This weeks top video for BMW in Brand20 index surprised us, its a beautiful video of the Kinetic Sculpture at the BMW museum and undoubtedly getting a lot of views for BMW this week. The interesting part is that, Honda is advertising along side and in the video. A few second into the video you notice an ad of the Honda Pilot, and on the right side a contest promotion by Honda.

There are thousands of videos uploaded every day for autos on YouTube, Dailymotion, MySpace and other platforms. It is imperative for brands to engage this new medium and claim these videos before other companies or competitors can capitalize on a viral video for your brand. This is a classic example, Honda Ad is showing up on all the top videos for autos, and with a significant surge of people looking for auto videos online, this is a great way to engage that audience.

One of the cool things about Scope is that we have an incredible view of what is goin on in terms of online video. One the brands we track is Nike and since the Euro 2008 is going on, one of the biggest dustups between brands is taking place today after the Spain win.

This Ad made for Euro 2008 by Nike features the top players from Spain soccer team. The entire team is sponsored by Adidas, but each of these players are signed by Nike. This video (and a lot of derivatives) is hitting it big in the past few hours with lot of people flocking to DailyMotion and YouTube to feed off their Euro crave. Nike, even though did not sponsor Spain (they sponsored the Portugal team in this tournament, see video below), are coming out as winners and getting the most bang for their buck.

Spain finally ended their 44 year wait for the Euro trophy after Torres gave them an unbeaten lead of 1-0 in the first half. Germans fought hard, but were no match to the spaniards and will have to wait for a while before their fourth title. I feel sad for Ballack, having taken his team to the 4th final for a trophy but not getting one. Anyways, we wish them good luck for the world cup in South Africa in 2010

Euro 2008 is a great opportunity for advertisers. Millions of people log-in from all over the world to catche the game, scores, and read commentary. This gives advertisers a fantastic chance to get in front of this audience. Here is the run-down of some of the notable ads for Euro 2008.

McDonalds

Coca Cola

Nike

Portugal Team - Nike Euro 2008 Commercial (NEW)
Uploaded by ronalda2

Toyota

Toyota les bleus "france italie"
Uploaded by niksinik

On the internet commercials never die. In this week’s Brand20 Index the big stunner was American Express. A constant laggard on the Brand20 Index chart, American Express got a blast from the past. American Express, do you remember all that money you paid M. Night Shyamalan so long ago to feature him in one of your commercials? Tada. It’s still paying off and is the No. 1 most viewed video for American Express this week. The release of The Happening last week set off a great interest in Shyamalan on video platforms and consequently the American Express ad that features M. Night Shyamalan that was produced way back when.

The ad was managed by Ogilvy & Mather, NY which worked with M. Night Shyamalan’s production company to create the ad. They even brought in Industrial Light and Magic to do the special effects. The ad cost a pretty penny. Unfortunately, American Express did nothing to cash in on the great interest for The Happening or M. Night Shyamalan. A great opportunity lost.

What if Barack Obama went out and decided to get a new ride, what would it be? A Ford? Dodge? Nope, it’s a KIA! Heh. It’s no secret that Obama does well on television and with online video. A local Kia dealership decided to cash in by hiring a guy that looked like Obama to get on stage to unload tons of Rios at apparently great savings. See for yourself:    

  The video was picked on the Daily Show and continues to rack up views as it spreads past TV.   

McDonald’s has been very innovative with their Ads and BillBoards. They were the first ones to cash in on the Taco Bell Rap which became a huge craze online. Those raps and a lot of videos around it have managed to keep McDonald’s in the top 10 of the Brand20 Index.

The great thing about Scope is that we can see emerging trends in realtime for brands and can discover hidden jewels of online video. For now, we leave you with these amazing billboards by McDonald’s.

This billboard located somewhere in Chicago is an excellent idea to promote their fresh salads.

Having a tough time choosing what meal you should have at McDonalds? May be this sundial billboard can help.

Apple has always been good at marketing their products, be it the iPhone launch or the new Macbook Air.

Lots of people have loved the new macbook and several others who weren’t lucky enough to get one had fun by making a parody of the same.

Even brands like Lenovo couldn’t resist and made an awesome promotional ad for their new X300

We do a lot of video monitoring of cell phone makers and one of them we monitor is HTC. HTC released a great spot last month of fingers going through various landscapes. Yes, you read right…fingers. The ad spot was for HTC’s Touch cell phone which is positioned as a competitor to Apple’s iPhone. The videos posted online quickly turned into a deathwatch between PC and Mac fanboys:

The great thing about Scope Video is that we can do great research on which ad formats work in this cut throat market. Clearly, this did not do well online and for good reason.

Absolut has received some flak for their ads lately, especially the ones south of the border. But here is one that I ran across today during my daily procrastination session and loved it:

Title: Dissection
Client: Absolut Spirits, Stockholm
Agency: TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York
Worldwide Creative Director: Rob Smiley
Creative Director: Lew Willig
Copywriter: Meghan Simons
Art Director: Megan Williams
Producer: Jamie Grady

Production Company: Psyop, New York
Directors: Marco Spier, Chris Staves, Mate Steinforth
Designer: Mate Steinforth
Director of Photography: Martin Ahlgren
Executive Producer: Lucia Grillo
Producer: Nathan Jew
Assistant Producer: Tarun Charaipotra
Live Action Producer: Paul Middlemiss

Visual Effects Company: MassMarket, New York
VFX Executive Producer: Justin Lane
Technical Director: Jacob Slutzky
Lead Flame Artist: Nick Tanner
Flame Artists: Chris Staves, Theo Maniatis
Pre Visual Artist: Damon Ciarelli
Editor: Cass Vanini
XSI Team: Dave Barosin, Jan Bitzer, Andrea Gebhardt, Jae Ham, Bashir Hamid, Andy Hara, Florian Witzel, Miguel Salek, Boris Ustaev, Jason Vega, Lee Wolland
Roto Artists: Leslie Chung, David Marte, Joon Park

Sound mixer: Peter Holcomb, Sound Lounge, New York
Music: Small Sails, Somnambulist

As the Men’s NCAA Basketball Conference tournaments heat up today, and March Madness officially begins, millions of eyes across the nation will be awaiting the next “Cindarella Story” while scouring the web wathcing video clips of their favorite teams and gaining bracket knowledge to ensure they have the best chances to win their office pool. As consumers draw their attention towards the big screen, and spend their lunch hours watching online video clips, major athletic brands and other other advertisers will also be looking for ways to capture the limelight. Brands like “Converse” have really started to engage viral video as an effective vehicle for promoting their products. Last year, they endorsed the likes of Dwayne Wade for their signature shoe, along with the legendary ‘Chuck Taylor’s’. Hundreds and thousands of people glued their eyes to the video screen to watch this Video during this past holiday season.   

 Although that video has had some boastful viewership on YouTube alone, I tend to like Converse’s old school approach. Just last month, there was a commercial acknowledging the legendary “Dr. J” moving gracefully down the court, then showing some serious hang-time for his signature dunk. This clip is sweet. If you haven’t seen it, I’m sure you’ll get a glimpse during breaks in the live game action, but just in case, you can catch it here:  

Will the “fans” respond to Converse for Dwayne Wade, as they did for Dr. J and Chuck Taylor? Only time will tell. One thing’s for certain, Converse isn’t scared to use online video to help impact the bottom line. Enjoy the games…Go Stanford!