Is It Really “Viral”?

We are huge video consumers. That’s why brands need liquid video contents to engage with audiences. But that doesn’t mean each branded video is viral!

First of all, each highly viewed video content is not viral video. Today with organized and well planned media investment, you reach pretty good results in video scores. Especially with the introduction of Youtube ad models, favoritely pre-rolls, and cost-effective pricing, you can have a particular display with your video. That is totally OK by the way, as long as the brand & agency are aware of that, and purpose of the video content. I mean each video hasn’t necessarily to be viral anyway.

But each video has a “Virality Effect”. Brands need to decide the expected virality effect of video in the briefing session. And it is more important to observe the organic wins on top of the media scores. But what are those organic figures? Here I list the major ones;

-The views gathered apart from media coverage

-Conversations in social space about your video content and reach

-Content curations from users, like spoofs, caps, re-posts, etc.

-Any type of interaction in brand’s social media assets

Keep in mind :)

It’s Voden Time!

It is always a pleasure to share about Voden :) So, who are we?

We are a creative agency digital at core based in Istanbul. We create engagement rather than advertising for digitally enabled audiences of new communication era. And to us, engagement is any form of interaction. Whether it is a website, microsite, digital campaign, social media presence, video, story, platform, game or application. We create meaningful content and experience for audiences independent from any form and any medium. And social is at heart of what we do.

We are 60 talented people with a great enthusiasm and vision to craft effective communication plans & executions for our brands, in new, extremely complex media landscape.

Some of our clients are; Coca-Cola Company, Peugeot, Turkish Airlines, Kellogg’s, Johnson & Johnson, AXA, Avea, VakıfBank, Watsons, Veet, Odeabank, İnci.

I love our brands and our people.

Here is a piece of our work.

Storytelling For Brands – Your Brand Is Not HERO, But The MENTOR

Joseph Campbell’s iconic work Hero’s Journey is a master piece for storytelling. And it always work. Hero’s journey light the path of stories in Holywood and film-making industry. Today, with digitally empowered audiences, brands had to craft compelling stories too. But how?

Hero’s Journey is still the answer for marketers and creatives. Brands create stories. And their communications are like chapters. There is always a moral of story which storyteller wants to share. The moral of story is value of the brand.

The story begins with the HERO. Who is the hero in a brand story? Your brand? No! It is your audience. You only empower them to live their adventure and participate to your story.

What about the brand? The brand is not a hero, but the MENTOR. The mentor guides and inspires the hero to reach his potential and succeed. The mentor does not talk about himself, but tells how great the hero is. The mentor makes the hero believe and take action. Just as a brand does in an engaging creative campaign today.

The mentor also gives a GIFT to hero to help him/her in his journey. In communication that is actually the BRAND GIFT, what the brand will deliver.

To sum up, Hero’s Journey is still a beautiful guide to marketing people who needs good stories. And the foundations of storytelling is the right path to success in digital landscape.

Oral Tradition Is Back: Storytelling

Storytelling is the new “buzzword” among creative industry. But why? Let me give a quick wrap-up about that. Since the beginning of history people spread ideas through stories in an oral tradition. Ideas used to spread, change, evolve among people for years. Up until golden advertising age of 1950s where messages drived by broadcasting. In broadcasting era, people became consumers of ideas, there was only one-way dialogue, no oral tradition.

With digital revolution broadcasting era use over. Audiences again get the charge of ideas through spreading, sharing, curating them all over the world. It is the “digitally empowered version of oral tradition” In this new landscape what kind of ideas can survive, of course STORIES!

In my next post I will give some tips for good storytelling based on Joseph Campbell’s iconic work Hero’s Journey. The video above also covers the fundamentals.

People Love Stories

People don’t love brand messages or advertising. But they love stories. Stories are memorable, interesting and inviting.

It’s better for brands to create a story and empower consumers to join that story. Make it bigger in an engaging and authentic way. This is the new way of advertising in new media landscape. Social space ensures the stories to get bigger through conversations.

In digital landscape, technology can also change the way we tell a story.

Agencies Need Both “Generalists” & “Specialists”

Agencies need both generalists and specialists. These two expression is my favorite in order to have a better understanding of the people and talents in the agency.

Generalists are the people who need to know a little about a lot of things! They need to be fluent in marketing, advertising world, new trends, technologies and creative process. These are the client-facing people and generally are senior and higher representatives of the agency. A generalist will be an effective advisor for the clients and capable of creating, evaluating and recommending creative & strategic approach in the complex digital landscape.

Speialists are the people who know a lot about a little! Their talent and execution is the power of the work being done in the agency. Especially in digital agencies there roles are very important to build an innovative approach, technology mastering and visual quality.

Data And Technology Is Useless Without Creativity And Storytellers

Technology and new media landscape shapes the advertising industry. Digital era transforms the way of doing advertising. However, in United States the biggest ad spendings is still TV with 66 billion USD in 2013, followed by online advertising spendings around 42 billion USD!

Obviously it is not just about online advertising. The agencies, clients, technology companies are becoming more data savvy day by day. These data can be derived from web habits, social media activites, credit card histories of each online individual. And the both marketers and agencies try to find out the way of doing more personalized advertising practices through these data.

So far, it is still difficult to build a crystal clear advertising solutions based on online data. But both agencies and brands started to invest on that. Some global brands like Coke, Nike, Burberry established marketing software departments. Ad agencies acquire technology companies focuses on this. And huge technology giants build services specifically addressing this issue for brands.

However, in order to create a change & impact in indivuals’s lifes and perceptions with an effective advertising, it is not enough just to command the data and technology. Brands need creative minds and storytellers to merge insights with new technologies & data.

Adopt a digital state of mind.