Attitudes Toward Retail Product Videos
- 52% of online product video viewers are more confident in that product prior to purchasing it online
- 44% are more engaged with the retailer or brand as a result of watching their product videos
- 37% purchase more products on websites that feature product videos
Kristen Bell In Target’s Falling For You Branded Entertainment
THOUGHT: Six years ago I wrote a piece called The End Of Advertising I discussed the rise of product placements as a result of the decline in the effectiveness of television advertising, concluding “There’s really no reason that we can’t eventually have entirely interactive television so that we could click on or in some way manipulate products that are placed in our entertainment programming, in order to get more information about that product.”
Six years ago I believed that how product placement needed to evolve and I still do.
Earlier this month, Target concluded a branded entertainment campaign that brilliantly executed the type of interactive product placement I envisioned years ago coupled with the loudest of current buzz words, Content Marketing.
Target created a series of three video webisodes starring Kristen Bell (communication pros may remember her from Showtime’s House Of Lies series), Zachary Abel (Make It Or Break It) and Nia Long (Big Momma’s House), and directed by Phil Abraham of Mad Men fame.
The series features Amanda and Joe as Target employees who are pitted against one another in a competition to pitch the theme for Target’s fall fashion show. The two, of course, become love interests in three videos that have the feel of Sex In The City meets the fashion industry and set in Minneapolis.
The three webisodes at fallingforyou.target.com serve as teasers for a live stream of the fall fashion show at fallingforyoulive.com.
This, in and of itself, is a superb example of a branded entertainment campaign. What makes it brilliant, however, is the execution of the campaign on Target’s site.
Each episode is loaded with Target products, the video of which is synchronized with a scrolling list of thumbnails of those products running alongside the video. Viewers can click on the products to save them to buy later, so the entertainment is not interrupted.
Behind-the-Scenes Of Falling For You – A Target Style Short Film
SUPER COOL TOOL: NFL.com Game Rewind is the NFL’s attempt to further “monetize” its video archive by providing subscribers to the service with on-demand access to full-length video of every game for every team going back to the 2009 season as well as select Super Bowls.
TONIGHT: Beyond Social Media Radio
Join me, BL Ochman of the What’s Next blog, and Albert Maruggi of the Marketing Edge podcast tonight at 8:30 CST for our BlogTalkRadio show, Beyond Social Media. This week’s topics: Google PR Time Matters, Debate Humor #Fail & Mobile Trends.
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