Getting Viral With The Packard Brothers
On an unassuming Wednesday afternoon in February, two young men stood before a room of PR pros and demonstrated how to use shock, awe, humor and above all, creativity, to help online videos go viral.
Jack and Nick Packard of Packard Brothers, a Milwaukee-area video production agency, shared their knowledge, experience and examples of creating Web videos that get noticed and passed along.
Here are a few takeaways from the presentation:
The most successful videos on the Web tend to be one of these three types:
- Craft (DIY instruction)
- Co-op (leveraging existing entities, i.e. making a real-life Angry Birds game)
- Idiocy (self explanatory)
Successful online videos need:
- Simple premise
- Catchy music synched with action
- Short length (2 min or less is ideal)
- Relatable format (viewer says “I could have shot that!”)
- Great editing
Successful videos (for brands) should be built with:
A clear call-to-action (give the viewer something to DO after viewing)
Measuring online videos’ success:
- YouTube Analytics
- Google Analytics
- Unique visitors to the site your video pointed them
- Offer redemption if the video led to a coupon/promotion
How many views will a successful comedy video have? The Packards believe the number is 100,000. (Real/organic views – not purchased)
Advice to brands/clients/businesses/executives:
- Be willing to take risks
- Have patience – success doesn’t come overnight
- Good creative ideas trump production quality, every time
Everyone hopes their clever videos go viral, but a communications strategy that sounds like “We will produce a viral video …” is absurd and a recipe for disaster. Jack Packard demonstrated that point with perhaps the most salient advice of the presentation by saying, “Calling a video on the web a viral video is like calling anyone with legs a marathoner.”