AT&T's iJustine Web Series Doesn't Exactly Go Viral

I'm really, really, really upset at their latest ad in the bunch of advertisements, about "more bars in more places". The series has shown people in ridiculous situations, which are by no means life threatening. Though I would argue that the jail one is a bad situation to be in, its not exactly life threatening. The latest one however, which happens to be the first one to feature a "latino/hispanic" person in their campaign shows a guy named Ted or Pat "Sanchez," and he's about to be blast off in a building demolition. I find this completely diminishing of life of those who could identify with this man in image!! and therefore extremely racist. In comparison to the rest of the ads in where people miss out on life's opportunities the "latino guy" is placed in a serious situation where he is about to be killed in a violent manner. I don't know who did this ad, but it only goes to show how the advertising industry is responsible for the perpetuation of racist ideas. Where people of color are shown only to be ridiculed, or in this case obliterated!!! I'm going to have to leave AT%T because I cannot support a business which is racist in such a way!!! And I will post this message wherever AT&T's name is--until the ad is removed from the air and the company offers an apology to all its Latino clients!!

I'm pretty sure this isn't a case of "YouTube fame not translating," but rather, a simple case of bad content. The fact that iJustine on her own brings in six-figure views, coupled with the fact that her posting of the episodes brought in the lion's share of the views for this particular series speaks volumes. Clearly, she creates better, more engaging, and more popular content on her own. It isn't the fame that didn't translate, it's the agency-produced creative that didn't make the cut. This dang social media space is tricky, huh?

This summary of research by Prof. Jeffrey Bardzell at Indiana University on how video goes viral might be helpful:

http://www.octavianworld.org/octavianworld/2007/04/think_viral_act_1.html

Video is not and cannot be viral. Content is not viral. IT DOES NOT SELF PROPAGATE.

It can only be spreadable:

http://farisyakob.typepad.com/blog/2008/11/spreadable-media.html

Faris [Chief Technology Strategist, McCann Erickon, New York and friendly neighborhood geek]

iJustine and others of her ilk are examples of mathematic probability. Trying to recreate their accidental and fleeting quasi fame is like chasing the wind...you will never catch it.Their is a simple expanation why advertisers have a tough time on YouTube, Facebook, et al...the users don't want you there.

www.proudtoliveinamerica.com

Over the past year I have worked with multiple YouTube stars on successful campaigns. Here's what I learned:

1. YouTube personalities are stars of a different medium: their star power (and thus credibility) is intricately linked to the YouTube user experience and value platform
2. YouTube stars catalyze like-minded individuals into active conversation communities - not corporate brand communities
3. The moment a YouTube star is transported onto the "brand stage," they lose their potency because they are outside the sphere of influence
4. If you are interested in learning more about how to effectively leverage YouTube stars and online video, look me up (Phillip Underhill) on LinkedIn....

I'm still trying to determine why I should care....

I actually found the overlay ads more engaging than looking at that video. If you want to use an overlay ad, with digital music downloads. www.focusrightmarketing.com

Brock LaBorde here, owner of Studio 8 & producer of AT&T's "Lost in America." Interesting article/review, Michael. However, as you can imagine, I've got some issues with it:

1 - When you quote how many views have been generated, you ignore a couple of facts.

A - The main distribution point for this series is ATTLostInAmerica.com. Studio 8, Karen, and Justine weren't obligated to distribute episodes, but each of us are releasing however many episodes we want to. The views on the official site are not made public, so there's no way to accurately state that the series isn't doing well. For all you know, people discover the video on YouTube and then click over to the AT&T site to watch the rest of the series in higher quality.

B - You compare our videos, which have been released for less than 2 weeks, with Justine's other videos, one of which was released almost 2 months ago and has Justine in a bikini the entire time. Of course those views will be greater than those of the LIA series.

C - How did you search for this series on TubeMogul? Studio 8 has distributed it across 11 different web video sites (not 6, as your article states). We've generated over 15,000 views on our own without any additional effort. Added to Justine's views, your article is leaving out roughly 10,000 views.

2 - You also assume that we sat down and said, "Let's make a viral internet series!" We were hired to produce a product-sponsored reality web series featuring two celebrities, both of whom happened to be internet stars instead of TV or film stars. Justine and Karen fit this project nicely and have good web presences, so the client chose them. We treated this series like a TV studio would...you try to produce quality content and hope to build an audience. We didn't expect a million kids to send links of all 16 episodes to all of their friends in a single day. Some campaigns hope to "trick" audiences into doing that. We didn't.

3 - Let's look at some comments on the videos. Aside from all the "LOL" and "Can't wait for more" stuff, we've gotten these:

- i love your video. thats a really nice cell phone that takes great pictures.
- haha my friend has the bluee phonee =]
- lol DONT DROP YA PHONE! :)
- Nice product placement. I always thought there should be a show based souly on a product. lol

Yep, it's a bunch of people talking about the phones while enjoying the series, which is pretty much what we're going for...

In summation, from your headline down, I think you approached this series in the wrong fashion. Be careful when using the word "viral" and understand that some people are creating decent web content without stressing out about the number of views their videos receive their first day of release. It's a series in progress and I'm proud of what we've done with our tiny budget and mostly self-promotion.

Thanks for your time.

Hi. Figured I'd chime in on this wonderfully inaccurate piece as well. I was hired strictly as talent and not as a distribution avenue. I did put two videos on YouTube and without any type of promotion of those two videos, managed to get over 20,000 views. I did this because I thought my fans would be interested in seeing what I was working on and why I was traveling so much.

You also failed to count 2 video blogs from Alaska and Austin I did which also have a total of over 120,000 views.. again with no promotion.

I know how to reach an audience, but that wasn't my job. My job was to work as talent with Studio 8 and the agency on creating an engaging show.

Also, to add.. as a partner on YouTube, they do frown upon posting commercial type content to your channel -- this project wasn't meant to gain "viral" views from our network.. these episodes were meant to be viewed on their mini site: ATTLostInAmerica.com

As a side note, that jungle video was purely a fun video blog and was no way affiliated with AT&T.

This was a really fun project to work on and I'm glad that I was able to work on it with Studio 8.

Thanks,
Justine

I think it's really interesting that corporations are hiring talent for on-camera performance and ignoring the talent they bring to the table in launching and building community. This isn't the first time this has happened.

Justine has a following. Justine knows how to organically build a following. Hiring Justine to just appear on camera is like hiring a valuable consultant just to sit in on a meeting.

Justine is incredibly valuable to brands to keep a show organic, authentic and in building a show's community.

The next company that hires Justine needs to get her involved as a producer and needs to use her for the launch and release strategy.

She's not just a pretty girl with a big iPhone bill.

Justine is a "Tube Mogul" in waiting.

No one watches Justine to hear what she says.

As Executive Producer of the series, I wanted to chime in briefly to clarify that the artists involved were not in charge of distribution, and have only been releasing videos as they are proud of the work and want to promote it. Our talent was chosen not primarily because of their popularity, but rather their relevancy. Who better to utilize in our series when we are trying to highlight technology (the phones) and its multiple uses? You couldn't pay an "actress" to be able to understand, on this level, the many advantages of AT&T's phones and services.

With that said, you should be hearing more about our distribution #'s soon and we hope everyone is enjoying the series as much as we enjoyed making it.

Sincerely,
Richard Frias
Executive Producer, LIA
www.dc-partners.net

This concept works great as a traditional advertising campaign. As a social media born strategy it seems to have not been worth the effort. High production value does not necessarily equal ROI in the social media/viral video space.

http://admaven.blogspot.com

If the original "article" here has any value, it was in soliciting useful, fact-laden comments from the people involved. I wish these Digital Next pieces (and their authors) were more accurately identified by AdAge as personal opinion blog posts and not as industry news.

Michael... Your analysis of this program is good. But the suggestion that YouTube stars aren't good spokesman is like concluding that television is a dead medium because Stella didn't last more than a season or two. There will be failures, and there will be successes. A common alternative strategy (rolling dice on a "viral" video with an unknown star and channel) is much more moronic.

Not all YouTube spokespeople work, and not all ideas are strong. In this case, I think it had less to do with iJustine and more to do with an idea that didn't have high engagement. In fact, how many views would have occured if iJustine wasn't involved -- to your point, she drove most of the views.

TayZonday and top YouTubers have shown that they can take brands from obscurity to HUGE views. I'm down at #84 of "most subscribed," and my promo videos have driven hundreds of thousands of views for Mentos, and a recent Readers Digest video was seen 700K times on Yahoo Video within days.

The trick is to develop a killer idea that doesn't RELY on the online-video star. And execute it well so the audience is hyper amused and engaged.

Please don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

I love how this post got completely BLASTED by the people who made the project. While the series lacked anything that pulls you in, you can't judge the numbers from iJustine or "the other one's" personal posts, so to call it a failure is a bit off.

There are great ways to utilize Youtubers, and sadly, only a few companies know how to garner our internet pull. With the right campaign, our videos can garner hundreds of thousands of click-throughs, great brand awareness, and only God knows how it'll spread via word of mouth.

So don't count us out.