Chicago Video Production

A truly effective branding campaign does more than raise awareness about a company, it also shapes public opinion. Hence the latest video for Volvo’s S60, in which the world’s safest car company sets its sights on an attractive new?client?le.

Everything about the video screams “fun” and “sex” and “European debauchery,” but is an international party campaign fueled by alcohol and beautiful hipsters the best way to sell a car? It just might be.

The traditionally family-oriented brand has set its sights on a new demographic, the young and reckless. The type of people who belong in the world’s safest car. The beauty of this video is that it’s fun enough that most young people would want to be a part of it, but it’s also delivered on a platform that probably won’t reach Volvo’s typically older customers. In effect, the company comes off as risque and dangerous, but never alienates the people who already buy Volvos.

For creating a video that calms our fears of Europeans, and also makes us want to buy a car, Volvo has earned this week’s Video Professionals Award.

BONUS TRIVIA QUESTION: Who’s the most famous vampire to drive a Volvo?
The first person to comment correctly gets a free coffee drink of their choice from The Goddess and Grocer, AND a VIP tour of the Video One Studio!

Lots of YouTube updates this week. On Wednesday, we blogged about the fact that YouTube is starting a streaming paid movie rental service. Well, here’s a couple more YouTube tidbits that hit the web today.

First off, if you’ve watched a YouTube video recently, you’ll notice that the video time bar has been given a thinner appearance. Check Reelseo.com for screen shots of the old and new video player as well as for information on additional redesign info.

Secondly, comScore has released their March 2010 online video rankings, which has the stunning statistic that last month YouTube users watched 96 videos on average. That breaks down to 3.2 YouTube clips a day. Additionally, over 180 million U.S. internet users watched video, and 136M of them, or 96%, went to YouTube to watch. Check Reelseo.com for additional stats and commentary on the comScore rankings.

Reelseo’s Grant Crowell recently caught up with TechSmith’s product manager Shane Lovellette at the 2010 NAB Show in Las Vegas. Never heard of TechSmith? Their known in marketing circles for their screen capture tools, but TechSmith can also capture someone’s reaction to an online video with their new software called Morae.

The idea is to find out what watchers of the video are reacting to, what the like about the video and what they don’t like so those on the marketing side and share said information with their team so adjustments to the video, if needed, at a later time.

Here’s the brief video interview with Shane Lovellette from Reelseo.com:

Also, check out even more details on how the Morae software works in the full Reelseo.com article.

YouTube has secretly introduced a brand new streaming video store to their website recently joining iTunes and Netflix in distributing online streaming video at a cost.

YouTube’s rental service, which you can find at Youtube.com/store, still looks to be under construction (perhaps that’s why they didn’t make a big fuss about its initial launch). The pickings are slim right now as the majority of rental offerings include independent films including Precious, The Blair Witch Project and Kids among others. As for TV shows available for rent, unless you’re a big Japanese Anime fan, the isn’t much there either.

The films range in price from $.99 to $3.99 for a newer film. According to Reelseo.com, the viewer has two days to watch the film before it expires.

I find it a bit strange that YouTube has suddenly, and stealthily, decided to offer streaming content at a price since they’ve become the free online video destination. I guess only time will tell if this takes off, but for now color me skeptical.