roll with it. It’s fun play, right? Well, I think this ad misses on a few sketchy points because of the very scene they are trying to depict. This completely staged scene is just too transparent. Not a single cycler questions why a camera is in her face filming her enthralled attention and reactions to every little piece of removed clothing. And call me naive, but does not a single person present even question the public display of something inappropriate for the youngsters present? Young ones getting excited right along with all the adult actors… now that would be embarassing. Oh, no, that’s not necessary, because conveniently there’s not a single youngster present. Come on. That’s not Europe a night. Young kids hang out late with adults there. As an advertising vehicle, we all know sex sells. So I say stay clear of it. It’s too easy and has too many hang-ups – in this case, adult stimulation in an unbelievable/unacceptable venue. It’s incumbent upon creative marketers trying to take their audience into their scene to convince. If you can’t show a believable scenario with a justifiable reward, come up with something else. Instead of a public striptease, come up with an interactive light show that generates a spontaneous reaction from people that’s worth sharing.