How 3 Very Different Brands Succeed on YouTube

Many YouTube videos succeed at gaining viral success from time to time. This, however, would not be characterized as true long-term success for a brand that uses YouTube for video marketing. It doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t create a prolonged and sustainable interest that really makes a difference.

Three brands have emerged on YouTube as consistently popular. This has increased their success in online marketing in general, too, as it exposes their products to people who would have never thought of them without this content. 

The three YouTube channels I will be looking at are:

• GoPro
• Lego
• Blendtec

That’s a manufacturer of cameras, children’s toys, and food blenders, respectively. How much more diverse could it be? As you read on you’ll discover there is even greater diversity among them than the surface differences between their products.

I'm going to look past all the hype around video SEO, and instead look at how each channel has their own approach to presenting their products, and producing content for their video marketing. I’ll start by looking at the basics of what their channel does. I'll then combine this baseline of their content presentation with some basic data that is publicly available.

What i hope you get from this is an understanding of how your brand can present itself on YouTube for long-term, maximum impact.

The success of GoPro's YouTube channel

The great success behind the GoPro YouTube channel is user-generated content. GoPro depends on users submitting compelling content, and the latter rarely fails at this effort. Some videos, however, do have more editing and production help than others, making them truly standout, such as the mesmerizing “Drummer’s Odyssey” video:

If you hit "play," welcome back from an eight minutes of amazement. Here are the stats for the video:

• 96,000+ views in one day is nice, but let’s look at the two stats that really matter to their long term success:

• Subscriptions driven: 161

• Total shares: 304

Those are good numbers for a single day. Let’s look at a slightly older, less polished video and compare:

A black room, and a game of pool. Yes, an extraordinarily talented pool player, but this is minimalist advertising. Do people want to watch this the type of content? Judge for yourself.

This video had 10 days of stats compiled when this screenshot was taken. That’s an easy average to make of 54 new subscriptions per day and 74 shares per day. Not as impressive as above, but the production value is much lower. 

GoPro succeed again and again thanks to how seriously they take their products.

This is a tremendous opportunity for those in the business of capturing images, video or any other creative medium. First, look at what it is that your product allows your customers to do, then find out how you can capture the activity on video and let the magic happen. 

Sound hard? Think more like the YouTube Generation:

• A crayon manufacturer can start a video series where children draw things with their crayons. Capture the process, then set it to soothing music and parents will show it to their kids to get them creating.
• Someone who sells spray paint could hire local street artists to paint on walls the former owns or are legally allowed to work on. They could capture the entire process on video, from blank wall to complete work of art. 
• Hardware stores, or even lumber manufacturers, could work on video content that shows their products being used to build useful objects by their customers. 

The key takeaway here is giving people a reason to create and share user-generated content with your brand.

The success of the Lego YouTube channel

Lego have taken a vastly different approach to video marketing on YouTube. Take a look at their video page:

Spam? Nope, look again. Each video is in a different language, as Lego tries to appeal to a global audience via one channel. While this can create a headache for someone trying to find a specific video within their video page, it’s not as big of a headache as trying to understand all-English marketing when you speak Japanese.

Most of their videos get between 5,000 and 8,000 views during the first week of posting. Spread those numbers  across the up to 70 videos they post in one week, and you get some scary-good numbers: 350,000 to 560,000 views. 

The brand shares two basic types of videos: 

1. Videos of actual Lego being used and played with
2. Animation of Lego cartoons

Two interesting trends emerge when you start looking at the view statistics for these two video types over time. The videos of actual Lego being used and displayed get the highest view numbers among English speakers. This Santa’s Workshop video, sure to spike again ever December, is a great example:

There’s nothing particularly exemplary about the video beyond its top-flight production values, as it’s just a guy sitting and talking about the product. 

Here are the stats:

Among those interested in English language content, this video received more than 30,000 views, with 34 new subscriptions and 94 shares. Animated videos released in English, like the Lego Hero Factory videos, have yet to crack 7,000 views in a similar time frame.

Meanwhile, in the Asian language videos, cartoons are a big deal. The ongoing Lego Chima videos can top 90,000 views in as little as two weeks, while the exact same episode in English might only crack 5,000 views in a month. It appears the English-speaking world prefers that the product be the star, which is in stark contrast to the GoPro example above.

Here's how you can use the Lego example to inform your video content: 

• Some of the most popular YouTube channels among parents and the children who are mesmerized by them are unboxing channels. They are simply videos of products coming out the box for the first time and, if needed, being assembled. Your toy store can also make the product the star by jumping on this style of content.
• Did you ever watch the satirical movie review show Mystery Science Theatre 3000? It starred a man and three sarcastic robots who made fun of movies. Plop some funny friends down on a couch and film everything as they watch a movie or television show.
• If you make clothes, from dressy to casual, you can produce videos of assembled outfits for various occasions. Feature a regular host with rotating models of different body types. Make the clothes the star, and produce continual content for new seasons. This could open up opportunities for working with other companies, too, if you're willing to add jewelry, shoes, sunglasses, etc. 

Lego apparently looked hard at the brand's audience across the world and realized early on that the product should be the star.

The success of the BlendTec YouTube channel

Blendtec provides the perfect example of a seemingly boring product being made sexy and ripe for video by an engaged brand. When I think of typical video marketing for food blenders, I think of Home Shopping Network actors and actresses pretending amazement over the mundane performance of a product we all have in our kitchen. Blendtec went in an entirely different direction with the “Will it Blend” campaign.

Blendtec found success on YouTube by:

• Identifying the primary pain point associated with purchasing a blender
• Analyzing what their product does better than the competition
• Presenting a "boring" product in an over-the-top entertaining way. 
• Using their CEO, instead of actors, for the videos 

Here's a few examples of how your business can use the BlendTec blueprint to find video success?

• A hiking gear company could outfit contestants in their clothing and start a web-based survival show.
• A microwave oven manufacturer could start a "Will it Blow Up?" show where they take random items and see if they'll "explode" in the microwave.
• A carpet manufacturer could stage dramatic contests akin to the famed Japanese TV show Takeshi's Castle and used the flooring as the stage for each episode. 

These are my own examples of classic YouTube Generation thinking, and your boring product needs it if you want to gain a foothold in the video marketing world. 

The stats on the video are quite impressive over an 11-month period: 11,000 subscriptions and 4,000-plus shares.

The strategy Blendtec employs is one you can also use:

• Focus more on the quality of the production instead of the frequency of production
• Create a high quality production using a professional set 
• Developing a clear script that's closely followed for each production, which makes viewers aware of what to expect from each episode 

Your brand can also be successful using YouTube

I've highlighted three very different brands that are succeeding on YouTube in their own way. GoPro and Lego make the content, or action, the star, while Blendtec places the spotlight on the product.

You can decide which path is right for your business. But hopefully you're energized by seeing the potential for your brand on YouTube.