<a href="http://mdurwin.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/the-ramp.jpg"><img src="http://mdurwin.wordpress.com/files/2008/06/the-ramp.jpg" alt="BMW movie The Ramp" width="390" height="257" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-69" /></a> Earlier this year BMW launched a viral video to promote the launch of it's new model in the U.S. The video was released as a documentary following the stories of a small Bavarian town named Oberpfaffelbachen. THe town's citizens include a stunt driver, over zealous police chief, event promoter and mayor, trying to save the town from hard financial times. They devise a promotion in which they will launch a 300 horse power BMW 1 Series from a 454 meter (1486.5 feet) ramp from Bavaria, across the Atlantic to the U.S. The town has created an entire festival around the event called Rampenfest. Towns folk are turning their houses into gift shops, town managers are tearing down forests for parking. I won't give away the ending, but obviously something goes wrong. Not as dramatically as I'd hoped unfortunately. The quality of the video is excellent, the acting, direction and effects (as subtle as the ramp, as obvious as the teeth) as good as a movie. The video has been seen by millions which can give BMW the opportunity to claim a positive impact, especially considering that it was shot overseas and cost far less than a U.S. 30 second spot. Was it successful? It's hard to say. As with any viral, guerilla or virtual advertising, it is hard to judge success. Many still talk about the negative impact of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force guerilla stunt, requiring a payout of 2 million to the city of Boston to cover lawsuits and the cost of our crack bomb squad (who apparently can't tell the difference between a bomb and a light brite!). The press loves to bring up the GM (Chevy) Yukon promotion run on YouTube. Many people made anti-SUV ads from the audio and video clips GM posted in the make-you-own commercial promotion. This brings us to what determines success. The GM promotion was considered a failure because of the thousands of ads that were created that shed a positive light on the Yukon, there were a few that were negative. But, is that a bad thing? Most people learn by making mistakes or being told they're wrong. Negative feedback is just as important, if not more important than positive feedback. How will you know how to improve your product unless people tell you what they DON'T like about it? GM learned that there are alot of people that consider their giant SUV bad for the environment and a gas guzzler. If this prompts them to make eco-friendly, gas-conscious improvements to their vehicles, is that a bad thing for the company or the consumer? And let's not forget that with the launch of the BMW campaign, the GM promotion was brought up as a failure again. Really? The Chevy Yukon is mentioned in the press for another car manufacturer's promotion and that's a bad thing? Sounds like free press to me. Even when a guerilla or viral campaign can't be measured in sales or doesn't have quite the immediate impact a company would hope, there is always the fact that it will continue to keep the brand in the public's conscience for months and years to come. Brand visibility is the best way to consider whether or not your viral or guerilla campaign is effective. You can't often track sales back to a campaign like this or even sign-ups. You may get a solid number of visits to your microsite, but when visitors pull down your video, or assets, or talk about it in their blog, it can be difficult to track especially since those co-opted branding placements end up living for months out of your control. So, how successful will the BMW campaign be? Well, they millions of viewers at the moment. Add on a few million views of the video once people (like me) download the clip to their iPod/iPhone and show it around, upload it to their YouTube, MySpace, Facebook or blog accounts, hundreds of discussions of it in marketing or news related blogs (where I found it) and then it's recurring mention every time another automaker or major corporation does a viral or guerilla campaign and it sounds like a success to me. But BMW knows this. They were arguably one of the first to use viral video not just as a tool to sell cars but a way to engage consumers with their brand, and to redefine their brand as cool. I still have a DVD copy of the BMW Movies from the promotion in 2001. The shorts were directed by Ang Lee, Guy Ritchie, John Woo, Tony Scott, John Frankenheimer and featured Forest Whitakker, Madonna, Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke and others. It received rave reviews at Cannes, from the New York Times, and Time magazine. They very successfully hit their middle-age, married, 150k/yr target. The new spot however, at least in the words of Marketing VP Jack Pitney, was, rather than target a demographic, to target a psychographic. While most companies want to stick to categorizing their demographics by generation, age and finances, BMW is smart enough to know that they can pull an 8 year old boy and an 58 year old woman into their brand halo just by virtue of the fact that they may share common interests, like flashy cars, or mockumentaries. Despite my feeling that this viral video may be a bit long for most viewers (35 minutes), I'm fairly certain that the folks at BMW will be pleased with the outcome. And I'm happy to help them broadcast their brand (even though I drive the "other" german car)! Links: <a href="http://rampenfest.com/">Official Film Site</a> <br> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hire">BMW Films Wikipedia</a> <br> <a href="http://www.bmwusa.com/Standard/Content/Uniquely/TVAndNewMedia/BMWFilms.aspx">BMW Films Site (no videos here)</a> <br> <a href="www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1dYv_gKTA8">BMW Film "Star" (you can find the rest of the films here as well)</a> <br> <a href="http://digg.com/odd_stuff/Village_of_Oberpfaffelbachen_Building_454_Meter_Launch_Ramp">Digg submission where I first found out about the promotion</a>
2 years ago I was hired by a video production house to create several animations for an infomercial for Kaballah Center International, Inc. Since they were completed I've been showing them off as part of my portfolio. In early March I decided to expand the reach of my portfolio by setting up the video hosting part of it on YouTube. Last Thursday I received a Cease and Desist letter from their law firm, Wolff & Samson P.C., demanding that I remove the videos as I was infringing on Kaballah's copyright ownership.
As far as I knew it was perfectly legal to expect fair use of any work-for-hire production to be used as part of an artist's portfolio. My handy Graphic Artist Guild Pricing and Ethical Guidelines handbook said as much (11th edition, page 26, paragraph 7).
My first question is, am I correct? Do I, as a graphic artist, have the right to show work I've done for hire as part of my portfolio in order to promote my services and prove that I can do what I claim to be able to? What are the limits? Can I use a clip? Can I only use it on my site? Can I only use a screenshot? Can I even mention the client's name? It's going to be very difficult for visual artists to make a living if such restrictions are put on them.
Of course, because I was hired very loosely by the production company, there are no specifics in the contract I wrote up pertaining to this. I believe that unless specifically stated, that I am not allowed to show work as part of my portfolio, I have a reasonable expectation that fair use covers my right to use work I've done as part of my portfolio, and hence my self promotion.
My second question, which I'm sure is in limbo due to the explosion of social networks, is: can a social network such as YouTube (CGTalk, XPLSV.tv, Flickr, etc.) be considered an extension of an artists portfolio? The law firm has already contacted YouTube to ask that the videos be removed. I have also contacted YouTube to clarify what their stance is on this. In the meantime I've made the videos private, until such time as the matter is resolved.
I know there have been a great deal of lawsuits and C&D's flying around as everyone tries to figure out how new Internet technologies and social behaviors emerge and how it effects intellectual property from movies, to music, to images. There are currently two bills in Congress that would make any image that is online available to anyone to do as they will with (use in an ad, copyright themselves) if a "reasonable" search has been made, but proven to be unsuccessful, of the owner.
It seems to me that perhaps lawyers have no problem pursuing cases that are on shaky ground due to the inability of laws to keep up with technology. After all, they get paid for their time and the worst case scenario is that they will get paid even if they are judged incorrect, but still can claim that they were diligent. Like any legal matter, the ultimate winner is the lawyer!
I'll keep updating this entry until the issue is resolved. One way or the other I'm sure it'll be helpful to other visual artists.
p.s. Although I was told that the work would be for an infomercial only, the full video has been shown in various presentation formats and currently resides on the home page of http://tv.kabbalah.com.
Please be aware of and spread the word on this important bills now being presented to Congress: The Orphan Works Act of 2008 Bill # H.R.5889
The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 Bill # S.2913
These bills effectively release creative work, whose authors or originators cannot be found, to use by anyone, including major corporations. This will allow large corporations to take advantage of the limited understanding of copyright law by artists, illustrators and other creatives. Essentially profiting from a large group of Americans that barely make a living with their work. The bills would require the authors of so-called "orphaned works" to go through extraordinary measures to digitally copy and submit their work the the copyright office. This doesn't just effect artists. If someone posts pictures of their baby on MySpace, then negleects to check their MySpace email, or signed up for the social network using a screen name rather than their real name, they could find those baby pictures being used for a multi-million dollar advertising campaign. I work for an ad agency and have just as much respect for the artists, photographers and designers who I work with as I do the budget limitations faced by companies trying to promote their products and services. This bill, however, amounts to legalized theft by big corporation of the property of the little guy.
Unfortunately these bills are being sponsored by Democrats ( Howard Berman D-CA 28th, Patrick Leahy D-VT) who should know better.
I'm sure your members would be very interested in this legislation.
There has of course been alot of buzz about social networking. Cyber-bullying, child safety, personal information security, and the lot have all been hot subjects among consumers. For Big Business there has been one subject that has dominated conversation: How do we leverage social networks to make money. From an objective standpoint no one can blame companies for wanting to make money, otherwise we couldn't check out Facebook email on our iPhones, or download the latest Justin Timberlake video to our laptops because we wouldn't have jobs. From a subjective stand point, we don't want a bunch of ads popping up all over our screen while we're looking for nacho recipes for our Labor Day party.
There is no way that the medium of Social Networks will be able to avoid corporate intrusion. Radio was invented to entertain listeners between product ads, TV followed suit, and so has the Internet, all of it, for years. After all, you can't get something for nothing right?
Much to the cheers of social butterflies, companies are having a tough time marketing online and to social networks in particular (VNUNET, Aug, 2007). The Silicon Alley Insider recently published an article showing how web users avoid eye contact with online ads. Based on research from the Nielsen Norman Group's recent eye-tracking usability study, users gravitate toward content, no matter how flashy the ads are. While other studies have found that video ads get 34% more brand recall, my guess is that as those ad types begin to become ubiquitous, they will suffer the same fate as graphic and text ads. One promising statistic is that ads appear to do better if they are related to the content.
One argument may be that ads need to look more like content, to trick viewers, but I think the data so far leads to a bigger concern: the ability of marketers to keep up with consumer habits.
Many of us Internet geeks were very excited about the popularity of Second Life. Millions of people were joining, you could fly, build things. Then big companies started to market in the virtual world. Some expected it, others felt threatened. An interesting thing happened. Most didn't care. No one visited big business' stores or islands. Companies who were experimenting there started pulling out. Wired Magazine claimed that Second Life was dead. Really? Dead to who? The 9+ million users? The 1.5 million who have logged in over the last 2 months? What on earth does this have to do with banner ads Durwin? Well...
What happened to Second Life is that big business and advertisers left. Why? Because their tactics didn't work. Why are banner ads failing? Because the tactic doesn't work. Why will making ads look like content fail? Because the tactic won't work.
The concept of consumer-driven advertising is a tough thing for most advertisers to swallow. For decades advertising has been about telling the consumer or user what to buy, where to shop, who to listen to. With so many choices, and the Internet as a “shop and compare” tool, consumers are no longer just buying what they're told to. They are asking questions, they are demanding improvements, they are looking for options. According to a recent survey from the Center For Media Research, 70% of mothers use search engines before making an online purchase and 57% do the same for offline purchases. People aren't just surfing company web sites and online stores though. They are joining forums and reading blogs, they are talking to regular people about their experiences with products and brands.
In short, they are choosing how they receive information on products.
This effects social and virtual networks in the same way. In Second Life for example, why would avatars that can fly, build their own houses, and grow wings want to test drive a car, or buy a plain t-shirt? These may seem like good ideas in the real world but in virtual worlds they are pedestrian. Not only do marketers need to be more creative but they need to develop a deeper understanding of the cultures of Second Life. It's not just one group of cyber-geeks, but many, many cultures living in a virtual space. Goths, v-sex addicts, gamblers, gamers, 3D modelers, furries and WW2 re-enactment fans represent just some of the denizens of Second Life. How can you appeal to all of them the same way? You can't.
Social networks are becoming more and more niche. There are so many options that they can choose what advertisers to listen to. We're not talking about a few people. When Facebook added a user tracking feature several groups popped up demanding a boycott if the feature wasn't removed. There's not enough space here to go into to detail but at least one group was 20,000 strong and the uproar caused Facebook to overhaul the new feature and apologize to users.
MySpace, the current reigning champion of social networks has done an exceptional job of providing marketing opportunities to users. Rather than redesign the site or add features no one wants, they are offering these as a choice to users. The recent Simpson's movie campaign offered users the ability to Simpsonize themselves and their space. Users could edit Simpson-styled avatars to look like the comic show version of themselves. This, along with home page themes, games, sweepstakes, icons and ringtones made for the biggest marketing blast on MySpace. The home page was redesigned, kind of. The usually blank sides of the MySpace home page were Simpsonized as well. This cut down on the need to remove favorite features to advertise. In addition, all of the ad spaces were occupied by Simpsons ads. The combination was overwhelming. But no one complained. Why? Think about who they were talking to. Teens and adults that grew up on the Simpsons. The movie is funny, the goodies are hysterical. Alot of thought and time went into developing marketing assets that were a perfect fit for MySpace users. They didn't just repurpose traditional advertising to jam down users throats.
As much as the Z-shaped viewing pattern of books has changed to an F-shaped pattern for web pages, advertisers need to change the way they do things from A-Z. Internet usage among future generations is increasing rapidly, while television viewing and book reading are declining. Consumers aren't going to give up the power they now have over brands and advertising. That means advertisers need to learn to adapt and they need to do it quickly.
Social networks have had 110 million unique visitors in July alone, up 40% from the previous July (comScore). Professionals are flocking in droves to social networks such as Sermo for physicians, InMobile for the wireless industry, AdGabbers for advertisers. New social networks for professionals are popping up quickly. Reuters is launching Reuter's Space for traders and analysts, Integrative Practitioner for alternate healthcare specialists.
Next week I'll be talking about how a new group of marketers are using alternate reality gaming (ARGs) to promote movies and video games to phenomenal success.
UPDATE: David Schatsky, president, JupiterResearch says, "While these (social network) sites may appear to be the most effective manner of delivering a message regardless of brand appropriateness," he said, "by failing to truly understand the audience, viral marketers stand to alienate as many consumers as they interest."
This was in response to an article detailing how "viral" email campaigns are failing when aimed at younger audiences or social network campaigns aimed at a broad range of audience. Younger online users don't use email nearly as much as older users and certainly don't forward advertising on to friends. Older users aren't as effectively reached via social networks. Which will lead into the upcoming article on ARGs.
I know this is WAY off topic but since it was brought to my attention via social network, I figured that six degrees of separation still allows me to post it here. <br/><br/> The Star Trek franchise will finally crash. <br/><br/> For those of you who don't know, I was raised on Star Trek. It went off the air the year I was born but technically I could hear it through my mother's stomach. As both my mother and father were avid fans, my early yet formative years were spent watching Kirk seduce green women, McCoy cure all illnesses, even if they were outside his "wheel-house", Spock learn that it's not all about the facts, and Scotty pad his hours so he'd look like a hero by finishing early. I very clearly remember my father returning from the first ever Star Trek Convention in NYC without a tribble, which I specifically remember requesting, but instead with stories of meeting the cast and some acid inspired posters which hung on our walls for years. This of course culminated in my meeting and photo-shoot with Mr. Shatner himself last year. <br/><br/> I watched all 10 of the movies at the theater, sometimes several times. I watched all 6 of the tv series (including the animated one). I will admit that I was a bit lax with Deep Space 9. I almost dumped out of Voyager, but then <a href="http://www.1956packardpanther.com/SevenOfNineJeriRyan.jpg">7 of 9</a> arrived and gave me several more reasons to watch. I was bummed out that Enterprise was cancelled. Any sci-fi show needs time to find itself and I thought Enterprise was heading in the right direction, as long as they got rid of that terrible Bon Jovi-esque title music! <br/><br/> So you can imagine how thrilled I was with the announcement that a new movie was in the works, with no less than Lost creator JJ Abrams at the helm. My excitement was increased dramatically with talks of Matt Damon heading the cast. That rumor was with Abrams stating that Damon was too old for the part. I shook my head at that, assuming he knew best. I was intrigued by the announcement that <a href="http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/070111/heroes_l.jpg">Zachary Quinto</a> of Heroes fame would be taking the part of Mr. Spock. But when the final cast was announced, I hung my head and admitted to myself that this was probably the end of the Star Trek universe. It seems that the NCC 1701 Enterprise is going to go into the Black Hole of Abrams re-imagining and come out the other side the NCC 90210 Enterprise. <br/><br/> Check out this cast breakdown: <br/><br/> Kirk - <a href="http://www.playbill.com/images/photos/atheistpre200.jpg">Chris Pine</a> - Ok, it's interesting that his name is Chris Pine and the captain of the Enterprise previous to Kirk was Christopher Pike. But really, this guy is known for not just the Princess Diaries, but the Princess Diaries 2! That combined with that car crash of a Lindsay Lohan movie Just My Luck WAY outweighs his roll in Smoking Aces. <br/><br/> Spock - <a href="http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/070111/heroes_l.jpg">Zachary Quinto</a> - I'll admit that I'm interested in this casting. I haven't seen much of this actor and certainly didn't like him last season on Heroes, but this season he's already shown a bit of range that I'd like to see. I think he may pull it off as long as the script is good and he's doesn't play caricature of Nemoy. <br/><br/> Dr. McCoy - <a href="http://www.sagralisse.mediawood.net/urban/eomer/eomer_rotk_sped_001.jpg">Karl Urban</a> - I think Urban is the most inspired casting. I've only seen him in Lord of the Rings and thought he was great. It will be interesting to see if he can go from scowling seriousness to ironic frustration mixed with gentlemanly humor. <br/><br/> Scotty - <a href="http://img.search.com/7/73/Simonshaundead.jpg">Simon Pegg</a> - Again, not bad casting. If he avoids the caricature we may be alright here. <br/><br/> Sulu - <a href="http://wizarduniverse.com/_images_/004483/johncho.jpg">John Cho</a> - This is where it begins to snowball (keeping in mind that this was announced before the Kirk casting). American Pie's MILF guy #2 and Harold from Harold and Kumar? He's a bit to cute for the part. Sulu was a bad ass with a sword. <br/><br/> Chekov - <a href="http://www.exposay.com/celebrity-photos/anton-yelchin-teen-vogue-young-hollywood-party-xwE9GZ.jpg">Anton Yelchin</a> - I liked this kid ass Bird in Huff. I thought he was great, but again, a bit too cutsey. Granted Chekov's original casting (TOS) was as the "Davey Jones" of the cast, but come on! <br/><br/> Uhura - <a href="http://www.obsessedwithfilm.com/wp-content/photos/zoe.jpg">Zoe Saldana</a> - OK, she's hot. But a bit too hot. With roles in movies such as Temptations, Ways of the Flesh and After Sex, it's seems like Abrams may be sexing Trek up a bit too much. <br/><br/> One of the things that made the new version of Battlestar Galactica a critical hit as well as a great boy-show was that not everyone was cast based on their looks. There is some top notch acting talent in that cast, who, for merchandising and promotion is good looking enough but certainly not a bunch of Guess models! <br/><br/> Obviously I'll have to wait and see, but so far I'm not impressed. I feel like Ann Rice did when they took her baby and put Tighty-Whitey guy and Mr. Chisel-cheeks in the lead roles. I hope, like Ann Rice, that I'm wrong, wrong, wrong...
There has been a great deal of excitement around the fact that MySpace and Friendster would be going open source. This follows the rush for social networks such as LinkedIn, hi5, Bebo, and Facebook to go open source begun by Linden Labs' announcement that Second Life would open it's platform to developers. Google even has several open source projects in the works including the rumored gPhone.
Open source simply means that software code is released to the general public in order to promote development by third parties. Widgets are a great example of how third parties have benefited from open source on Facebook and arguably how Facebook has been able to show such phenomenal growth. Most companies, once they develop their product, need to spend a good portion of their time dealing with bugs and cracks or on the development of the next version of their platform. They very rarely have the time or resources to develop additional features. That's where third parties come in handy. Outside developers can spend their time creating new widgets and mini-programs for the platform without effecting the original development team.
Many companies would shun open source, preferring to keep their code to themselves rather than take a chance that anyone else would make money from their product. Unfortunately, not only does this cause developmental stagnation but it also reduces the amount of buzz generated for their product. For months after the iPhone was released the buzz was kept alive by developers trying to hack into the system to take advantage of the power of the device through additional tools that for one reason or another Apple did not include with it. A great example is the buzz about GPS. As if having a bunch of your favorite songs, your cell phone, web browsing, email. weather, stocks and video in one device wasn't enough, users desperately wanted a mobile GPS built in. When the specs of the phone were announced, Apple declared the device to be unable to support GPS. That bared out once the iPhone was released. It took about one month before several groups found hacks easy enough even for yours truly to customize his iPhone. The first thing I did was track down a GPS program that worked fabulously. I also loaded Nintendo games and an Etch A Sketch onto it. Of course, as everyone found, with the latest software update we lost all of our cool features.
This incurred the wrath of developers and users alike. Apple has since stated that they are releasing code to developers to create third party applications. Looks like I'll have my GPS back soon!
This kind of attitude has served Facebook well. The original version was a very lame step-sister to MySpace, allowing limited personalization. Once they opened their source code, all kinds of fun gizmos popped up such as badges, streaming audio players, games, video players, picture shows, calendars, weather and all sorts of fun and helpful applications. This made Facebook much more attractive to users.
I've been talking with folks at MySpace lately who are very excited about going open source which will allow not only regular users and groups but also companies to do alot more with their personal pages.
What is most interesting to me is a recent Fortune article by Lindsay Blakely. She was talking about the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association conference in San Francisco and 23 year-old Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz opening remarks. Moskovitz was there to announce that Facebook features to Research in Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry smartphones. While talking before a room full of telecom execs he chided wireless providers for keeping their platforms closed. He said that open mobile platforms were the future and that companies such as Apple and Google will continue to take over market share.
The most telling thing to me is a quote from Online Media Daily who said that the speech didn't go over well with top telecommunications executives who left the room shaking their heads. It's obvious to me that as much as the music industry didn't learn anything from the cable industry, mobile telecom has learned nothing from either of these industries nor the recent iPhone press.
Cable and broadcast is smart enough to have either signed up with iTunes to sell shows through Apple's music/video service or they've launched their own broadband video network to give fans online and mobile options for viewing. The music industry is still reeling with the decisions of Radiohead, Oasis, Nine Inch Nails and Jamiroquai releasing or planning on releasing music sans record company and Madonna's decision to use a promotion company to release her next records.
It's seems like the larger the industry the harder it is to turn the ship in a new direction. Hopefully the RIAA and mobile providers will be able to do so before they hit an iceberg and lose their passengers.
