Some online video tips from Levi Strauss Co.

Levi’s CMO Jaime Cohen Szulc has been talking recently about his company’s use of viral video. According to him, it’s the most effective form of online marketing the company uses. That’s quite a claim, but he’s more than happy to explain why.

‘It’s really about sparking the interest. It has to be fun. If you’re out there selling your brand all the time or trying to do the traditional marketing thing it’s not going to work. It’s really about making people very curious about what you’re saying, and making it fun and enjoyable.’

The exciting thing about online video is that you don’t have to be as big as Levi Strauss to hit the jackpot. ‘The digital world really levels the playing field. It’s the democratisation of marketing, because with a little bit of money you can get a lot of return.’

The key, he says, is testing and measuring. Most big companies aren’t taking advantage of the fact that you can try out all kinds of different things and find out what works without taking a big risk with your marketing budget.

You also really need to measure the success of a video: it’s got KPIs just like any other part of the business. The KPIs will vary, so they might be how many times the video is recommended, or how many times it results in a conversion. But for Jaime, the biggest KPI is ‘fame’: that is, how the message has been amplified, whether it’s through blogging or through TV shows inviting you on to talk about your company. Because, as he says ‘having hundreds of thousands of people interested isn’t enough. We need millions’.

With clever marketing like this you can see why Levi’s are still going after 150 years.

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