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 * Online Campaign 1: The Berrics**

image obtained on February 8th 2011 from []

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Steve Berra and Eric Koston made the first post on [|The Berrics] in mid 2007. The Berrics is the name of a website showcasing nothing but skateboarding, at a single physical location: The Berrics. The physical Berrics is a skatepark owned and created by the founders, who double as pro skateboarders, at the top of the industry in terms of skill, likability and insight.

The website's content originated as purely skateboarding montages of other famous professional skateboarders, who visit the skatepark. These montages are posted on the homepage of the website, and are positioned approximately in the middle of the screen. A viewer may play these embedded videos, and scroll down to see more, as well as move back through the pages. The Berrics are unique in that their montages are filmed around themes which viewers easily identify with and relate to. An example of this is "[|First Try Fridays] ", whereby the pro in question must successfully perform a predetermined trick, usually by the host of the video, on camera, without any sort of warm up. First try. First time success without any trial and error is revered by skateboarders, thus quickly identified with among them. Every day of the week is given a different theme for videos, and viewers were able to start anticipating upcoming videos of their favourite theme. The Berrics continued to add professionals to their repertoire, and companies started taking notice of the attention they were receiving. Companies sponsored videos and contests the professionals competed in at The Berrics skatepark, to the delight of the viewers.

image obtained on February 8th 2011 from []

Unsurprisingly, knowledge of the existence and the operations of The Berrics became standard across the skateboarding industry. In order to skateboard, one must support a company by purchasing its skateboarding products, however many of of these companies were actively supporting The Berrics! It also exists as a commonplace which all skateboarders could converse about, making word of mouth an extremely effective promotion technique. The Berrics started merchandising in clothing, pressing phrases onto shirts and hoodies, like "SHOOT ALL SKATERS" - a play on filming skateboarders and the adversity skateboarding so often receives. These items became available for purchase under the "[|Canteen] " section of the website, which is part of the navigation menu, situated on the top left of the screen. The website utilizes two flash ads which remain in the same location, regardless of what page within the website you are. One banner is towards the top of the page, and one is towards the right, just above the secondary menu. For a short amount of time, the merchandise was advertised, however it has now been replaced by advertisements from other skateboarding companies. Apart from the obvious flash advertisements, were the videos. These videos showed idols in the skateboarding world supporting and representing the Berrics, much like Tiger Woods' usage of Nike products (does Nike make condoms too?) lures golfers and Tiger fans into purchasing Nike products, Eric Koston's or Paul Rodriguez's presence performing incredibly difficult skateboard maneuvers at The Berrics lures fans into purchasing The Berrics clothing. This model works fantastically, as the website does not drown its audience with heavy flash ads, but charms them with incredible videos, and provides an easy method of purchasing products embellished by the video's content. The Berrics in effect have combined both an advertisement and a service, an advertisement that attracts exactly the target market their products are tailored towards, skateboarders, and a video that keeps site retention time way up. The Berrics have succeeded in attracting this market by producing excellent media which skateboarders were quickly attracted to. Customers chose to come to the website and subject themselves to the advertising, purely of their own free will. The Berrics does not use Pop Up ads or intrusive advertising of any kind.

The Berrics merchandise can now be purchased in major Skate Shops across North America, such as West49. This endorsement of their products by a giant in skateboarding retail points towards it's heavy demand and commercial success, which is a direct result of the subtle advertisements and specific media the site produces.

image obtained on February 8th 2011 from: []

[|Cheetah Power Surge] (CPS) is yet another drink trying to have a piece of the pie which is the energy supplement market. According to the Cheetah Power Surge Facebook page, the company was founded in 2006 and distributes products through mega store retailers in Mississauga.



On March 10th 2010, via its Facebook page and its website, CPS announced the "Cheetah Power Surge TV Challenge", whereby the goal was for entrants to compete by producing potential TV commericals. The entries were submitted to one central CPS controlled site, however, many of them were first uploaded onto Youtube, "the world's most popular online video community" (Youtube, 2011).

 image obtained on February 8th 2011 from: []

The catalyst of this campaign was the judging criteria, whereby apart from the submissions being judged for quality and usability, they were judged on "Viewer ratings on the Website." This made contestants work feverishly to spread their video as widely as possible, urging people to view the video, and rate it highly, as this slightly increased the likelihood of their commercial being chosen, and the makers winning in excess of $10,000. This advertising model ensured the prospective commercials would be viewed by an extremely wide range of people, and the company didn't even have to put in any effort, the contestants did all the work! CPS utilized social networking excellently to promote their product, as contestants also embedded and promoted their entries on Facebook, all of which were promoting CPS! Quite ingenious indeed.

I was asked to rate one of these entries in September of 2010 by a former student of mine, Daegan McNeany, participating in the contest. His entry (absolutely fantastic work) is embedded below. He did not place, but did receive special mention. He is the character in the opening scene, who eventually feeds chickens.

CPS' potential audience was extremely wide, however most submissions seemed to be centered around comedy, suggesting a younger target market. A younger market would likely be more familiar with the operation and navigation of Youtube, again pointing towards the drink targeting that group.

Opening up Youtube and searching "Cheetah Power Surge contest" indicated that this campaign was extremely successful, whereby the first 10 videos have a combined viewership of over 170,000. Unfortunately the CPS submission website is no longer available, however when I visited it in September to help my former student, it had easily in excess of 100 videos available for viewing.

Both campaigns were successful, whereby as a potential customer, after viewing their media, I thought of their products in a positive light. Being a skateboarder myself I have already purchased a "SHOOT ALL SKATERS" t-shirt from The Berrics and am on the lookout for Cheetah Power Surge.