A Vintage Year for Vine? Which Brands Are Using It Well?
Are brands on Vine? And how well are they using it?
It’s been over a year since Vine burst onto the social media scene introducing us all to the world of 6 second videos. It’s no surprise that some brands have taken to this new channel like a duck to water but not everyone is getting is right.
To understand more about what content works on Vine we’ve taken a look around and classified the content into four categories;
The Vine Star – see Jessie Smiles & Curtis Lepore. A love story gone bad.
The Vine artist – see Pinot seemingly bringing to life 2D drawings using stop animation
Brands on Vine – Which brands are getting it right on Vine? Visa, AirBnB and Ford are worth mentioning. They understand the power of good quality content and have integrated a range of visual platforms across their campaigns.
Unfortunately Vining for UK brands isn’t quite up to the standards of our American counterparts. While there are a handful of good examples there are also plentiful examples of poorly thought out Vines.
Vine isn’t like some other social media channels where the marketing assistant or customer service desk can bang out a load of updates. This content takes a little creativity mixed with a steady hand if you want to get it right.
Or alternatively brands should turn to the artists/Viners to create content for them.
A good example
A good example of this comes from Visa. They enlisted the help of stop motion artist/graphic designer Ian Padgham aka @origiful to create some creative and entertaining content to be shared across Visa’s social channels.
Visa sent the artist to the Sochi to document his journey and experience through the medium of Vine which has so far produced some brilliantly engaging content.
And the not so good
But on the other end of the scale you have brands trying to do it for themselves. Please stop. There is nothing worse than a half-baked attempt at being funny or creative. You wouldn’t put up a 48 sheet drawn by the marketing intern so please don’t let them near Vine. (No disrespect to all the interns out there. Some of you are by far the most creative and digitally switched on people in the marketing department but for the purpose of this analogy you’re the fall guy.)
What we’re saying is if you’re going to make content which you’re putting out in the public domain spend some time getting the right people on board.
Here’s some examples of brands not quite hitting the mark;
Nissan Europe – making a big brand car manufacturer look like a dodgy second-hand car dealer from Dagenham.
Chelsea FC – has the person behind the camera got as few brain cells as some of the players on the field?
Conclusion
Brand managers – if you’re going to get involved in Vine think strategically. Vine’s might look cheap but that shouldn’t guide your approach. Spend some money, invest some time and create something your customers want to watch, share and enjoy.
by Lucy Kemp, Co-founder at Clarity
