Click - Part Four
November 30th, 2006
So the other case study that Will McGinness from Goodby went through was the most recent Got Milk? campaign. The brief was to develop a campaign that appealed to teenagers and parents and imparted a load of ‘benefits of milk’ information and was fun and got talked about. Will defined the campaign in terms of the ‘narrative premise’ which was "a race of brittle-boned, insomniac aliens are trying to obtain the white wonder tonic from what they describe as the supreme ones". What I liked about this Got Milk? idea was that it was divided into two completely different campaigns. There was no concern about everything looking and feeling the same across all channels. One was the ‘back story’ of victimised farmers across the US and their attempts to prevent alien abduction. I haven’t got the whole campaign, but Will showed lots and lots of neat tactical, print and viral ideas that had simply been put together in the agency (great ideas are really cheap and easy to produce). But here’s a viral (or a digital word of mouth film).
The other half of the campaign was what I assume was the TV campaign (it looks like this half of the campaign had more budget thrown at it.) This is where you meet the Brittlacticans. Here’s one ad, but the other four are easily found on YouTube.
Posted by Jonathan Rigby
November 30th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
I got really frustrated with virals a bit ago. It got to the stage where loads of them felt try hard - “we’re a mad brand we are.”
Both the Rolling Rock and Got Milk campaigns seem to have integrity, and deliver integration of an idea across different media formats
Actually prefer the online for Got Milk. Whilst number of impacts is an issue, it would have made a great treasure hunt round different sites/blogs.
December 1st, 2006 at 4:37 pm
Hi Chris. I agree. It’s really difficult to come up with a great viral that doesn’t seem too forced. I’m just not sure that they’re a good way to sell products because as soon as they seem too brand message heavy they wont be ‘viralled’.in ‘part 5′ i’ve quoted some stats about how rarely virals succeed.
December 1st, 2006 at 5:34 pm
Remember a similar conversation with Anson in a former life.
There’s another thing though - I wonder if the growth of YouTube as a default consumption mechanism changes viral. i.e passing on becomes unimportant. As more people go there for entertainment, stuff gets caught “because I’m there”. If you like the, the “how arsed can you be” levels are lower to look up clips you’ve heard about when you’re already in the mood to consume, than sending on when somethings dropped into your inbox on a bad Wednesday at work.
I guess what I’m saying is that in YouTube viral we need to build a store of vague “must see that” memories. As opposed to “that’s amazing I’ll send it on”. You’d never send on the Rolling Rock ape, but the journey means that your likely to look it up if your on YouTube.