Welcome back to weekend coffee chats, the Business Breakdown series, where we discuss different industries, businesses, and what we can learn from them.
For the F1 Business Breakdown series, we’ll be getting back to it in the next few days, follow the Instagram account where you can be notified whenever a new post is published. (@weekendcoffeechats)
This week we’re looking at how sponsored content on youtube can be a positive experience for the viewer rather than an ad they need to sit or skip through, with focus on one case, Tan France’s sponsored show by Toyota on youtube “Makeovers with Tan”.
This show is fantastic. I don’t usually name businesses or brands to try to keep things focused on the macro picture, but this has been such a class act of great work that I had to mention it, in case you guys would enjoy watching it as well. (As usual nothing sponsored, just whatever the algorithm throws in my way that week)
First of all, why is this so unique? Well, unless you’ve been living under a rock, majority of advertisements these days are just awful. You are targeted and followed around multiple websites, and your videos are interrupted. What for? Well, for some product or service that you searched for once or twice (and regret that) or remotely unrelated to anything you want but you match the criteria (Ex. female, 18-35 years old) (yes that’s an actual criteria I’ve seen, you can check it yourself on google —> why this ad). So when a well done ad / program shows up, you can’t help but notice the difference and sigh hoping more companies will follow suit.
This is a masterclass in how a brand can advertise in a natural way (without interrupting whatever you’re doing) and actually showcase the benefits/ selling points of their product or service. In this case it’s their new car.
So basically they’ve created this show where Tan does what he does best, styling individuals, meaning they’ve built it around his core strength and didn’t just add a “check this out segment” and finally they incorporated a giving back portion relevant to what we’re going through right now (miss Rona basically) through giving away some of the clothing pieces to people who’ve been on the frontline. This last bit is excellent CSR (corporate social responsibility) that doesn’t cost that much but the social and online impact would be huge.
I mean honestly whomever the marketing team of Tan and Toyota is, kudos to them for a fantastic job! (Also can I work with you guys? Just kidding, not really, call me)
You may ask why is this so exciting? Well so many reasons
a- fantastic show and enjoyable to watch
b- great ad in-which you don’t feel it’s intrusive but you’re now aware of cool features that Toyota cars have that would be helpful to you as an average user
c- it brings some hope to marketing which at times can be quite unimaginative. in the era of brands just asking Youtubers to say a few sentences about their products, or to sending PR packages and hoping they’d be showcased in their stories and social media and that only that will be enough to convince the audience to buy it, i mean come on.
Cons?
a- It’s too short ! I understand it is for youtube so keeping it short is probably the goal, but it’s so good and even majority of the comments are requesting longer versions as well.
b- surprisingly i would’ve liked to see more than just one car, I can understand they’re probably just launching one, but if there was more cars launched I would’ve liked to see them in the other episodes so it doesn’t feel repetitive, and how do they compare to each other again for an average user.
Now being realistic maybe not all companies can do this, but (and this is a big but) there’s a lot of them that can achieve something similar if they put the time and effort into it.
Let me know in the comments section if there’s any ad that you’ve found helpful or you’d rather not be interrupted?
That’s it for now, till next time 🙂
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_YxbEEisR8&ab_channel=TanFrance
Disclaimer: None of this information is to be used as advice, it’s just for entertainment purposes. Additionally all information used is publicly available.
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