If there was an award for best PR campaign by a disgruntled consumer 2009, it would have to go to Dave Carroll, the musician who, frustrated by United Airlines’s refusal to compensate him for a broken guitar, wrote a song about it and posted it on YouTube. Two weeks and 3 million views later he was on Oprah.
YouTube has launched a New Year countdown channel of the most memorable videos of the year, sponsored by Samsung. Like an advent calendar without the religious connotations, each day a new video is revealed. Though the selection process is opaque, the number of views seems to play a big part. This sleepwalking dog from day two for example, Bizkit, has had getting on for 12 million views:
YouTube has launched a traditional press campaign, to promote the 4000 full length TV programmes, including episodes of Doctor Who, now available on YouTube.
The slogan “YouTube’s got TV” will appear on tube trains (naturally), on the side of buses and in newspaper advertisements from today. Later this month in a PR stunt, YouTube is taking over a shop front in London’s Carnaby Street where shoppers will be able to chose TV programmes to watch on huge screens.
“This campaign aims to tell our users that the full-length TV content has now arrived,” said Anna Bateson, the YouTube director of marketing, reported in The Guardian
The number of TV shows available on YouTube has increased significantly following a deal with Channel 4 last month where the two companies share revenue from advertising run around the programmes.
Other programmes available include Peep Show, Derren Brown’s Events, Gordon Ramsay’s F Word and clips from The X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing.
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Whatever your politics, the release of a behind the scenes video showing David Cameron and William Haig chatting about putting together his keynote speech today is an impressive demonstration of how You Tube can work in party politics if the content is right.
In a week when Cameron has been attacked for being an inscrutable toff with a talent for spin, what better way to counter than show him informally at large, in his work place, chatting to class busting favourite William Hague about not making his speech too dull. More »
