Me Tube? YouTube

For the last few days I've been pondering what to do with YouTube. It's not as screaming obvious to me like the LG presence was on Facebook (not that it's perfect but at least I can see where it can go). LimbGear is a consumer products and fashion or apparel company... and there doesn't seem to be a concrete formula for how to leverage YouTube.

One successful video marketing campaign that went viral a few years back was for Ray Ban sunglasses (i think). The video was shot in a grainy style and was positioned to be done by college age guys recording footage of stunts, all including sunglasses. At the time video hoax had not yet been over-exposed so people spent time clicking through the video trying to ID whether this kid was really able to throw his sunglasses onto his buddy's head as he drove by in his car. I watched it a number of times as did many of my friends. But there was no connection to a social network so no real value discussed and propogated. Just a one-time viral pop.

I've also seen companies upload their b-roll of action sports footage using their gear, which seems like a mundane use of such a cool medium. But when connected to other social networking mediums maybe this is a stronger use of YouTube? I'm not quite sure yet.

We're working on a few options. We have a team of college aged people working on some video footage and campaigns. I'm going to approach them about what they envision for the footage, where it can go, how people will connect to it and what it says about our brand.

Last Christmas we attempted to merge a traditional advertisement to a YouTube video... and we got some hits but it was not nearly as successful as we had hoped. And more importantly it did not translate into revenue. (which could also have been a problem with our site) In the end, we did it for our own entertainment, which isn't wrong, as long as you know that going in. The ad read 'What will Santa do when he get's his mp3 enabled skulcap from LimbGear this Christmas'... and when you clicked on it this is what you were blessed to see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIqni6iRFjc

Luckily for the world our marketing strategy has matured since then. But that's really the only thing that's matured.