Linking Your Video Campaign to Special Events

Including video marketing examples inspired by The World Cup

A quick browse of the current Mashable Viral Video Chart reveals an unsurprising trend – with the World Cup well under way, marketers from across a wide number of industries are looking to the forthcoming tournament to generate a buzz around their products.

At the time of writing, this offering from Samsung Mobile advertising the new Galaxy S5 was leading the way over the last 7 days.

Breaking traditionally accepted concepts regarding the optimum length of videos, this offering comes in at just over 4 minutes long, but that hasn’t put viewers off.

The Training could easily be mistaken for a mini sci-fi thriller. Featuring 11 of the world’s best players from 11 different countries, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Wayne Rooney, the video shows the players training to save the planet from an alien invasion.

This global marketing campaign is leading up to a ‘winner takes Earth’ match, due to take place later this summer.

Embracing Global Events

The World Cup has marketers jostling for supremacy in a battle of the brands. Such is the popularity of the World Cup, certain brands have embraced longer videos – at least those who can afford the services of the top stars, who must be making a killing in promotions alone.

Nike bucked the trend with its latest offering, Winner Stays, part of its Risk Everything campaign.

The video has a simple concept, but one with a wide-reaching appeal – teenagers playing a game stake claims to be their favourite players, then transform into the players themselves, showcasing their speed and tricks.

The concept of brands looking to global events for their marketing campaigns is nothing new. Massive global events such as the World Cup give marketers a rare and unique opportunity to perform on the largest of stages for a few weeks.

Proctor & Gamble stole the show during the last few Olympics with its hugely popular Thank You Mum campaign, born during the 2012 London Olympics.

The campaign is based on the concept that athletes represent their families as well as their countries, and looks at the role Mum plays in supporting them through their journey to the largest athletics stage on the planet.

P&G continued its highly successful Thank You Mum campaign during the Sochi Winter Olympics with this emotional video called Pick Yourself Up.

The company didn’t stop at videos either, it built a family home in the Olympic village, where Olympians and their families could hang around with P&G grooming products on hand, plus a supply of Pampers for those with young children.

Profiling Your Customers

Of course, P&G, Nike and Samsung are huge multinational corporations with massive marketing budgets that only a select number of brands and businesses could hope to compete with. But there are a number of valuable marketing lessons that smaller corporations can incorporate into their own campaigns. The first of these is knowing your customers.

Understanding your own customers is the key to success in marketing, so the more you know about your current customers, the easier it will be to widen your audience. Find out as much as you can about your existing customers by analysing sales profiles, engaging with them on social media, etc.

The type of information you collect will depend on your business – if you deal with individuals, research their age, gender, location, spending habits and interests, whereas for businesses, you want to know their sector, budgets, suppliers, etc.

Look for similar interests amongst your customers, which are outside of your business but you can relate to your brand. For example, as a sport’s brand Nike will naturally attract football enthusiasts, whereas P&G’s campaign is aimed squarely at Mums, i.e. those who generally shop for their products.

Key Marketing Tips

Once you know a little more about your existing customers’ interests, look for an event that ties in with these interests but remains true to your brand. It doesn’t have to be a huge global event, as this video by Dodge demonstrates.

Dodge has used its 100th anniversary to chart the lessons it’s learned from being in business for so long. The video features a number of very old people who are all 100 years old or thereabouts, discussing the lessons they’ve learned with age, including one elderly gentleman burning rubber in the new 2015 Dodge Challenger.

Storytelling forms a key element of these videos, although it isn’t always obvious from the start. Pick Yourself Up by P&G tells the story of young Olympians from babies, through their teens, to Olympic glory, detailing their trials and tribulations along the way. This type of narrative helps to grab your audience’s attention and draw them into the tale.

Finding an emotional element to your story will help to engage your audience – P&G is tugging on the heartstrings of parents everywhere, while Nike is inciting awe amongst its viewers.

Finally, make sure you prepare your campaign in plenty of time. Don’t aim to release your video on the date the event begins – make the most of the time running up to the event to get your campaign in motion. By the start of the Sochi Olympics, P&G and its various brands had released approximately 38 videos to build momentum, with Pick Yourself Up attracting almost 16 million views before the opening ceremony.

Piggybacking on to a special event, be it a global, local or anniversary occasion, can be an excellent way to widen your audience and give your brand a marketing boost, as long as you plan your campaign in plenty of time, and remain true to your brand values.