The myth of user-generated content

 
Internet There is camouflage and deception on YouTube. This is revealed by an entertaining web series called Viralcom. 
Every day, thousands of users on YouTube want to tell us something. If you want to stand out on the internet, you put a video online. The flashier it is, the more likely it is that the message will reach an audience of millions. The advertising industry has also discovered the video platform. Because users reject product praise, clever advertisers are relying on the power of word of mouth. The magic word is viral marketing, and this is how viral advertising works: the advertisers spread a clip on the web and hope that their idea will be so popular that users will spread it themselves. The clip about Ron Hammer is a very successful example. In October 2006, a clip circulated on Internet video portals that showed a spectacular motorcycle stunt accident in the style of an amateur film. The rider survived the jump and waved cheerfully into the camera afterwards. As soon as it went online, the fictional character Ron Hammer was known to an audience of millions in German-speaking countries.
The gag was invented by the Proximity Germany agency for the Hornbach DIY chain. Since Stuntman Hammer, such disguised advertising films have become increasingly popular. Marketers want to push the viral phenomenon, are increasingly planning such campaigns and are commissioning campaigns accordingly.
 
A look behind the scenesThere is now a lucrative business behind the shaky-cam videos that are supposed to make us laugh every day. In the battle for attention on YouTube, the industry leader of all video platforms, it is no longer enough to film a colleague's failed acrobatics with a cell phone camera. Nowadays, professional filmmakers are busy generating YouTube hits. Warner Bros. is demonstrating this on the Internet these days. The media giant has posted an entertaining but sad documentary episode on the Internet that shows relentlessly what is really behind the supposedly successful videos that bear the "user-generated content" stamp. The web series is called Viralcom and reveals what critical users have always suspected: Every howler on YoutTube is ultimately professionally realized. There is no trace of nerds or sex-crazed teenagers who were bored and then produced a home video. On YouTube, success is not left to chance.
 
Film project without taboosThe series Viralcom bluntly tells the story of a film studio whose sole mission is to produce hits for the video platform YouTube. The first episode shows that this is a tough and now money-driven business. The film project knows no taboos. Many a YouTube hit is demystified, for example the success of the clip "Chocolate Rain" or "Baby Laughing". Both productions were able to mobilize an audience of millions on YouTube. Viralcom stages the productions as fakes. The "real" user-generated content falls by the wayside.
The story behind the hit song "Chocolate Rain" also turned out to be an advertising coup after its success on YouTube. The singer in the video was hired by drinks manufacturer DrPepper for the launch campaign of a new drink. The popular troubadour was allowed to promote a remake of his chocolate hit, which again spread like wildfire on YouTube. According to DrPepper's managers in the New York Times recently, the viral promotion tactic can once again be declared a success.
The Viralcom series, which for the first time provides an insight into what happens on the set of major YouTube productions, was launched at the beginning of April. And it is by no means lacking in suspense. The focus is occasionally on the gruff nature of the director, who likes to freak out and beat up actors. But the money-hungry producer on the set and the overworked casting assistant also make for some laughs.
Experimentierlabor fürs WebViralcom is a weekly series. A new episode can be viewed every Wednesday on the said video platform or on
can be downloaded. Responsible for the content are the two screenwriters Joey Manderino and David Young, who have written comedy series such as "14 Days in a Civic" and "eHarmony's Minor Matchmaker" for Studio 2.0. Studio 2.0 was founded by Warner Bros. as an experimental laboratory for Internet productions. The film giant aims to produce short films, series and game shows specifically for the Internet.Studio 2.0, which was founded in 2006, also aims to cooperate closely with the advertising industry in the development of new formats. To date, however, only one result has been achieved in this way, namely the quiz show "Hardly News", which has been presented on the Bud.tv website financed by the Anheuser-Busch brewery since April last year.
 
Christian Lüscher
Viral marketing very popularTogether with the market research company GfK
the agencies Robert & Horst Marketing and Webguerillas asked companies about "alternative forms of advertising". As the authors of the study write, the majority of marketing people in large companies show a keen interest in viral marketing. There is a clear trend towards forms of advertising that rely on the communicative power of the Internet. The companies surveyed see video clips in particular as a suitable tool for this. 34.3 percent of B-to-C advertisers already use them, 20.6 percent plan to do so. Word-of-mouth marketing is also used by 24.7 percent, with 11.3 percent planning to do so in the near future. Online games are also of great interest. Advertisers with a budget of over five million euros (28.9 percent of those surveyed) rely on this playful form of advertising. The study was conducted for the third time in 2007 after 2003 and 2005 and is intended to provide an insight into the development of "alternative forms of advertising". A total of 326 marketing managers from all sectors were surveyedA bitter reality for advertisersThe original content
of a YouTube clip has long since ceased to be enough to get millions of people excited online. Professionals help out with tricks to make their clips prominent in the web community. The commercial that an agency employee sends to his five best friends and finds thousands of viewers the following week belongs to the realm of fantasy, if you believe the detailed explanations of Dan Ackermann, author of the prominent US blog "Techcrunch". In his report "The secret strategies behind many viral videos", Ackermann bluntly points out that a viral process only gets rolling when, among other things, users are deceived with falsified discussions and work closely with blog authors. (cl)