Axe Launches New Fragrance With Graphic Novel On YouTube
Unilever has launched a new fragrance under its personal care brand Axe, and this time, the line that was once only for men is also rolling out a scent for women. The fragrance line, called Anarchy, is being introduced online with a graphic novel on the brand’s YouTube page, and fans can help shape the outcome.
Anarchy: The Graphic Novel was launched today on the Axe channel, which has more than 12,245 subscribers and tops 15 million total views. The story follows the “Anarchy Girls” as they create chaos around the world and new sequences will be uploaded every few days. Fans can shape and interact with the story by posting their suggestions and votes for plot twists, and some could even end up becoming a character.
Social Video Medium of Choice For Many Luxury Brands This Holiday
To help consumers ring in 2012 and keep brands top of mind after the holiday shopping season, social video was the marketing channel of choice for many luxury brands this year.
Examples include French fashion house Chanel, who added to their Christmas campaign by launching a holiday wishes video on their Facebook page, featuring the brand’s iconic double C logo.
The video featured sparkling black and gold bottles of Chanel perfume arranged to read “happy new year,” and ends by inviting viewers to “share the Chanel wishes” by sending it to friends via social media or email, according to Luxury Daily.
March Jacobs also created a video that has employees sporting New Year’s Eve accessories and noisemakers, holding bottles of champagne, and dancing around in piles of colourful tissue paper. The video was posted on the brand’s YouTube page, and was supported by an email campaign to the fashion house’s newsletter subscribers, asking them to celebrate the New Year with Marc Jacobs.
As part of their overall holiday campaign, the brand asked consumers to use the #MarcFam hashtag and invited them to post their photos to Marc Jacobs’ social networks.
YouTube Introduces New Educational Online Video Channel
In response to overwhelming demand from teachers and schools across the United States, YouTube has launched a new free educational portal that will provide online videos for use in the classroom.
YouTube for Schools will give teachers access to more than 450,000 educational materials on YouTubeEDU, in a controlled environment. Subjects include English, Social Studies, Math, History, Science, Foreign Languages, and more, and all content is safe for students and without the distractions of YouTube’s general content.
As well as videos to enhance classroom lessons and inspire conversation amongst students, the channel also provides teachers with lesson clips from top educators and professional development content from colleagues around the world.
Cartier Taps Into Emotion With Social Video Campaign
Cartier has created a series of videos highlighting stories of engagement as part of their “True love has a colour and a name” and “How far would you go for love” campaigns.
The three short videos were first launched exclusively on the jewelry brand’s Facebook page, each five days apart, and all center around moments of true love across several generations.
The campaign also includes a new full-length, partially animated music video by French band, Air, according to Luxury Daily.
Cartier seems to be focusing on engaging consumers by tapping into their emotions and associating the brand with celebration and love. The Cartier engagement ring appears only once, briefly towards the end of the videos, all of which are French with English subtitles.
Disney and YouTube Announce Online Video Partnership
Disney Interactive Media and Google-owned YouTube have teamed up to develop several new online video series, a partnership investment worth a collective $10 to $15 million.
The original short videos will be produced by Disney and distributed exclusively on a new co-branded channel on Disney.com and YouTube, according to the New York Times.
As they work to revamp their website, Disney admits that its own brand is not powerful enough to attract kids searching for video online. As well as incorporating YouTube in their new site, Disney hopes the partnership will attract kids who prefer YouTube, and encourage them to stay on the new channel longer.
“It’s imperative to go where our audience is,” said James A. Pitaro, co-president of Disney Interactive. The goal of the partnership is to “bring Disney’s legacy of storytelling to a new generation of families and Disney enthusiasts on the platforms they prefer,” he added.


