You’ve probably seen those cool iPhone and iPod commercials on television; but had you ever wondered where they get these great ideas from? Try YouTube.
The latest iPod Touch commercial is the creative handiwork of Apple aficionado and amateur YouTube video producer Nick Haley. Nick made his own iPod fan video and uploaded it to YouTube last month, where it quickly became popular, receiving tens of thousands of views and only a few weeks.
One person who viewed Nick’s fan video happened to be an ad executive for Apple Inc. But rather than making a call to the company’s lawyers, the ad exec called Haley personally and asked if he would like his video to be featured in a primetime iPod commercial to air during the World Series!
Haley was quickly flown to Los Angeles to re-edit his creation and master it in high definition video for broadcast quality. The result is the new iPod Touch commercial that debuted during game four of the World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Colorado Rockies. Talk about a lucky break!
The fan video, turned primetime commercial, is a sleek, sexy ad, featuring quick edits and clever but simple production values. The music selection of the video is one of its most outstanding features. The spot uses a track by the Brazilian group, CSS, entitled “Music is My Hot Hot Sex.” The suggestive but playful lyrics and pounding beat are the perfect complement to the fetish-like fan video.
Haley actually “assembled” the video with clips taken from Apple’s web site, so no external footage was shot to create the 30 second spot. This shows the kind of creativity possible when working within the limited confines of a YouTube video, and how even major ad campaigns can take advantage of the online video sharing phenomena.
Could this be the start of a new advertising fad–using YouTube fan videos as primetime commercial clips? Chances are you’ll be seeing a lot more of these types of ads in the future for several reasons. First, most of the major advertising players want to take advantage of the so-called “social networking” web sites and the cachet that sites such as MySpace and YouTube have with users.
Secondly, let’s face it; ads like this are extremely inexpensive to produce and get on the air. In the case of the new iPod Touch ad, the video was produced using only an iBook computer and a selection of iPod promotional videos freely available on the Apple web site. You can’t get much cheaper than that!
