Coke Taps YouTube For Video Card Campaign

Coca-Cola is teaming up with YouTube for a new joint marketing effort--one that doesn't involve Mentos or exploding Diet Coke bottles. Instead, Coke is sponsoring a page on YouTube that enables users to select or create their own holiday video "cards" to send to friends and family.

YouTube's "Holiday Wishcast" site features a collection of holiday-themed video clips from some of its most popular contributors including Geriatric1927, TerraNaomi, TheWineKone and LisaNova. Users can choose from one of the videos in the Wishcast catalog or upload one of their own after registering on YouTube.

With the initiative, Coke is hoping to drive traffic to its own marketing and e-commerce sites during the holiday season. The sponsored video cards feature buttons below the media player that invite recipients to send a Coke holiday e-card, view Coke video contests, or shop at the company's online store.

The video cards are surrounded by red-and-white Coke branding, including a Holiday Wishcast banner across the top of the screen and the Coke polar bear at the bottom. Recipients can also click on links to view or upload the Wishcast videos.

Jamie Byrne, YouTube's director of advertising strategy, said the company approached Coke about developing a holiday-related promotion. "We realized that to do something for the holidays they would be a great partner for us," he said. He referred to Coke's long history of holiday-themed ads, some of which are included in YouTube's video card catalog.

For Coke, the Wishcast site marked a way to begin a formal marketing relationship with YouTube after months of discussion. "We are in the game to reinvent consumer connections, and so we're very serious about the new marketing model," said Tim Kopp, vice president of worldwide interactive marketing at Coke.

Major brand marketers such as Coke have generally taken a cautious approach to advertising on video sites because of the unpredictability of user-generated content. Kopp, however, said he welcomed the inclusion of user videos for the video card promotion. "We did take a look at them before they went up--but didn't change anything, and we think they're really good," said Kopp.

Byrne said the initiative was the first time that YouTube has compensated members for creating videos, although he declined to say how much. He also said it's the beginning of a new effort to help its most popular contributors make money from their videos. "In general, YouTube is creating a lot of programs for users to monetize their content," said Byrne. He declined, however, to provide details on other ways it plans to enlist the help of video artists.

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