The Best (and Worst) of Content Marketing in October 2015

Blue Jays, Airbus, and Dude Perfect. And something awful from a big bank.

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by Peter Coish & Dave Robson

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This month, the Dude Perfect guys went hunting, Airbus pulled an awe-inspiring flyby, and the Blue Jays made for content gold.

Dude Perfect Goes Hunting

How do you handle humour in content marketing? Well, the best strategy is to outsource it to people who are funny. Dude Perfect gets millions of clicks per month, so Bass Pro Shop just left things in their able hands. It’s also important to note that this video is able to poke gentle fun at the foibles of Bass Pro customers while keeping everyone in on the joke. And while we don’t get it, we are impressed by its 6 million plus views.

GE Breaks the TV Mould

So, you’re GE and you have a new science TV series on National Geographic, and you want to offer people a free preview before it hits network television. What platform do you go with? Well, they’re going with all the platforms. The episode will be live online, as well as, iOS handsets, iOS tablets, Android handsets, Apple TV, Roku, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Samsung Connected TVs, Facebook, YouTube, Hulu, iTunes, Amazon, Xbox, GooglePlay, Vudu, and Sony Playstation. And GE Reports, natch.

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra Salutes the Blue Jays

Who says symphony orchestras have to be stuffy? Our hearts are still broken over Game 6, but this gesture from the TSO was pretty neat. All they needed was a box of hats, a guest vocalist, and a hashtag, and they were able to tap into the biggest trend in Toronto. And no doubt introduce the TSO to a whole new audience.

Emirates Meets the Jetman

Jetman is a Swiss national in his fifties with a penchant for strapping on a custom-built jetpack and flying like a superhero. Extremely cool? Well, Emirates must have thought so too, since they decided to fly an A380 in formation with Jetman and his pal for this inspired piece of content marketing.

RBC Does Reality TV

There’s a kernel of a good idea here, and we’re always happy to see Canadian companies embrace content marketing. But the faux reality TV shtick is very tired in 2015, and the pop psychology advice, stilted drama, and cringe-inducing script add up to something excruciatingly painful to watch . Seriously, who responds to “Let’s head back to town” with “That makes a lot of sense”?  And is it us, or is Ron kind of shifty looking? Best advice for him might be to clear his browser history.

We shudder to think how much the bank paid for this.  But worst of all, it condescends to the customer – it’s insulting that the bank thinks it can dupe customers into watching something so bad. Yes, it has almost 400,000 views as of publication. But with just 17 likes, either the traffic is of really low poor quality (i.e., it was bought to goose views) or the video is profoundly disappointing to those who land on it. And we won’t really know how viewers feel about this video because comments have been disabled.

Compare this piece against the bank’s excellent video about Jason Day, which has almost 300,000 views and over 2,000 likes.