Vine for brands

Finally there’s a new way to show off what you’re eating. Just when fatigue was setting in for still images of food, Twitter released Vine – the do-it-yourself, six-second ‘here’s how I prepared my dinner’ app.

Beyond the food prep, brands are starting to explore whether Vine should be part of their marketing plans. Vine is not a typical marketing aid as it there is no way edit or remix the work. Brands on Vine is a website aiming to collect all these examples in one place, and from the examples already uploaded it is clear that no set template has formed.

McDonalds has gone for a simple stop motion game of noughts and crosses with its new product Fish McBites and chips. Six seconds is not enough time to get across the type of message that would appear in a glossy advert and so McDonalds has opted for a playful, quirky post which acknowledges the popular stop-animation style adopted by most Vine users (Viners?) and encourages sharing through the hashtag #FishMcBites.

French Fries vs. #FishMcBites: The Epic Tic-Tac-Toe battle. Watch our first #Vine vine.co/v/bnBLqVBg6Kv

— McDonald’s (@McDonalds) February 4, 2013

While McDonalds only has 279 followers on Vine, the video was posted on Twitter to its 900k+ as well, which produced 37 retweets and 11 favourites – a fairly typical result for the brand.

Desigual has also opted for a simplistic style of filming but its one take shot of popular model Bar Refaeli has a high class feel to it. Taken before the model went on the runway for the brand’s Barcelona show, the short message is similar to the intimate glimpse people believe Twitter gives into celebrities’ lives and reminiscent of Roger Federer’s Coupe des Mousquetaires video from 2009.

.@barrefaeli says HELLO to our @desigual fans! #080bcn vine.co/v/bJpHzOzPb0T

— Desigual (@desigual) January 29, 2013

Though it formed part of a whole campaign of tweets aimed at promoting Bar Refaeli’s connection to the brand, it only managed five retweets from Desigual’s 17k+ followers.

The final example comes from Giorgio Armani who has used Vine to show off its Spring/Summer campaign. Each of the four vines is the same style, multiple shots of its still image adverts. The basic approach to the new tool suggests a more refined idea of what Vine means to Armani. It also gets round the difficulty of creating a Vine-specific advert and takes advantage of its expensive print-ad production values. There’s no doubt that the McDonald-style vine would not have worked for the Armani brand and instead a series of tableaux have been created which show of the product over and over again.

Giorgio Armani Spring/Summer 2013 Campaign vine.co/v/b1e1pMWtDj1

— Armani (@armani) February 1, 2013

The multiple-posting approach seems to have benefitted the brand and in total it managed 113 retweets and 26 favourites across all four posts from its 162k+ followers.

What’s clear from these three examples of Vine for brands is that popular social media tools provoke experimentation in the marketing world. Approaches, and results, will differ but the important thing demonstrated by these brands is targeting your audience.

The aim of making something that goes viral will be at the heart of many brands’ approach, and there’s no reason something eventually won’t. Examples from YouTube, such as Will it Blend?, could easily transfer to Vine and it is only a matter of time until the first big viral is produced.