Eight reasons Cadbury’s hip hamster isn’t really on YouTube (and why that doesn’t matter)
YouTube today unveiled what it is proclaiming as its first round video player, featuring a cheery little Cadbury’s hamster running round his wheel. It’s a nifty idea, created in Australia. However, I don’t think it is what it seems.
The work of Saatchi & Saatchi Australia, it’s to promote the Cadbury Dairy Milk Rollpack. Hence the round theme. If you go to the home page of YouTube today, you won’t be able to miss the giant ad taking you to the Cadbury’s YouTube channel.
However, I don’t think this is genuinely integrated into YouTube.
Instead, I suspect the Hip Hamster video player is a clever switcheroo. In reality, I think this is effectively a microsite mocked up to look like a YouTube page that has then been placed on a YouTube url (with me so far?)
Nintendo did something similar in 2008, so the flexibility’s been there for a while: https://www.youtube.com/wariolandshakeit2008
Just check the source code. It’s pulling from here:
http://www.aglassandahalffullp.....8;hl=en_US
8? Gee, only one needed. The flash object seeks caching permissions from ‘aglassandahalffullproductions.com.au’ and not Youtube/Google as per usual.
It’s actually a YouTube channel dressed up as a “watch page” (the URL is that of a channel) – we did a similar thing with the Smart Online Safe Offline campaign for NAPCAN last year (“inspired by” the Nintendo campaign) – https://www.youtube.com/watchvCBjiaytbt5Xwk – we made the username resemble that of a standard URL to get around the fake URL thing, but it is also the Channel page http://www.youtube.com/soso . We had to work closely with Google to get it done, and there were all sorts of hoops and hurdles to go through (including multiple clearances out of the US). In practice, it’s pretty easy, you use a large flash space to push down the standard YouTube Channel structures, and then replicate the YouTube functionality within the Flash movie – total video views lines up with total channel views (which had just hit 99 when i wrote this). When we did it, YouTube were both extremely accommodating in terms of trying to facilitate the best possible experience, as well as extremely controlling around ensuring that users didn’t feel “duped” or misled. Interestingly in our post research, we found 40% of people who had watched the video passed it on, so clearly it worked. Be interesting to see if that’s the same for a more commercial message.
Tim you’re bang on about all the reasons this isn’t what it appears. You’re also right about the fact that, to the consumer, none of these matter.
What I hoped you had picked up on was the comment in the press release from Google’s head of display for Australia, Karen Stocks. “We were delighted to work closely with Saatchi and Saatchi and Cadbury at the early planning stages of their campaign, and the result shows what’s possible when creativity meets technology. We think this video rocks (and rolls)!”
For me, this campaign is somewhat damaging for YouTube’s brand in the media space. I don’t think it’s a great example at all of creativity meeting technology (it’s a great example of creativity though!). There is no technology solution here, from the company that is meant to be all about innovation. There is no evidence of YouTube being involved from early planning stages. There really isn’t evidence of YouTube working closely with Saatchi’s. And that’s a shame, because if this was done right, I think it would be well on it’s way to a million views by the end of the day.
Shame the views aren’t updating, would love to know if this takes off and pulls in a stack of plays.
You’re being too kind about consumers being fooled. From Campaign Brief’s comments:
“Ok, I’ve got a problem with this.
Youtube views are a considered a reliable indication of the popularity of a video. It has an effect on the overall likelihood that someone will forward something on because achieving a high number of views is not easy.
Unless you just make it up.
Change the video format, great, but don’t lie about the number of views and add a bunch of kiss-ass fake comments (with no possibility of adding more) and expect respect.”
Our Hamster has been moonlighting: http://bit.ly/baMPyM
Updating my previous post – Looks like they’ve broken the channel views counter, which should give an accurate count of video views – would seem to be not that smart (and i didn’t think it was possible, as it’s inherent in the Channel page architecture0
Thank you captain obvious!
This is still my favourite example of a brand interacting within an established site framework – similar to YouTube. Stick with it through to the end and definitely have a full screen window.
http://vimeo.com/9194146 Go Tostitos!
This is just a flash banner, not a round video.
Saatchi’s, you haven’t created anything. Just lies.
Magic, simple nice idea. The general public won’t give a monkeys about how it was made. Just enjoy it for what it is. A fun little ad to promote a chocolate bar created in an interesting way.
I think it’s pretty damn nifty and will certainly get a lot of chatter about it. This is one of thw things I love about Youtube, that they let advertisers have fun with the platform.
Look at Facebook, it’s too closed off and seems so faceless compared to Google/Youtube who are always trying new things (the world cup button for instance)
So great to see innovative use of a fake YouTube video, but they’ve killed off some of the opportunity to get it distributed through the social networks as it cannot be shared.
That’s a high cost for agency bling!