[.c-title-rich-wrapper][.c-title-rich-portfolio]Over 1 million views in the first week, loads of engagement, and customers selling to prospects in the comments[.c-title-rich-portfolio][.c-title-rich-wrapper]

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[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]Marketing and analytics professionals worldwide reshared and praised Matomo’s work, starting conversations about the product.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]And on LinkedIn, the video not only attracted comments about how on point the parody was, but also brought out tons of product love from existing Matomo customers.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]Nothing realy goes viral by itself — even if it looks that way. We always say that making a great ad is only half the work. Matomo’s team guaranteed this ad a win by knocking it out of the park with their distribution strategy. Matomo did a masterful job of responding to comments, turning comments into actions, and resharing and reposting viewer posts. They also worked with a paid media agency to amplify the impact of the ad.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

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[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]RESULTS[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]The parody ad was an instant hit, with over a million views in the first week.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]The month following the Googleheimer ad, Matomo’s website traffic increased 5.4%, reversing a downward trend the previous month. And their LinkedIn follower count almost tripled.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]The “secret” to getting tons of ROI from your next ad? Make a hit video people love.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-title-rich-wrapper][.c-title-rich-portfolio]Brand characters are underutilized in B2B — but they work incredibly well[.c-title-rich-portfolio][.c-title-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]When you think of a brand character, you probably think of a B2C character, right? Captain Obvious from Hotels.com or Flo from Progressive might come to mind.B2B characters are less common. B2B brands tend to default to rational, boring, non-creative content because it’s safe. Characters are tricky to do effectively.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]But at the end of the day, brand characters connect emotionally with humans, and B2B customers are human, too. And ads with humor and brand characters are scoring higher than usual since the COVID-19 pandemic started. B2B brands are accelerating towards more creative, empathetic, emotionally-connected marketing to match consumers’ needs for more empathetic ads.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]B2B brands like PremiumBeat increase awareness when they create funny, inspiring, emotionally connecting ads that make people say “that was awesome, I have to share this.”[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]With “The Voice of PremiumBeat.com”, we created Todd, a quirky, hyper-specific, human character to give life to the backstory and communicate this inside joke on a human level. Plus, the storyline allowed us to repeat “PremiumBeat.com” 17 times in less than two minutes. Even if a viewer didn’t reach the end of the video, the brand’s name would still leave a lasting impression.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]RESULTS[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]The beauty of creating an ad based on an inside joke is that everybody wanted to share it with their industry friends. And Prem  iumBeat.com didn’t have to spend a cent on advertising. They achieved all of these results organically:[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]30K VIEWS. That might not seem like a lot, but remember we’re talking about a niche audience — there are only 134,700 film producers in the US. With that in mind, it’s plausible that the video reached 22% of the market, for free.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]50x engagement. Before PremiumBeat shared this video on their Facebook page, their average engagement was 7.4 (posts + likes + comments + shares). When they shared this video, their engagement rate soared 50x to 370.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]95% increase in website clicks. Before they released this video, PremiumBeat got an average of 23.4K clicks on their website. A month after the video was released, the clicks increased 40% to 33.1K. And by the end of the year, clicks were up to 48.1k, up by 95%! We’re not saying all those clicks were attributed to the video. But the avalanche of awareness generated by the video couldn’t have hurt.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]The bottom line? Humor and character ads work. Yes, even in B2B.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]The PremiumBeat.com video is funny, specific, and speaks directly to the target audience. When you know who your audience is and what their inside jokes are, you can create videos that your B2B audience can’t help but share.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]RESULTS[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]It’s not a surprise to us that this spot is Deloitte US’s most liked video of the year. People like to be entertained! The video also has 500% MORE VIEWS than their channel's average - all organic![.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]

[.c-title-rich-wrapper][.c-title-rich-portfolio]Inspiring a feeling[.c-title-rich-wrapper][.c-title-rich-portfolio]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]To get high net-worth individuals to feel the need to establish a trust, we needed to step back and understand what a trust really does.Yes, a trust makes sure wealth is preserved, grown and transferred from one party to another in an efficient and effective manner. But relative to the person establishing the trust, it’s handing down their legacy. It’s their life’s work being passed on.MassMutual needed a video that inspired that feeling of legacy in the mind of the target prospect: the high net-worth individual.But how do we inspire someone to make a change, to look after their legacy? One option is fear (“Don’t let your family end up in court after you die!”), or to throw a bunch of data at them (“Did you know that x% of people over the age of 60 with a net worth of over $1mm don’t have a will?”).None of those ideas were right and, frankly, wouldn’t inspire someone to make a change. The target prospect likely knows they should prepare for the inevitable. Our content needed to provide the emotional push to make the phone call. We needed to tell a story – to hit the heartstrings – to make the desire to change feel like it came from inside the prospect, not our video.[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]RESULTS[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]

[.c-title-rich-wrapper][.c-title-rich-portfolio]Making people remember through feeling[.c-title-rich-wrapper][.c-title-rich-portfolio]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]We started thinking about what a legacy is. Obviously, a trust takes care of the financial and legal parts of your legacy, but that’s often not what people really want to pass down to the next generation. People really want to pass down the ideas and values they hold dear, along with the money.The word “values” started to stick out. We all have them; we all want our kids and grandkids to embody them because we know they work. The video concept began to take form: the story of a dad passing down a magic coin trick—the trick representing his values, the coin representing his wealth. It’s been said that people only remember 5% of what you tell them in a piece of marketing, but most will remember how that piece made them feel.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-title-rich-wrapper][.c-title-rich-portfolio]The step-by-step process to clear, straightforward humor[.c-title-rich-portfolio][.c-title-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]Some members of Slingshot’s C-Suite were a little nervous about making a non-boring ad — and we don’t blame them! In B2B, we all think you have to talk stiff, wear a suit, and be buttoned up to get a message across. So doing something different is admittedly a bit scary.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]You can’t make jokes about an industry until you have a true understanding of the space. Luckily, our process at Umault helps us dig deep so that we can find humor that speaks to the audience. For Slingshot, the research process involved:[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]- Taking an online course about flow cytometry
- Listening to industry podcasts
- Analyzing the competitive landscape
- Developing personas
- Digging into common pain points on industry forums
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[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]“Umault not only delivered on time, but they were open to our feedback and needs along the project timeline.”[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]It’s not like we asked for a blank creative check and came back with an ad. Micro-steps made sure we were clear on the industry at every step in the process, and helped the leadership team buy in as we went along. These micro-steps included:[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]- Creating a concept
- Developing a script
- Sharing a storyboard
- Sharing a breakout treatment
- Going through the casting process
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[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]This means that the team at Slingshot got the chance to marinate in the idea and get comfortable, step by step.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]In the ad, we spoke to common customer pain points in the industry. The humorous elements of the ad — relying on lucky charms, crossing fingers, and knocking on wood instead of biomarker controls — poke fun at the status quo, and also speak to the urgency of finding a solution in what Slingshot offers.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]“To be frank, the campaign generated a bond between us and our customers and overall took our relationships with them to the next level.”[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-title-rich-wrapper][.c-title-rich-portfolio]Slingshot headed up a coordinated campaign to ensure the ad’s success.[.c-title-rich-portfolio][.c-title-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]Making the best ad in the world is only half the job. The other half is distribution — taking care of the right tactics to make sure the video gets seen. Slingshot did everything right:[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]- They made an intentional plan for the launch to ensure the ad’s immediate success
- They practiced good distribution habits, including having all employees reshare it
- They coordinated efforts on launch day to turn video engagement into revenue
[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-title-rich-wrapper][.c-title-rich-portfolio]Web traffic tripled and revenue boomed 700% since the ad debuted.[.c-title-rich-portfolio][.c-title-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]The impact of the ad exceeded Slingshot’s expectations. “We have been marketing to this audience with average engagement rates of 30% but the campaign that Umault helped us create blew our expectations and frankly set marketing records with 77.81% engagement rates that rolled over to follow-up campaigns as well.”[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]Web traffic tripled following the launch of the ad, and the campaign directly affected revenue… by 700%. The ad brought in new web traffic and got more eyeballs on Slingshot’s offering, and also deepened their relationship with existing customers.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]Here’s the thing: Humor works, if it’s based on deep knowledge of the industry. Surface-level jokes don’t move big revenue and engagement numbers, but when humor hits right on customer pain points? Boom, ROI.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-title-rich-wrapper][.c-title-rich-portfolio]Turns out, when you speak to the concerns of everyday people, you speak to corporate buyers, too.[.c-title-rich-portfolio][.c-title-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]Nuance had amazing mid-funnel and bottom-of-funnel video content. But nothing for cold audiences. We developed a simple brief: we need to show the pain of status quo customer service and introduce Nuance as the solution.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]Everyone can relate to the pain of being on hold for too long, navigating a frustrating menu of options, and wanting to get through to an actual human being.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]By speaking to these frustrations, we created an ad that spoke to Nuance’s target customers: B2B enterprise leaders whose companies (and customers) would benefit from a better customer service experience.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

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[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]During the strategy phase of the project, we found that most of Nuance’s competitors had videos that were trying to be everything to everyone throughout the sales funnel. We call these mullet videos.We recommended that Nuance make two spots: [.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]1. An ad to inspire potential customers early in the sales journey [.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]2. An ad to reassure late stage buyers to close the dealIn the first video ad we made, we spoke to genera [.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]Customer service pains most everyone has experienced — and introduced Nuance as the solution. In the second, we talked more about the details: Nuance is flexible, easy to deploy, and secure. [.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

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[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]We also created short cutdowns for different use cases to target Nuance’s key industry sectors: telco, retail, and finance.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]RESULTS[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-title-rich-wrapper][.c-title-rich-portfolio]70% more views than any other video ad[.c-title-rich-portfolio][.c-title-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]WHEN NUANCE RELEASED THE VIDEO ADS, “WE, THE CUSTOMERS” BECAME THEIR NEW #1 PERFORMING ENTERPRISE VIDEO. IT GETS NEARLY 70% MORE VIEWS THAN THEIR NEXT BEST PERFORMING VIDEO.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]The video also ranks in the top 5 based on how much of the ad viewers watched. That means that people want to keep watching — because the content actually resonates.And the feedback they got from customers backed up these stats. Viewers shared that the ad felt true, and like it really represented their own customer experiences.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]SOME PROSPECTS — WHO THEN BECAME CUSTOMERS — EVEN CALLED IT THE BEST VIDEO AD NUANCE HAD EVER LAUNCHED.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]Nuance was also acquired by Microsoft two months after the spot went live. Coincidence? We think not.*But the other win — a win we see all the time when companies dare to produce something creative — was a boost in company culture and pride. Nuance team members were excited to share the spots with family and friends. One employee said, “Now people actually understand what I do!”Got an idea in your head that seems a little “out there” for B2B? Don’t be so quick to throw it out. It might just lead to high engagement, lower than average cost per click, and better talent retention. The moral of the story? Creative “risks” might be a lot less risky than the status quo. In video ads, creativity pays off.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]“THE FINAL PIECE HAD SUCH A MAINSTREAM APPEAL EVEN FOR NON-BUYERS. ‘WE THE CUSTOMERS’ IS OUR #1 TOP PERFORMING ENTERPRISE VIDEO WITH RESPECT TO VIEW RATES, IT HAS NEARLY 70% GREATER PERFORMANCE THAN OUR NEXT BEST PERFORMING VIDEO."[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]Jonathon Dreyer, Vice President, Solutions Marketing at Nuance[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]

[.c-text-rich-wrapper][.c-text-rich-portfolio]*Our buzzkill lawyers tell us it is, in fact, a coincidence.[.c-text-rich-portfolio][.c-text-rich-wrapper]