Social Media: 5 Questions with Seraj Bharwani of Visible Measures
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Written By Noah Mallin | May 18, 2009 | Share This
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There continues to be a myth propagated about social media, namely that outreach efforts aren’t measurable and accountable. Visible Measures has been at the forefront of measuring the success of Internet videos since 2005, providing metrics that include syndicated, social, and paid video placements.
Today, Reprise Media announced a partnership with Visible Measures that will help to deepen the ability to track and measure the success of video content. To add some context to this exciting partnership, we asked Seraj Bharwani, SVP of Business Development at Visible Measures, to answer our patented 5 Questions:
1. What makes the Visible Measures approach to measuring online video success unique?
Brands and agencies face unique measurement challenges when it comes to digital video. Video clips have become a social currency and can move across a whole host of sites, blogs/vlogs, and social networking sites. Audiences comment, rate, remix, mash, and share videos in any number of ways. Viewers can rewind, pause, and fast-forward videos. Clicking on the play button is just the beginning of the experience; the sharing and the social dynamics that follow present unique opportunities and challenges with regard to measuring the performance of any online video campaign.
We offer an end-to-end measurement solution for digital video with cross-category campaign benchmarks to address the challenges inherent in measuring the effectiveness of Internet video. Our patented technologies and approach embody the role of active measurement, regardless of where the video lives online, and provide detailed measurement on Audience Engagement – deep behavioral metrics, True Reach™ – a combination of reach through paid, social, and syndicated clips, and Brand Advocacy – clip referrals and sentiment analysis. These metrics and relevant benchmarks provide our clients and partners with real-time, actionable insights to gauge performance and ensure ongoing success of digital video campaigns.
2. The Ad Age Viral Videos Chart that you guys put together is fascinating, I read it every week. It seems that the rise in people sharing and seeking video ad content is changing the nature of their relationship to brands and even marketing as a whole – which videos have done this really well and why do you think they were successful?
You’re right. Viral video changes the conversation between the brands and the consumers from a monologue, as in broadcast television, to a veritable dialogue. People don’t just like to watch videos; they also want to talk about it with their friends. Think of the video game Tiger Woods 2009, where a user uploads a video claiming a glitch in the game. EA Sports responded with a video “It isn’t a glitch - Tiger can actually walk on water” to counter the claim by showing the real Tiger walking on water and hitting the ball off a lilly pad. The campaign has generated over 7 million views from that interaction alone. It’s great exposure for the brand and the game and encourages audience involvement, which in turn enhances brand advocacy.
Additional examples of great viral videos include Nintendo’s Wario Land: Shake It campaign on YouTube, a first in viral video. The video literally busts off the Web page boundary and dismantles the YouTube page. It generated huge amounts of buzz. It’s a must see video if you haven’t already done so. Nike has a pair of wildly successful viral video campaigns, one with Kobe Bryant jumping over a speeding Aston Martin, and another with Ronaldinho volleying a soccer ball of the goal post from midfield (called Touch of Gold).
Successful viral video campaigns share several common attributes:
They challenge audience expectations. Entertainment value trumps all else. The video must capture audience imagination and keep them at the edge of their seats for what happens next. Videos that really take off in views have an “unbelievable” aspect to them.
They engender audience curiosity as to whether a clip represents reality or just plain illusion – can someone actually jump over a speeding car or volley a soccer ball off a goalpost from 50 feet away? This creates the allure of mystery and discovery, attracting a broader community to investigate and comment on the true nature of the video. This also plays into the “unbelievable” nature of successful videos.
They leave room for community participation. Intrigue over a video being real or not leaves room for audience speculation and involvement. Campaigns with audience opinions on either side of the camp generate buzz and draw more people into the dialog.
The last piece of the viral puzzle is the celebrity factor. Campaigns can garner significant attention by involving a celebrity in a way that challenges audience expectations.
3. Is there a pattern to how a video typically “goes viral?” Do you see views spread out from sites like YouTube to blogs and then search engines?
Campaigns can go viral in many ways, although a common signature is a major spike in views over the first few days of launch. Savvy marketers recognize the importance of the first week of the campaign, and front-load marketing and promotion efforts to boost visibility, effectively kick-starting the virtuous viral cycle.
We find that the 1-million view threshold separates what we call “embraced” campaigns from the “stalled” ones. Embraced campaigns successfully attract advocates who spread the campaign far and wide, which leads to a virtuous cycle of continued growth in placements, viewership, and brand advocacy. Stalled campaigns, on the other hand, fall short of activating community participation. The difference in True Reach™ (see question 1) between the two campaign types can be orders of magnitude (up to 20X), which underscores the importance of breaking through the 1-million view mark in the first week.
4. You recently launched the “100 million views club” – a list of the most watched viral videos of all time. The Susan Boyle video reached that mark faster than any video has before. Do you think this was an isolated incident, or a harbinger of the internet getting better at quickly spreading/sharing video content?
It’s a bit of both. Susan Boyle is a viral video sensation like we’ve never seen before. She’s undoubtedly the fastest growing viral video phenomenon ever and has the potential to be the most-watched ever in short order. The environment for producing a sensation like Susan Boyle is more conducive now than it was even a year ago. Today, more people have broadband connections, access to social media tools, and are more aware of video given the broad selection of short-form content available online. So, while Susan Boyle is in a league of her own for now, she may just be the first of a new wave of viral video sensations.
5. Can you talk a little bit about the “interest gap” – the difference between videos that go viral and ones that stall? Can you tell when a video has “peaked” and by then is it too late to rescue it?
The interest gap is simply the difference in True Reach™ (see question 1) between an embraced and a stalled campaign which can be substantial as I pointed out before. Embraced campaigns usually have the benefit of heavy marketing and promotion support and an early uptake from the core audience that enhances campaign reach. The latter “viral” activity will either occur quickly, or it will never happen. There is rarely a middle ground with delayed activation.
It goes without saying that a single video asset will hardly ever carry the full weight of a campaign’s success. If the content is truly compelling, the audience will generally copy and repost the original video and may even create its own rendition of the content (spoofs, or mashups of the content) which drastically increases campaign visibility.
The best way to judge if a campaign has reached its true potential is through the use of an effective tracking and reporting solution. Brand marketers with an interest in digital video should expect solid benchmarks and norms (within and across industry verticals) from their measurement partners to fully understand what constitutes success in the viral/social video medium.
Questions or comments? Feel free to leave them here or check out Reprise Media folks on Twitter.
Topics: 5 questions, Search: Video, Social Media, Web Analytics, YouTube |
Very good measurement. However is the recall of the brand or the message measured. This is off the web and the measurement has to be made of the web.
Seraj founded Digitas and runs ALL of business development.