A teaser is a short video intended to gain the interest of a viewer in an attempt to build excitement about what comes next. Brands and companies do this with varying degrees of success through the production of a TV commercial series or viral web videos. Finding the right balance of interesting and engagement can be tricky in video production projects like this.
For these video marketing campaigns to succeed, brands have to know the target audience well enough to understand what they find valuable and interesting; then brands have to find a creative connection between the audience’s interest and their product.
Nike — McFly’s Closet
Great Scott! Is Nike making the Marty McFly shoes from Back to the Future 2? It turns out the answer is yes and no. They are creating the shoes from the movie, but the shoes are not self-lacing (not til 2015 anyway). Nike only made 1500 of them and the proceeds go to benefit the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
This is a great teaser. It gives the viewer just enough information to get excited, then it drops off. The viewer is left wanting more information, which is vital to a teaser campaign. A successful teaser video must get the viewer interested or excited enough to take a defined action. Whether that action is watching another video, buying a product or posting something on facebook, a good teaser video must convert user interest into user action.
Ape With AK-47
This video definitely wins best title. Part of the campaign for “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” this video grabs your attention and doesn’t let go. This video has more than 14 million views on YouTube, and it’s only been live for around two months.
Great teaser videos should peak the viewer’s curiosity. This video is powerfully memorable and sharable.
BMW 1M MPowered Performance, Part 1
I want that job. Much like the machine gun monkey video, this video draws in the viewer with the “is this real” factor. And I don’t know if it is, but that’s not ultimately what matters. This video is incredibly sharable, and once you read in the title that it’s part one, don’t you wonder what part two is?
Conclusion
There are quite a few similarities between all these videos. Each leaves the viewer with unanswered questions. They’re all short, professionaly shot and easily sharable.
And then, there’s this….
Fancy FeastStorybook Wedding Commercial — Something Borrowed Sneak Peek
Full disclosure: I despise cats, and yes, this is totally subjective. But this ad simply isn’t interesting enough. What’s that creepy look the guy gives at 0:24? I don’t know, and I definitely don’t care enough to find out. This TV commercial has 20,000 views on YouTube, and only three comments. If the point of a good teaser campaign is to get people interested and talking about and sharing your content, this does not achieve that.
Feel free to add some of your favorite teaser videos in the comments.
