The EepyBird guys explain how brands and consumer video creators can work together.
Something shifted last year and put consumers at the heart of the media universe. Time Magazine named its readers as "Person of the Year," and Advertising Age followed suit by naming consumers as the Ad Agency of the year.
Before they became known as the Diet Coke and Mentos guys, Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz had been working for months in the woods of Maine to create a new online video entertainment site: EepyBird.com. Although not the first online video to take advantage of the explosive combination of Diet Coke and Mentos, their "Experiment #137" is certainly the most famous.
Sure. Great. But what do we as an industry do with that information? Should brands fire all their agencies and start posting on Craig's List for ads? Will the consumers as Agencies bother to read a creative brief?
On a more serious note, how should a brand manager decide whether or not to try working with a consumer creator rather than or in addition to an agency? Or should an agency be the one to reach out to the amateur video creator who looks like she might be a good fit for a client? How should -- or shouldn't -- a client approach a consumer creator?
For insight, I reached out to Stephen Voltz and Fritz Grobe of EepyBird. They made both the Time and Advertising Age lists this January; they've worked with Diet Coke, Mentos, the Blue Man Group and they've been on Letterman. They also think seriously and deeply about how brands and consumers can work together.
Brad Berens: The two of you are so inseparable in most photos... So, for the folks who don't know, Stephen, which of the two EepyBird mad scientists are you?
Stephen Voltz: I'm the tall bald guy on the left.
Berens: When you and Fritz first came up with the notion of the Bellagio fountains redone with Diet Coke and Mentos, was any part of you thinking about what the two brands' response would be? Another way of asking this was where your point of entry was: "let's make this kooky video!" or "let's do something with big brand products!"?
Voltz: Our main goal was to make a fun, entertaining video and all of our decisions were governed by that premise. Beyond that, we debated for some time whether or not to allow the brand of soda to show.
Initially, I was for obscuring the brands so that if the video caught on and brands were interested in working with us, we'd be in a position to talk to a variety of corporate partners.
Fritz's concern though was that we use something that clearly said "this is nothing more than soda" so that none of our viewers would wonder if we were using some kind of special chemicals or other trickery. Coke is such a strong brand that nothing said "this is soda and nothing else" more powerfully than using that iconic Diet Coke branded soda.
In the end, I agreed with Fritz (and still do) that it was more important for the sake of the piece to use something that made clear that we were only using soda, so we used Coke and made sure the logo showed clearly. So actually, it was Coke's brand strength that made the choice for us.
Berens: Once you did find yourself engaging with the brands, what was it like? How did you interactions with the brands change between the first video and the second?
Voltz: Well, for the first video, we were on our own, without any brand involvement. For the second video Perfetti van Melle (the makers of Mentos) approached very quickly -- within the first week or two -- but wasn't quite sure what kind of relationship it wanted. Eventually, they decided that they wanted to sponsor our next video, which they did. They also asked us to work with them and with Blue Man Group to create a special piece for Blue Man's "How to Be a Megastar" Tour, which we also did.
The Coca-Cola Company took a little longer, but once they contacted us they were great, and have been wonderful to work with in every way ever since. In retrospect, it isn't surprising that Coke took a more considered approach. They didn't become the strongest brand in the world by making hasty decisions.
From the beginning, the key for us was -- and is -- protecting our own newly born EepyBird brand. That meant among other things, that we didn't want to turn our initial success into a role as pitchmen for Mentos or for Coke. We suddenly had an audience, and fans, that felt a resonance with us and we are very serious about protecting that.
In the end, the sponsorship arrangements we negotiated with both the Coca-Cola Company and Perfetti van Melle allowed us to retain creative control of our work, except that we agreed, of course, not to disparage their brands in any way. That arrangement has worked well for all of us and we think is the best way to build all of our brands in the long run.
Berens: What was your response when you found yourselves on the cover of Ad Age?
Voltz: Initially, we just shook our heads in amazement, which we've found ourselves doing on a pretty much regular basis once or twice a month since we launched last June and the Letterman show was calling two days later.
We also realized that it was just the place we wanted to be right then, since we are very interested in exploring the possibility of partnering with the right consumer brands in the future if the partnership is right.
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