New OK Go music video goes instantaneously viral
Published March 05, 2010
Previously famous mostly for the impressively choreographed dance across treadmills that became the stuff of YouTube legend, indie pop band OK Go has done it again with their new video, which features one of the largest Rube Goldberg contraptions on record and has garnered nearly 2.8 million views in about four days online.
However, as the Boston Herald points out, "it almost didn't happen." Intellectual property disagreements threatened to keep the video from airing. Frontman Damian Kulash even penned an op-ed for the New York Times last month, in which he blasted the group's record label, EMI, "for being greedy and short-sighted" in its decision to disable the embedding feature on YouTube. This, Kulash says, cut viewership enormously and hurt both the company and the band.
Digital marketing requires a long-term vision of profitability, and in general, a willingness to accept less payment now for more success later. Online video marketers, of course, are in no danger of disabling the embedding feature, since they want their videos to be seen as widely as possible, but a full understanding of the medium can make all the difference to a campaign.