Holiday social media

I wrote very briefly last week about the potential roll out of embedded video advertisement on Facebook’s newsfeed. As the holidays creep up on us, the number of videos being released by retailors to try to be the top viral video of the season has begun. In the UK this competition was started by John Lewis two years ago (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSLOnR1s74o – with over 5 million views and last years http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N8axp9nHNU ) and now has everyone in on the act. Here are a few of the contenders for 2013 to date:

 Marks and Spencer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7Xw1IL3oh0

Legos early father and son bonding video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwQqkX3qZak

 Viral, heartwarming videos in time for the holiday season offer companies a huge boost to their branding as well as revenues. Coke-Cola has done a great job over the years http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr7h8crYAYQ – we all know what they are advertising, we all know the brand and the rumour around them trademarking an image of Father Christmas but it never does any brand harm to associate with Christmas (as we call it in Europe, or the Holidays as the Americans seem to more inclusively insist on calling it). Especially as it seems the Christmas period starts earlier and earlier each year, the first Christmas tree spotted in New York was mid October….

 Advertising on Facebook through such videos could be a huge boom for both the retailors themselves and for advertising dollars for Facebook.  With 1% of the 1.2billion Facebook users being guinea pigs of the video advertisement role out on Facebook has begun. Instagram is said to be rolling out video advertisements in the coming weeks. The questions is, how will these sort of heart-warming seasonal videos work in conjunction with these social media sites.

 Social media as a whole seems to have achieved this through The digital Nativity Story  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkHNNPM7pJA with the tagline – times change, feelings don’t.