A web series can be a fun way to boost your brand’s awareness online in a video production format that users find easy to digest. But getting viewers to see the series can be the tricky part, and even if they see an episode, how do you get them to come back on a regular basis.
We’ve discussed a number of ways web series creators try to collect viewers, but how about the possibility of discovering buried treasure if you watch? On July 31 of last year, almost exactly a year ago, a group of puppet masters aired the first of eight episodes of We Lost Our Gold, a video editing series in which puppet pirates (and one ninja) speak in code, clues which lead to a buried treasure in New York City.
On the one year anniversary of the show’s launch, I thought we’d take a look at the unique concept, and whether incentivizing web series in this way is a valid way to build an audience.
The last episode of We Lost Our Gold aired on September 10, and the treasure, $10,000 in dollar coins, still hasn’t been found. It also appears that many people have given up the search. Did they make it way too hard? Did they get what they wanted out of the experience? The creators have chosen to remain anonymous, and the last output from them was this past May on their Glove and Boots channel on YouTube. The makers of We Lost Our Gold maintain, however, that everything needed to find the treasure is in the original eight videos and not anywhere else.
They had some publicity, an appearance on MSNBC just before the episodes began airing, and forums shot up dissecting the clues once they did. Episode 1 tells viewers to start in Central Park, and a clever use of Morse Code tells them where in Central Park to begin. Episode 2 seems pretty straightforward as well. But when the pirates visit Larry King in episode 3, the hunt begins to get a lot more difficult. It’s here where viewer interpretations begin to taper away from each other.
This might be where the hunt’s New York setting makes the job nearly impossible. A city rich in history, landmarks, and famous people make a number of clues point in several directions. By the final episode, there’s a good chance you have no idea where you’re supposed to be, no matter how well reasoned your attempt.
And it’s not like a lot of smart people haven’t tried to make everything make sense in their own way, all sounding completely right, but still unable to find the treasure chest. We Lost Our Gold’s Unfiction forum has quite a few people tackling overall explanations, all different, all could be right, but with the money not found, where did everyone go wrong? One of the problems is the limitation of how many people can search for it. You pretty much have to live in New York or have a lot of vacation and resources to look for it as a tourist.
Taking a look at forum now, you can see video production interest beginning to wane towards the end of 2010, to the point now it goes weeks without a post. Once active on Facebook and Twitter, the conversation has begun to wane. It’s almost like most people have thrown their hands in the air and said, “All right, guys, you got us. We don’t care that we can’t find it anymore, just tell us where it is and put it back in your bank accounts. We just want to know.”
So what do we have here? Is it successful? Well, if you want people to watch your video editing web series over and over, We Lost Our Gold has accomplished that. People have poured over these video production looking for clues they might have missed or misinterpreted. It helps that the eight videos are very well done. Good writing, voice acting, puppeteering, and video editing make the video production series something worth watching even if you’re not searching for the treasure.
Visit ReelSEO for the complete analysis of this exciting and mysterious idea. To find out how we can help you with video editing and video production for your business, call or email us today!
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