1000heads: The IAB: Rules Rules Rules

As part of our active membership of the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) Social Media Council, it’s our duty to discuss, debate and disclose details and information about the issues facing the industry today.

Effective immediately, we’ll be contributing a monthly column to the IAB UK Social blog pages and that kicks off today with this blog post covering off the ASA’s new remit, Tiger Woods’ sponsorship with Nike and acceptance of modern day commercially arranged endorsements.

Get involved.

1000heads: Boxing Clever

On my morning trawl of the internet this morning (on the search for awesome content to share over the newly awesome 1000heads Twitter feed), I came across this awesome video from HBO.

[contains mild swearing]

You’re forgiven if you don’t stick around for the whole thing; although compelling, if you’re no boxing fan then I doubt you’ll be that intrigued.

But, what amazes me is that HBO managed to get these two men in the same room for that amount of time. The ‘Face Off’ series is – to my surprise – nothing new. HBO have been pulling this off for some time now, but the best part is they’ve been posting them up on YouTube.

Yes!

At the time of writing the video only has 302 views but, with the world lining up to watch potentially the biggest fight of the year (and in spite of it weighing in at a hefty 12minutes), there is huge huge viral potential here. HBO have, unlike many other US-based media owners, allowed the clip to not only be embedded but also to be seen outside of the United States. With two weeks to go between now and the first ring of that bell, the build up is only just beginning and this video will fly.

“You don’t make a viral video, you can merely set the conditions and hope that something goes viral.”

HBO have a history of being fairly savvy online, their Twitter presences stretch far and wide and happily interact. One quick glance at the @HBOBoxing stream and you can see not only conversations with the fans, but also RTs of their content as well as that of their other flagship shows such as Game of Thrones.

This kind of social media integration cross-channel and cross-platform is exactly the kind of thing media producers, globally, should be implementing right now. HBO are clearly leading the way and one can only wonder what they might have lined up on Fight Night to help manage the huge global audience tuning in to watch Haye take on Klitschko.

Like X-Factor here in the UK and the Superbowl over in the US, this fight has the potential to create massive impact through social media both from an action/blow-by-blow standpoint but also from the perspective of potential advertisers.

It may seem silly to point it out, if you’re reading this you may even think that it goes without saying but – just in case – if you’re seriously lining up something for that ad space – like Yeo Valley before – do yourself a favour and think about social.

 

 

Big hat tip to Luca Massaro for finding the video first.