Every day with lunch, I read the Business Day section of the New York Times. On June 25, under Media, I came across an article written by Maria Aspan: “A Spurned Parody of ‘Die Hard’ Returns to YouTube, Approved.” It was a story about a rock band named Guyz Nite and 20th Century Fox’s Die Hard movies. Last August, Guyz Nite took a song that it had written about the movies, created a video for the song using clips from the movies, and posted the video on YouTube in an effort to create some publicity and marketing buzz about themselves. The song chronicled the exploits of the movies’ hero, John McClane, in all the, then, three Die Hards. It had the catchy kind of tune that you can’t get out of your head, and it had a fabulous hook—John McClane’s “Yippe ki yay m#$@! f&$%#,” a line that is actually copyrighted by Bruce Willis, the actor who has portrayed McClane in all the Die Hard movies. The video did a great job of synchronizing the words in the song with scenes from the movies.
Almost immediately, the video was viewed thousands of times on YouTube and was mentioned frequently in Blogs like Defamer and Stereogum. Die Hard has a huge fan following, especially among men aged 16 to 45, which happens also to be the target market for Guyz Nite. (You 30-something lovers of Die Hard and Van Halen know who you are.) Sadly, after a few days, Fox asked YouTube to remove the video because it violated their copyright on the content. That, despite what seemed to be the obvious benefit of visibility and positive publicity for its Die Hard brand due to the huge popularity of the video—those thousands of views and hundreds of very positive comments. Go figure. Guyz Nite was acting like a group of Die Hard fans who used its skills in music and video to express its passion for the movies. And the video was doing a lot more good than copyright harm. No?
Fast forward six months to this February when, according to Aspan’s story, Fox’s marketing department contacted Guyz Nite and offered to pay it to add a verse to the song, extend the video, and to repost it on YouTube (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
Aspan’s story has been way more than simply a report on a corporation leveraging user-contributed content. It has triggered a flood of cross-media activity about Guyz Nite and about Die Hard, which, by the way, opened for the public in New York and LA yesterday. For example, it’s a hot topic in the Times’ blog. Also, on the Monday evening edition of the Daily 10 on E!, the story was item five. And Eric Lundegaard ends his Monday MSNBC commentary on the success of the Die Hard movies by quoting the fourth verse of the Guyz Nite song:
“We know what the basic gist is,
There ain’t no Allen and it’s not Christmas,
We don’t know but we’re pretty sure that
John McClane kicks assssss!”
Wow! Neat story for sure, and a story with lessons for us and for our businesses. Let’s take a look at those lessons:
- YouTube has incredible marketing power. Go there to learn what’s hot in popular culture.
- Customers still have the most power. They’re still in control. They control YouTube by contributing its content, and their behavior—their clicks—determine the value of that content.
- Customers who love a brand, a product, or a service really do get passionate about it. Ask Patty about Volvos. Ask me about Verizon FiOS TV. Ask Guyz Nite about Die Hard. Actually, you don’t have to ask. Customers will tell you before you ask.
- Customers share their passion freely. They want nothing in return. Customers create communities to share their passion.
- While you can’t control YouTube, you can harness your customers’ passion to promote your brand, products, and services.
- Find your passionate customers. Give them a voice.
Everyone can win. YouTube, 20th Century Fox, Guyz Nite, Die Hard’s fans, and, perhaps, “Live Free or Die Hard” are the winners here. But let’s focus on Fox. For Fox, this story was about brand, product, customers, channels, and content.
Props to 20th Century Fox for recognizing the power of YouTube, for recognizing and harnessing fans’ passion and Guyz Nite’s passion about the Die Hard brand, and for using its copyright to manage that passion to maximize its marketing benefit. Fox demonstrated that it’s in tune with the times. The firm also gets props for not bludgeoning the user/customer-contributed content process the way that Aspan described HBO did. “Seven Minute Sopranos” was a tightly edited video guide to the first six seasons of the HBO series. It was initially widely viewed and positively reviewed. It died when it was later revealed to be the work of an HBO employee. No corporate connections between Guyz Nite and Fox. Guyz Nite wrote Die Hard and made the video independently. The song’s musical style and the subject of its lyrics are what Guyz Nite is all about—guys who grew up in the 80s. Dwayne Reede, the group’s lead guitarist told us, “We’re guys, too—guys who love beer, boobs, pizza, TV sports, beer, and action movies like Die Hard.” Fox didn’t have to interview the band to figure it out. They saw and heard the passion and the style in the video.
We know you. We’d be amazed if your customers and fans would write a song about your brand, your products, or your services. But we encourage you to learn from Fox. In fact, the lessons from Fox are real-life examples of the same lessons that Patty has taught us in Outside Innovation.
- Find those of your customers who are passionate about you.
- Encourage them and give them a forum to “strut their stuff” about you. For example, encourage them to write reviews and publish those reviews within your content.
- Nourish the community that forms around your passionate customers. Foster communication among them.
One more thing. Allow me to strut my stuff. I’m closer to Guyz Nite than this memo lets on. I’ve been following them very closely since they first got together. I love their product positioning, their focus on a target market, and the creative approaches they’ve taken to reach the customers in that market like the Die Hard video. I love their 80s shtick. I love their songs, too. I know all the words. You might say that I’m one of those passionate Guyz Nite customers. Twisting the words to their song, “Father’s Day,” let me just say, “For you and me it’s great to be your Dad.” Do well and make us proud, Guyz.
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