With all the content vying for people's attention, how can you create something that people actually will want to watch, and still have it promote your brand? Ziploc seems to have found the answer in its Little Beasts series of webisodes.
Showing the Brand without pushing the brand
Ziploc is a very well known brand, but their products - sealable bags - don't seem to lend themselves naturally to interesting content. Their solution is to show Ziploc bags in action, without actually calling attention to them.
Each video in this series is filled like mini-interviews with parents about some common issue: getting kids ready for school in the morning, putting them to bed, going out to eat, school picture day, etc. The parents talk to the interviewer and interact with their kids as they normally would, but the kids have been secretly replaced with various animals - the kid who won't go to sleep is a raccoon, the slow kid in the morning is a sloth.
Aside from a small branded intro ( with a slightly annoying jingle ), there is only the Ziplocs being used as they would normally in these situations to hold brushes, foods, and other easy to carry items. The focus is on the video, but you do notice the ziplocs - in fact you are almost looking for them to see how they will get tied in.
According to AdAge, the 5 videos in this series have accumulated 2-5 million views each. That speaks to how well they have done a combining an understanding of their target demographic and the power of animals on social media.
NEXT STEPS
So, what should you do next to mirror their success?
Map out how your products or services fit naturally into your customer's lives. How can the products do the talking for you?
Find a humorous surprise. Comedy is about exploiting the disconnect between the audience's expectation and what they get. In the Ziploc video, it was replacing the kids with the animals in the same situation.
Create engaging test videos. Build a short series of videos around these ideas. 3-5 videos is a nice number because it is easy to test and approach, as well as supply additional content for excited viewers to watch.
Use YouTube Cards and CTAs to guide followups. The platforms offer great tools to help drive your viewers to more of your content and back to your website.
With today's common technologies, it doesn't require big budgets or exotic animals to engage an audience, only creativity. As alway, it is best to learn by trying and adapting from a smaller set of concepts.
Have you done any great subtle branding like Ziploc? Share your examples below.
