The Rise Of Trackvertising And The Opportunity For Marketers
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This article is by Richard Kosinski, president, U.S., at Unruly, a branded-video technology, insights and analytics firm.
Music video or advertisement? It’s a question we are finding ourselves asking a lot more lately. In the last year we’ve seen a rise in videos that could arguably be identified as both music video and brand advertisement.
The clearest example is Activia’s musical collaboration with Shakira and the World Food Programme (yes, that catchy video you watched during the World Cup was actually a brand ad), which recently overtook Volkswagen’s “The Force” as the most-shared ad of all time.
“La La La (Brazil 2014)” – launched just before the World Cup – has so far generated nearly 5.5 million shares and has been watched more than a quarter of a billion times.
However, is it fair to compare the top two most-shared videos of all time side by side? One, after all, is a traditional ad, while the other could be regarded a music video brought to you by a renowned yogurt brand.
Well, for starters, Activia’s Shakira video is a piece of content that certainly deserves to be judged alongside any other commercial. Furthermore, it is the most successful example of a new trend called “trackvertising.”
So what’s trackvertising? Put simply, it’s a music video that’s co-released by a brand and an artist, where the collaboration is clearly announced either in the video title, video description or within the video itself.
Still, there are an ever-increasing number of videos that continue to blur the lines. One such example is from Kia. The auto brand has just launched its new commercial promoting the new 2015 Kia Soul EV ahead of this Sunday’s Video Music Awards. The ad boasts not only breakdancing hamsters, but a sneak preview of Maroon 5’s new single, “Animals.” You can even download the single from the Kia website.
They did something very similar same last year with Lady Gaga’s track “Applause”.
Other recent and much clearer examples of “trackvertising” include H&M’s Beyonce video, “Arianna and Pitbull’s “The Fiat Song’ and Rizzle Kicks’ Wimbledon partnership with Evian. But this is not an entirely new trend. There are other examples stretching back a couple of years, such as OK Go’s collaboration with Chevrolet for the 2012 Super Bowl.
In “La La La,” the brand partnership is subtle with overt brand identification presented at the start and the end of the video. During the course of the video, Shakira as well as dancers throughout the video, paint the Activia smile across their navels—taking Activia’s iconic navel smile and making it her own. Have you ever seen so many smiling navels in a music video?
In an “on-demand world,” consumers choose what they want to watch. And with so much video choice, brands are under increasing pressure to make their content stand out from the sea of video content easily available.
They’re open to creative collaborations and partnerships if they can lead to more shareable content and increased affinity with their target audience. And you can’t get any more shareable than music videos. Only one of the top 100 most-shared videos of all time is not a music video (Kony 2012 at #69). Unlike traditional ads, which tend to suffer viral decay after the opening few days, music videos continue to attract shares well beyond launch week.
It certainly seems a good fit. Just as brands are looking to be culturally relevant content producers, the music industry is looking for new monetization strategies.
So the success of Shakira’s collaboration will be music to both stakeholders’ ears.
