5 tips for stellar branded video

Toyota's Truck Summoner
This is a 30-second spot in the popular machinima style where a "World of Warcraft" player attacks a dragon using a Toyota Tacoma as his weapon.

An unbranded version of the commercial was posted on YouTube two days before it aired on TV by a Saatchi & Saatchi employee who worked on the campaign. Here's why it works: The video piggybacked on a well-established viral phenomenon in the gamer world, a WoW player named Leeroy Jenkins. Saatchi & Saatchi PR representative Erin Poole maintains that they did nothing to promote the video or seed it in gamer forums -- they just uploaded it to YouTube. I'd be more dubious if the geek legend that preceded it didn't have such strong viral legs.

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The just-launched American Express OPEN Forum widget campaign
This campaign is powered by The Fifth Network in conjunction with Digitas. American Express' 300x600 widgets, with six short informational videos, are running on niche business blogs, news sites and a handful of architecture-related sites like this one (right-hand side).

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Marc Ecko's StillFree video
A shaky camera follows Ecko past heavy security as he proceeds to tag Air Force One with graffiti that reads "Still Free." Ecko maintains the video was watched more than 114 million times, in addition to the outpouring of press from TV news anchors who thought the stunt was real -- even the Secret Service reportedly launched an investigation. What was the point?

"The president that flies in it doesn't own the plane, the people own the plane," Ecko explains. "It's a symbol of our freedom to express ourselves." As is the Ecko brand.

Dave Friedman, president, central region at Avenue A | Razorfish, calls the video, "Borderline viral genius here -- Ecko is a streetwise graffiti artist cum millionaire clothing designer who perpetrated perhaps the most successful viral/pop culture branding stunt of all time."

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The Delta SiteSeer Challenge
This is an "Amazing Race"-style campaign where visitors can watch Delta-produced informational videos about 12 top travel destinations. Visitors earned bonus miles for voting for their favorite video destinations and could download or share the videos.

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Holiday Inn Express' The Smart Show
This was a nine-week road trip across the U.S., which concluded in November. The videos are available as content on Blip.tv, and season two is already in development. The Smart Show is groundbreaking because it's episodic. "Don't just put a viral film out there," Beeching argues. "Once you've built an audience, feed it. Brand content creators need the stamina of a broadcast in terms of ongoing, webisodic programming."

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Axe's "World's Dirtiest Film" contest
This campaign used brand-created video to encourage user participation and hosted the entries on Collegehumor.com. "David Spade hosts the brand-created versions, Axe loves the viral collaborative video thing, and they do it pretty well," Hill notes. "Axe does a great job of distribution and uses targeted blogs in its sweet spot demographic to get the word out."

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Doritos 2007 Super Bowl ad
"It cost $12.97 to produce and generated $10 million-plus in publicity along with a 14 percent increase in sales," says Dean Harris, partner, Silvermine Marketing, and Brandweek's 2005 Marketer of the Year. "My guess is that high production costs will not win the day in the online video world. In my view, well-produced, well-priced (but higher than $12.97) video will win out."

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