Ed Brill

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1. 1  Scott Hooks http://www.lotus911.com | 12/10/2008 1:11:50 PM

   I must now have a Foundations server for my small business because of this commercial! Err… Not so much. I love the product, but I can’t see this ad actually driving any revenue. Sorry.

1. 2  Carl Tyler http://www.iminstant.com | 12/10/2008 1:15:20 PM

   The real test of whether or not it is viral is what the hits are in one week and two week. Viral implies exponential growth. So today should see 28k viewers, tomorrow 56k etc.

   14k people is about 5% of total IBM employees in the world. So there is room for a lot more growth yet if it really is viral.

1. 3  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 12/10/2008 1:19:09 PM

   True, but it's way more than we've seen on almost any other Lotus-related YouTube video, esp. first 24 hours.

1. 4  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 12/10/2008 2:29:30 PM

   It's closer to viral than the other one, that's for sure. At least this one was mentioned to me by someone else. :-)

   I'll agree with Carl, though, it's hard to say it's viral until you see continued growth in sharing.

1. 5  Chris Miller http://www.IdoNotes.com | 12/10/2008 2:59:47 PM

   I am more concerned with someone staying with it until the last 8 seconds to barely see a product name splashed on the screen. There was no follow up on what the product was

1. 6  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 12/10/2008 4:19:38 PM

   Hey it's up to 26K so far, so I think Carl may be on to something :-)

1. 7  Gavin Bollard http://dominogavin.blogspot.com | 12/10/2008 5:15:21 PM

   Not viral at all. To be honest... it's not really a good advert (sorry). I don't want to be pessimistic but you really need to head-hunt some Google or Apple people. IBM's products are brilliant but the marketing ... well, it just... isn't.

1. 8  Roland Reddekop  | 12/10/2008 6:15:42 PM

   ...I mean like who is watching/forwarding this:

   >>IBM employees told to drive up the hit count so that it will be noticed on the YouTube top videos of the day?

   >>MSFT employees "quaking" in their boots and now on the phone begging Seinfeld to come back (or more than likely just having a good laugh at this attempt to takeover their SMB Server biz)?

   >>Invoking the undocumenented backdoor Zombie mode of the installed world-wide network of Foundation/Nitix servers and using a dictionary of user names to view the vid and add positive lame comments like "kewl", "funny", "way to go".

   Mind you, if this is genuinely working, and the follow ups build, I'll take it as confirmation why I exited the marketing field and took up a tech job several years ago.

   Prediction: That Asteroid, which is obviously hollow, and sent down from the gods, contains a DOM chip, the brain of a Foundation Server. They will install it and henceforth enjoy unfair competitive advantages in the midst of a recessionary economy.

1. 9  Fred@Lotus  | 12/10/2008 6:52:30 PM

   the ad is amusing (kind of reminds me of "the office"..) but hard to make the link with Lotus Foundations SW..!?

1. 10  Keith Brooks http://www.vanessabrooks.com | 12/10/2008 8:10:07 PM

   Why not instead show an IT guy's day, 8 hours of doing anything except looking at his server or getting pages/irate calls, he could be teaching in the morning, lunching with the ceo, presenting at a conference and at 4:59pm a simple text message at the end saying the server is up and updated and that is 100 days without fail. Have a nice day. With a strong Foundation you are free to grow your business however you like.

   Isn't that something you what you want to convey?

   Or on the flip side, show him getting all these crazy calls and pages and forwarding them to the Exchange guy due to a wrong number.

1. 11  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 12/10/2008 10:33:39 PM

   WIN! for the Star Trek reference. "Dammit Jim, I'm an intern, not an ad exec!"

   WIN! for the Aliens reference when he tears open his shirt.

   WIN! for the blonde who's a younger Cheryl Hines. I'd gladly be stuck with her in my inevitable holocaust.

   but FAIL on a) the total lack of any display of a product; b) the "hook" technique of teasing me to a website to find out what the ad is "really" about.; c) the over-the-top cheesiness of the performances -- that works for SMBs, but it's embarrassing for a company the size of IBM; d) the whole premise.

   Let me go back to a recurring theme: these people are MASSIVELY STUPID. They are the dumbest people on earth. And guess who the characters are, consistently in IBM advertising? The dumbest people on earth. This is in the "I have 700 friends" ad. In the "drive-thru" ads on the radio. And now in this "viral" ad.

   What's the matter with showing smart, successful people being smart and successful while using IBM products? Why is the campaign built on fear instead of admiration?

   Has IBM learned nothing from Apple's success? Is performance against goal the ONLY metric in the universe?

   Get some ambition, IBM.

1. 12  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 12/10/2008 11:22:23 PM

   Oh, and one bonus WIN! for getting the guy from David Blaine Street Magic. Though I had to read the comments to remember where I'd seen him before.

   Now.... David Blaine, IT Magic.... THAT is a hot viral video.

   "I need to deploy this workflow app to my entire salesforce."

   "You mean THIS sales force?" *poof*

   "Oh My God!! You're a demon! You summoned my entire sales force. There's no way you can deploy this software to all of them, though!"

   *poof*

   "NO WAY!!! NO WAY!!!"

   If you don't know what I'm talking about, check it: { Link }

1. 13  Bilal Jaffery http://www.bilal.ca | 12/11/2008 1:57:04 AM

   I love it! I love the fact that folks are curious and are bothered by it! (BTW - views are around 35K in less than 48 hours). It is viral by nature. Its not a TV spot nor it is designed to compliment any sales presentations, just brand awareness.

   Viral campaigns purposely leave out details so that the audience is curious. If I had completed the whole message, then no one would be interested in finding out more - nor would they be curious enough to talk about it.

   And from Youtube's side, I wouldn't even risk getting IBM.COM domain banned for fraudulent views. People were encouraged to pass it on and viral aspect of the video did its thing.

   There will be more in the series, just keep watching this space!

   Btw, I posted a link to Sprite's Viral campaign on my blog's comments, check that one out. That was is hilarious as well.

   I thank you all again for your support and comments, next series will be more 'clear' in nature. This was just a intro!

   Regards,

   Bilal Jaffery

   Web Marketing Manager

   IBM Lotus Foundations

1. 14  Bilal Jaffery http://www.bilal.ca | 12/11/2008 2:01:16 AM

   Nathan, viral ads don't show products. :) specially in IT space, If I am going to get someone to watch an ad, I would have to force it on their TV during their favorite primetime show.

   I wish I could get them to watch an ad for free. That would be an marketer's dream come true.

1. 15  Andy Steven http://www.uptime100.com.au | 12/11/2008 3:21:11 AM

   Have a look at google trends for Lotus Notes searches.

   { Link }

   My hobby site get's 1000's of visits a day, you need 100's thousands a day.

   All Notes advertising preaches to the converted.

   I'm selling Notes to small companies here in Adelaide (started showing 8.5 beta on a Mac) and it feels like a lonely ship at the moment. Companies I am speaking to love what they see, but are reluctant to move as every one they speak to has never heard if it. Who wants to be first, Exchange / POP has 99% (or more) of the SMB market here.

   With all the 'hype' about 8 and 8.5 it is clear there are no spikes on google to show this..

   I am very positive for the future of Notes (hence why I've started showing it to people) but if Lotus wants to increase market share they need to do more advertising / education to resellers as well as the general public.

   Most small companies ask their trusted IT supplier about products they might see advertised at the moment if they were to ask them about Notes they would be told it is dead and buried and not worth investigating further.

   We need to get the message to more people!! IBM locally need to actively market to the IT market, fluffy middlware ads don't cut it.

   If IBM need someone in Adelaide (AUS) to get out their and show it to resellers get them to give me a call!!

1. 16  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 12/11/2008 6:39:36 AM

   @14 - "viral ads don't show products, especially in IT"

   Bilal, I started to actually provide a break down on the Times Online list of the top 10 viral videos from July 2007. { Link } Then I realized it was an enormous waste of my time. Clearly you're the expert in viral videos and how they move IT products -- because IBM has had so much incredible success in this area. Any analysis of successes in other viral campaigns wouldn't be important because they're not IT ads anyway.

   I'm particularly fond of how when I click through to the www.lotusfoundations.com site, there's nothing there that relates to the video I just watched. I can click "videos" and watch it again, but the promise of the hook at the end with "you thought we were talking about the asteroid" never turns into "we were really talking about X." That was really clever because now I'll come back to the Foundations site again and again looking for the answer to "what the heck was this ad about, anyway?" BRILLIANT!

   You're right -- showing people being smart and successful with a small business appliance would run against all industry standards for viral ads, especially in IT. Better for IBM to do exactly what everyone else does. There's enough innovation going on in engineering that there's certainly none needed in marketing.

   Besides, the events in the video aren't a complete disaster. Things worked out rather well for the big guy in the green shirt. And the commenters on YouTube certainly seem to have noticed that too!

   Say, maybe next time instead of a hot blonde, you could have one of the idiots in the video try to have sex with an actual Foundations server. It worked for this viral success: { Link }

1. 17  Roland Reddekop  | 12/11/2008 8:03:02 AM

   @ Nathan,

   As you can see, marketers of viral videos are Teflon coated and spin failure into success. In fact, the very passion and energy you're pouring into criticism has proven its successful and achieved the goal...so the theory goes anyway. Now, if views are the sole determiner of success, regardless of how the message supports or harms the brand, we've a long way to go. I just checked the top videos on YouTube for one day and can't believe some of the lamest vids get a quarter million views in a single day...with no budget. Amazing.

1. 18  Bruce Elgort http://elguji.com/Ideajamtour | 12/11/2008 8:28:39 AM

   For the record I give the video a solid "B". Let's give Billal and his team some more time to show us what's left before we apply the #fail.

1. 19  jimmy bracco http://www.lotus911.com | 12/11/2008 9:39:11 PM

   viral,

   I'll show you viral

1. 20  Alan Bell http://www.dominux.co.uk | 12/12/2008 3:49:39 AM

   like Nathan I am not an expert in the area, but I read the comments on the YouTube page for the video. I don't know about anyone else, but I didn't see many comments that looked like they were from interested decision makers there. I think doing videos like this is a fairly harmless activity, as long as the budget is as low as it looks.

1. 21  Alan Bell http://www.dominux.co.uk | 12/12/2008 3:53:36 AM

   here is a video that shows an IT product.

   { Link }

1. 22  Elf http://www.elfworld.org | 12/19/2008 3:22:47 AM

   At least the pointless Mickeysoft's adds were funny.