Social marketing agency Mr Youth and Liam Sullivan (YouTube star of Kelly “Shoes” fame) have teamed up to create a video campaign for Marshalls’ in-store boutique, The CUBE. The new video been viewed almost 100,000 times since launching on Monday. It’s called “What R U Guys Talking About?” and tells the story of Kelly before she developed into the fashion icon she proves to be in “Shoes.”

As a youngster, Kelly became tired of wearing her mother’s handmade sweaters, so she voyages out to the mall in search of a style of her own.

Check out the comical video for yourself:

In addition to the YouTube, you can find out more about Kelly and Marshalls’ The CUBE at facebook.com/cube and MarshallsOnline.com.

The CUBE is geared toward teens, offering trendy fashions at discount prices.

This campaign with Kelly is probably going to be a huge success, considering Kelly’s popularity on YouTube. Since its introduction two years ago, “Shoes the Full Version” has nearly 26 million page views, and that’s just one of the Kelly videos. If you somehow haven’t seen “Shoes,” it’s below.

An inexpensive yet potentially extremely effective way to market a website or product on the internet is by harnessing the power of YouTube. However, creating a buzz on YouTube doesn’t happen by accident. Here are the top five ways to create that buzz:

1. Be Original
Piggybacking on a played out idea isn’t going to be effective. Think outside of the box and come up with an original idea. This step is the most difficult but it’s also the most important.

2. Stand Out
Thousands upon thousands of videos are uploaded on YouTube everyday. Your video needs to stand out and quickly grab the attention of the end user. For example, if you are attempting humor, don’t bury the humor deep in the video. The average YouTube user has a short attention span.

3. Avoid Commercialization
If a YouTube viewer sees obvious commercialization, they are more likely to move on. To get that buzz, be subtle with your product placements and promotions. You can even wait until the very end of the video to add the advertising aspect.

4. Promote
After your YouTube video is uploaded, you need some sort of initial promotion to get the ball rolling. If you have a mailing list, sending out an email blast with a link to YouTube is a good way to get the buzz rolling.

5. Stay Active
Even as the page views start rolling in, there’s still more to do. YouTube is an interactive community so keep an eye on the comments and the video responses. Answer any pertinent questions and remove unnecessary material.

Viral videos gain popularity by internet sharing through blogs, email and other methods. Video advertisement on YouTube is a good mechanism for businesses of all sizes. Here’s the latest from Nike, in case you missed it.

Kobe Bryant Sells Ankle Insurance

After scrolling though all the sex videos again, the highest ranking You Tube video from last week, at 40, is Nike’s Take it to the Next level, which I wrote about last week.

Next is what appears to be an ad from Lenovo (not 100% sure if this is genuine given the length), parodying the Macbook Air ad, for being portable when you need to add a lot to it to be comparable to the Lenovo X300.

The next one is slightly weird. It shows the group Jonas Brothers in what appears to be a homemade movie, talking about Breakfast Breaks. Breakfast Breaks are, as you’ve guessed, snacks for breakfast and they’re sponsoring the band on their tour. They were also running a ‘create your own ad video‘ which finished last week, to meet the band and appear in the next ad with them. What I like about this is the blurb on the Jonas Brothers sites is in their own words (or at least their own tone) so you get the feeling they are really involved in the product not just taking the money to share their name.

Yes, I know it’s later, I had an excuse! I was away in Barcelona with no web access

The hottest video over the last week isn’t really for a product but I’d thought I’d include it to illustrate a few things. It’s a 53 second video from a Sex Health Guru (a site with nothing on it a the moment), brought to YouTube by Illumistream, an ‘expert’ video site which concentrates on health and medical videos, a content collator for advertisers and publishers. They send all their videos to YouTube where they employ great keyword management to capture attention. So this video is pretty dry and sensible, with an very high level overview of how not to hurt your back during sex - but the keywords, most of which have little to do with the actual content, attract the search audience. They watch, stay around long enough to see there is no actual sex involved in the video but long enough to register a view. Eventually it becomes popular enough to be self-sustaining. As a strategy to get views, it’s a good one, just slightly devious - but I’ve seen brands use it. The same company/sex guru has quite a few in the charts, so it’s a successful tactic in the short term. In the long term, it’s effectiveness may reduce as people recognise the source.

There’s nothing else product related in the list this week, again. After a great start to the year it’s all gone downhill. One other minor thing to note - a small change to the YouTube Logo to support Earth Day

There’s a couple of April Fools in the list this week, the highest product one is from Virgin and Google - here’s Richard Branson talking about the new Virgle service. (the other one is BBC Penguins which is on twice)

There’s no other products on the list, so here’s something from You Tube and the Rolling Stones, kicking off a Living Legend series. Submit your questions and get them answered back via You Tube. This is further indication of YT spreading beyond pure UGC to making entertainment.

In a manner reminiscent of many English sporting associations, the UK monarchy have launched The Royal Channel on YouTube, seemingly ignoring the other royalty families around the world wanting to do so. For those of you outside the UK, the various organisations such as The Football Association or The Amateur Rowing Association never seem to include the country.

Partly to mark the first televised Christmas Speech that took place 50 years ago, the channel is intended to show some of the history of the Queen and also connect directly to the people outside of the TV, a method of delivery that has seen declining audiences. Listening to the 1957 broadcast takes you back to a different world, one that was still affected by WW2, one where the Commonwealth was growing with countries moving towards independence as the empire faded. But many of the sentiments are still valid, leadership, working together are still relevant and perhaps more so now. The move into TV was seen as a necessary adaption in a rapidly changing world:

“I very much hope that this new medium will make my Christmas message more personal and direct,” she said from her Sandringham estate in Norfolk.

“That it is possible for some of you to see me today is just another example of the speed at which things are changing all around us.”

This year’s speech is going to go live on the site at the same time as the broadcast on the telly, letting people watch it in their chosen manner. For someone who sent their first email in 1976, they’ve taken time to move into the video world, but it’s a recognition of how you need to do many things with the content of a brand than just use mass broadcast media. It’s a further way of making the message more personal and direct in a world that’s changing far faster than could ever have been seen in 1957. They’re also making it available as a podcast, recognising there is more than just iTunes out there and giving you the link to subscribe with any client.

I’m not really fond of the word viral, at least as a noun. The call of ‘let’s make a viral’ is annoying, pointless and usually means the person only has a surface understanding of the hows and whys. Using it as an adverb is far better -things can spread virally if you do the right things and get some luck. Usually, using it as a noun means the speaker is thinking about making a video; video often has the edge because they are commonly used as examples as other people can track their spread, not just the owner of the content. The number of views on YouTube is there for all to see but the number of hits on your cool site is usually only open to you. As a consequence of the openness, there are a number of third party companies that track video hits and provide daily charts of what is doing well but the other types are less well served.

However, some companies are monitoring the whole landscape, such as Competitrack, who sent me a Press Release about their latest product of Online Viral Monitoring (at least in the US). It caught my eye because it does more than just videos, looking at games, microsites and social networks as well, plus both positive and negative messages.

Nothing is clearcut in the viral world, but our definition is simple: We look for online messages that are aimed primarily at attracting and engaging an audience, and secondarily at supporting a brand or product. The brand or product message is often quite subtle-sometimes even indiscernible. We also seek out negative messages that are circulating virally-user generated spoofs, parodies or satires which poke fun, or are critical of a brand.

There seems to be a large human element involved in the analysis, which means costs, which means that the service is actually subscription (no idea how much, it does not say). So I have no idea how good the service is and whether it is worth paying for yet, although I’m planning on getting a demo. I still think it would be great though if they offered up a top 5 or 10 in each category as a general service, no need for the analysis, just the highest ranked ones.

I have no idea whether this game from Berghaus is any good or not as when I click the link I’m taken to a loonnnggg registration form before I get to see anything.

This is the first time I’ve seen this, a company looking for the details before the give us the fun. Was this the brand or the agency that pushed this? I’m guessing drop off from that page through to registration around 95%?

Next up, the Conservative Party and Vote for Change. with a different use of the party broadcast They’ve taken a video that has done the rounds a few times and put a tag on it attacking Labour. The video, of the pole-dancing woman who falls over came out last year (I think). I wonder if they asked permission for this? If they did, I wonder why she gave it?

Take a quick look at the comments - the usual YouTube crowd plus politics, never a good sign.

Finally a silly game. You’ve heard of Desktop Tower Defense, well, this is DTD, just done badly, for KFC

Here’s the latest virals that have landed in the inbox (or at least the ones I like)

Motorola

Videos of people dancing in funny places with their wireless headphones. Doesn’t sound too good but pretty funny. More can be found at wirebreakers.com

Hannibal Rising

To support the DVD release, here’s an unsettling game where you can upload a photo and do massive damage to the person. Not the politest of games, a bit sickly - Eat Your Enemy

Poloroid Sunglasses

Nice video tappign in the desire to see things whacked or splattered. Includes kittens, water and jelly. They are better on the website, but the footage is also available on YouTube.

V Water

Another vitamin water but with a cool little animation and a very, very catchy tune.

Hi-NRG drink, an alcoholic ‘energy enhanced’ drink form Australia have added their tuppance worth into the consumer generated video arena with their new site Dance Responsibly. Starting off with three pretty funny videos about dancing in the wrong place at the wrong time (you can tell this is an Australian site as the odds of getting these on a US corporate site are low!), it then encourages you to load your own dance videos up on the site, in order to win $3000 AUD.

Looking at the site, it’s pretty easy to guess the target audience - men, aged between 18-27, party goers. Just the type of people who may ignore copyright, considering the Matt video from wherethehellismatt.com is on the site and I don’t think Matt’s Australian nor would he put up the YouTube version to a site that claims copyright of everything that is uploaded. There’s also a lot of other YouTube videos there that have been popular on that site; they could be owned by the uploaders, but I’m not sure.

Unfortunately, despite being well put together and designed for the target, the site demonstrates some of the things that can easily go wrong when relying on UGC, with copyrighted content being uploaded, and highlights the need for good moderation. I’m also assuming that music IP is also different in Australia as I know in the US, many lawyers I’ve dealt with would not allow the music that is on the tracks.