If you’ve been on YouTube lately you’ll have noticed adverts for Sony Ericsson’s Pocket TV in the top right hand corner. But instead of just a banner add saying something like: ‘Get Facebook, Bebo and Twitter’ on your phone 24-7′ (the boring sales pitch most phone companies’ are trying to leveraging at the mo) Sony Ericsson’s Pocket TV is producing really, refreshing MTV-style content that’s getting lots of views.
Their YouTube Channel has 180,880 channel views and was awarded #33 – Most Viewed (This Week) – United Kingdom and their individual video viewing figures are much higher. The JLS: Face Invaders episode (below) got 162,462 views alone. OK so it’s not millions, but not bad for UK YouTube viewing figures from a company consumer channel. The top three UK channels are made up of cars, musicians and a girl doing makeup tutorials.
What I like about the content is it’s subtle. They don’t dangle a phone in front of your face. Or even use one at all. I’ve watched about ten episodes and have not seen a phone once. They’ve realized people, like me, can, and do just switch off as soon as they are being sold anything. Instead of the ‘we are a phone that can do everything on the planet’ sell, they are creating a brand young people associate and connect with. So hello advertisers, we know all phones come with Facebook, Bebo and Twitter 24-7, so don’t bore us with that drizzle, do something innovative, try a little harder, take a leaf out of Sony Ericsson’s book.
‘JLS Face Invaders’
Interviewing top UK YouTuber charlieissocoollike’s band Chameleon Circuit.
Gotta agree with you there
Content is most definitely king, and they seem to understand that if I as a consumer like the content, then I might be persuaded to think more favourably about the brand too.. Props to Sony Ericsson for getting it right
Totally agree – there are hundreds of brands trying to do exactly this but very few have managed to create compelling content.
Of course, not everyone can market the channel to mobile phone users. Do you know if the channel is a preset bookmark on the latest Sony Ericksson handsets, or if there is any advertising of the channel elsewhere?
I haven’t seen that ad yet on YouTube. Perhaps it’s a regional campaign or something (I’m in London). If you’re referring to the 310×260 ad position on the top left of the video page, I find that quite large and intrusive to be honest. Even worse, the first thing I saw when I visited YouTube’s homepage is a whopping 965×260 ad for promotional competition by HP. That’s a significant chunk of screen real-estate! It feels like a third of my screen – and I have a pretty big screen.
It sounds like the content of the ad you’re describing is refreshingly un-trendy. I too am bored of every bit of hardware with an internet connection being promoted by logos for social networking sites which happen to be trendy at the moment. The hard-sell doesn’t do it for me. Facebook and Twitter really aren’t impressive features. I can access both on my old mobile phone which is about half a decade old now. All it takes is the most basic of web browsers.
Google’s recent experimentation with various types of ad on YouTube has been interesting to observe. Perhaps in the future YouTube could even become a profitable enterprise!
http://www.timacheson.com/blog/2009/apr/youtube_not_profitable
Anyway, keep up the awesome work. Remember the movie, “Legally Blonde”? “Tech This Out” could be like “Technically Blonde — the series”. IMHO the cuting-edge of tech blogging is now officially blonde.
This all sounds very one sided to me, more like a promo for Sony than a piece of objective journalism. I don’t see that by sponsoring a piece of ‘made for tv but put on the internet’ is in any way groundbreaking or new.
Not much in this article about target audience I am guessing it’s not meant to appeal to early adopters given that SE are a global mass brand and they are using music to align themselves.
Well done for figuring out how to put clickable links in WordPress!
@jimb ummmm it’s not hard
@chucky no, i think it’s meant to appeal to the mainstream.
@robertsione I wasn’t trying to write a piece of objective journalism i was just pointing out that I like that they’ve been thinking outside the traditional ‘add banner’ box by creating their own content, but still not pushing/selling their products obviously.
As online advertising dwindles, companies are going to have to look at new ways to promote their products. Creating a brand people identify/associate with is one way of doing it.
geotarded, cant watch it in hong kong, so how good is it really
[...] Good integrated content or shameless plug? http://techfluff.tv/2009/08/19/dont-give-me-the-hard-sell-why-sony-ericsson-are-getting-it-right/ [...]
Deep thought! Thanks for conrtibuting.
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