180 – ‘First Kiss’ video : Behind-the-Scenes with the Creator of the World’s Most Viral Video.

Small Business Big Marketing with Tim Reid.

Tim: 

Okay, so I was in Singapore a couple of weeks ago and I was amazed at just how many people were walking around staring into their screens.  I’d go as far as saying that for every 10 people I walked past, 6 were deeply engrossed in their virtual world.  In fact, probably even more, certainly the majority.  Asking for menu in more than one restaurant resulted in the waiter producing an iPad, and standing at the counter of another restaurant whilst waiting to pay the bill, there was another iPad fixed in position with a simple screen asking me to write my experience.  I even came across a step the other day that revealed impulse purchases at supermarkets, you know those moments when you’re standing in line and throwing those two chocolate bars you don’t really need, well those impulse purchases are on the decline.  Why?  Because we’re filling in that waiting time by staring at our iPhones, by staring at our Smartphones, and are now oblivious to those chocolate bar screams of “Buy me! Buy me!”  And what about that second and third screen that now occupies our time as we watch TV?  If you actually still watch TV actually, on comes the ad break and boom, we’re on the iPad researching  our next purchase, and snap chatting a pic of the pizza while slowly demolishing.  My point is this:  As website owners, we need to be mobile ready.  At the very least, we need a website that is responsive, one in which the content is easily viewable no matter what the screen size, one that doesn’t require scrolling and pinching in order to view it.  We live in a mobile world, team.  We got to remember this.  We need to be aware of this.

Small screen smart devices, phones, and tablets now outsell laptops and desktops, the keyword—well keywords—being small screen.  People are visiting our websites on iPhones and iPads.  Check your Google analytics if you don’t believe me.  And if the site is too hard to read, then you’ve lost them, and a possible inquiry or sale.  Take a look at how your consuming information if you don’t believe me.

Having a mobile marketing strategy goes way beyond having a responsive website but boy oh boy is that a great start.  And now is the time to act.  These little improvements make it easier for your customers to buy from you.  And who doesn’t want a piece of that?

Okay, before getting stuck into today’s show, as if we aren’t already, I’d like to extend a warm welcome to all those Solopreneurs in the Flying Solo network.  Now there’s plenty of marketing gold in today’s show.  I have a very, very inspiring chat with Melissa Cocer who’s the creator of the world’s most viral video titled First Kiss plus esteemed newsreader Ron Burgundy makes a guest appearance and kindly reads some listener feedback.  Now speaking of inspiring chat, there’s been a couple inside the Small Business Big Marketing forum lately that I just want to get you across because I think you are going to find them very, very interesting.  They’re more educational I suppose in nature than inspiring but they are so incredibly useful, and one of the things I do inside the forum is each month, we have a dedicated exclusive members webinar where we go deep on a particular topic and identify a world class guest to come on and share their knowledge.

This week, we did Google+ so if you’re a forum member you can get in there and find out how to use Google+ to help grow your business, and some really, really useful tips there plus I did an interview, consult, I guess, recently which a forum member allowed me to record it where I helped him discover his ‘why’ which then lead him to creating additional emotional stories within his business.  So you’ll find them in the classroom section of the Small Business Big Marketing forum plus there’s so many great marketing questions being asked by motivated business owners who are in there.  I’m in there every day answering those questions along with a whole lot of others.  So head over to the smallbusinessbigmarketing.com and click on the form button.  Look, it’s a dollar for the first seven days so you can try it out, see what’s it’s like.  And then if you love it, you can become an ongoing member.  No commitment, just $49 a month.  So hopefully, see you in there real soon.

Alright before we get stuck into today’s guest, let me tell you a little bit about how our good friends at Net Registry can help you get your online marketing sorted.  You know how the online marketing world is full of acronyms?  SEO, PPC, DNS, SEM.  Seriously, as a small business owner, my advice is not to worry about those acronyms but do worry about how you market your business online.  You see from what I’ve observed, motivated small business owners are running Google AdWords campaigns, are optimizing their site for search engines, do have secure website hosting, and great website design.  But motivated small business owners are also not doing all these themselves, and that’s where Net Registry steps in.  you see Net Registry exists to get your online marketing sorted.  It’s what they do.  If you are not marketing your business online, then really, team, you are leaving money on the table.  So check about at netregistry.com and tell them Timbo sent you.  In fact, they might even help you how to get a responsive website.  In fact, not might, they definitely will.

Alright, today’s guest, I am so excited to bring this to you.  It’s Melissa Cocer.  She is the founder of Wren Studio.  It’s a fashion house, a fashion studio in LA.  She’s also responsible for coming up with the First Kiss video which is now the most viral video in the world ever.  It’s amazing!  If you haven’t seen it, I hate to say it but you have probably been living under a rock.  So maybe hit pause, go and Google First Kiss and watch, it all take 3 minutes, it’ll blow your mind.  This video at the time of the interview had received 69 million plus views on Youtube, 43,000 comments plus, and I know as of today, it’s well past the 70 million as I put the final touches on this episode.  Interestingly enough, it’s not Melissa’s first piece of clever marketing.  She has done some other really interesting stuff which she shares along the way.

This interview, team, is one that is going to prove to you that the marketing world has changed forever.  I’m so excited to bring it to you and I started by asking Melissa one of the big questions, “Should I match my socks to my trousers, or my shoes?”

A kiss is not a contract but it’s very nice.  It’s very nice.  Just because you’ve been exploring my mouth doesn’t mean you get to take an expedition for the south, no.           

Melissa: 

Women don’t have to worry about those intricacies.  You guys have a whole other fall of questions to answer.

Tim:   

Well, it’s a first world problem but you know sometimes, I really struggle.  I do a lot of presenting and you know socks get seen from stage and it’s just a problem.  So if you do know, do let me know please.

Melissa: 

I absolutely will.

Tim: 

My daughter’s quite excited that I’m actually talking to a fashion designer because that’s where she is kind of headed in her life.

Melissa: 

Oh, wonderful!

Tim:  

Yeah.  Let’s talk fashion.  Wren Studio.  What is Wren Studio?  On your website, you have a wonderful quote that says “Wren was conceived to function as a content studio and a brand.”  What’s that all about?

Melissa: 

Well, essentially, my background is in editorial.  I worked at Vogue and W, and I also worked for some larger corporate apparel brands doing trend forecasting.  And along the way, I’ve always consulted with brands from you know Tom’s Shoes to the Gap, to all sorts of brands in between.  And whether it was with creative marketing or trends, things like that, and so basically when I began Wren, it was a way where we’re launching a fashion line but also still kind of keeping in a mind to this other sort of pursuit which you know I find exceptionally interesting, the ways in which we can connect with consumers and tell stories in interesting ways especially with the advent of the internet, it’s really interesting the fact that the way we communicate with consumers has changed so much.  And I feel like there’s more of honest in creating interesting content than ever before.

Tim:

Wow!  That is a very interesting point because it sounds like old school to say the internet is a game changer.  It’s been around a while but things to be kind of getting a bit quicker.  Things are only up to small businesses that just weren’t accessible before:  The ability to create simple video, the ability to podcast like we are.  And one of the things you mentioned, the ideas are so powerful, aren’t they?  And First Kiss has proved that.  And from my experience talking to small business owners, they really struggle with coming up with ideas, with big ideas, to get messages across.  Have you got any kind of advice on where to look for ideas?

Melissa: 

Absolutely.  One thing, we’ve always kind of done things out of the box and tried to leverage our creativity as much as we could, especially being a small brand and having more of a limited budget when we’re putting these things together and you have to rely on your creativity.  So I think that First Kiss was sort of a prime example of the fact that it’s all about ideas and getting people engaged and sharing your content.  When we set out to do this film in particular, I was studying a lot about the success of sites like Buzzfeed and Upworthy and not only why they were working but how they were working.  And one thing that really stood out to me was the fact that they sort of hinted on the same idea that emotional content is a way to really connect with people out there and also to get them to share your content and your ideas.

Tim:

Yeah.

Melissa: 

So this has been a phenomenal example of that really illustrating that point.

Tim:   

Having a big idea, having even a little idea requires some courage, doesn’t it?  Like I reflect on some of the ideas that I see that businesses and brands have used to promote themselves and often, because the idea doesn’t have a direct line relationship to actually selling more product, selling more service, many business owners can get a bit kind of think, “Oh no!  This is going to be a waste of money.”

Melissa: 

Well that’s an interesting point because this in particular, and this is something you know when I’m kind of listening to the dialogue that’s popped up regarding the video that’s something that people talk a lot about and this was conceived as something that wasn’t meant to sell product.  Everything you see in the video is for the fall collection so this is almost in place of a traditional fashion show or something like that where you’re seeing a preview of what’s to come and it’s more meant to communicate an idea about the brand, something I compared it almost to a perfume ad.  You can’t smell the perfume, you can’t experience it in any way but because it’s really setting a tone, that’s what they do in order to market their product.  So this is almost taking that and putting it into a more of apparel and fashion kind of context.

Tim: 

Interesting but before we get into the detail of First Kiss, Melissa, tell us what other marketing have you done?  I read somewhere where Wren Studio, I mean each collection, you do something interesting or different.  What other marketing have you done for the studio?

Melissa: 

We do interesting collaborations as one example.  There’s a brand that’s quite known here that’s called Minnetonka Moccasins for example and it’s a brand that I wore as a child and I had a very authentic long relationship with that brand.  And we partnered with them about a year ago and made special limited edition pair of these Moccasins that were wholesaled around the country.  And then we did all sorts of things kind of surrounding this so that collaboration, that pairing with a different brand was something where we could tell our story.

Tim:

Okay, how did you do that?  So you got a Moccasin brand, you’ve got Wren Studio brand, it have, I’ve noticed, Havaiana Thongs flip-flops.  Do you have the Havaiana brand over there?

Melissa:

We do, yes.

Tim:

Okay, so they’ve done a collaboration recently with a well-known photographer who’s been on the show actually, a guy called Eugene from Aquabumps.  He’s at that type of thing where you kind of been able to put your fashion style on an existing pair of Moccasins.

Melissa: 

It is and with the explicit intent if you’re an existing brand and you want the media to write a story about you for example, if you look at what’s the content that they’re usually covering, and it’s say store openings, new brands, and you know if you’re past sort of the new brand phase and you’re not opening a store, what’s another thing that you can do that sort of an interesting thing that brings some newness that you have the new story for the season to tell for example.

Tim:  

Yeah, yeah.  So how did that show itself, that whole collaboration or officially it’s a joint venture with the Moccasin brand?  You had your own style there?  Was there a little tag on there that told a story?

Melissa:  

Yes, there was special marketing materials that went into the boxes.  It was like a fold out explaining kind of who I was, what my relationship was to Minnetonka.  We commissioned a style blogger to do the special illustration for them, and so while this is accomplishing, the objective of getting more editorials about Wren.  It’s also them getting this information into all sorts of new consumers’ hands because they have a very, very wide distribution network, it’s in all sorts of stores more so than Wren is so all of a sudden, anyone who’s coming into contact with this product or buying this product has this special handout beautifully put together informational packet about who Wren is and we’re kind of connecting with consumers in a new way there.

Tim:

I love it!  What else have you done?  What else has Wren done?

Melissa:

Well, recently also, we did a collaboration with a stylist and she’s kind of a celebrity stylist here, and one of her clients was Kirsten Dunst, the actress.  So we asked Kirsten if she would be interested in kind of doing some very fun images for the collaboration and she said sure so we sent her a box of clothes and a Polaroid camera, asking if she would kind of take sort of selfies or something like that, and she did one better and got her boyfriend who’s also very well known actor named Garret Hedwin to snap the photos.  So all of a sudden, we have these amazing images that are done in a very special unique creative way.

Tim: 

Brilliant.  That is so LA.

Melissa: 

That’s the thing.  It really highlights kind of one of the benefits of being in LA.

Tim: 

Yeah.

Melissa:  

We just reach out to this actor, or this musician, or whomever that we have the good fortune of being in proximity to just from being in LA and everything like that.

Tim:

Is it really like that?  Her am I, in the boondocks of Australia, a gazillion miles away, so if I was to walk out your studio door, would I just sort bump into Jack or De Niro, or is that just how it happens?

Melissa: 

I mean it kind of does, really.

Tim:  

Oh stop it.

Melissa:

It’s kind of hilarious.  I love having friends and different clients come from out of town because they love those moments.

Tim:

So really it’s like that.  I just thought it was a stereotype cliché but it is.  So that’s a marketing asset, you know, like keep play to your strengths. As a business, if you’ve got that at your doorstep, you make it work, and clearly you do.

Melissa:

Absolutely.  One of the best bits of advice that I was ever given that I think applies to this sort of thing is like to ask questions, ask people if they’d be interested in doing things, and I’ve always been surprised how oftentimes the answer is yes.  Some people do want to be involved in special creative projects.

Tim:

Oh that is such great advice.  I kind of remember a previous guest talked about that.  If you don’t ask, you don’t get.  And people think, “Oh, they will never say yes.” But how would you know?  You got to ask.

Melissa:

You just have to ask, yeah, exactly, and sort of set your sights high and just asking and kind of go for it.

Tim:

You know I’m even honored and was surprised when you said yes to this interview because I just thought you would be inundated and just this little podcaster from deep down under.

Melissa: 

I’m flattered, thank you.

Tim: 

Oh stop it.  Thank you, anyway.  So let’s talk.  You’ve done some great stuff certainly even prior to First Kiss but First Kiss’s taken it up a notch or two with just a lazy 69 million, I don’t even know how to pronounce that number, 69,500,000 views on Youtube alone.

Melissa:

Yeah.

Tim:

I mean it’s nuts.

Melissa: 

And it’s amazing and the number of views is amazing.  I think I checked last say Thursday to Friday and this is what the video having been out 2 weeks at that point.  It was going up 2 million a day and that’s pretty spectacular considering oftentimes these videos aren’t seen that much in their kind of entirety of existence really.

Tim: 

Well 69 million views, 43,000 comments, I want to talk about that shortly but it is nuts.  And views and comments aren’t everything but clearly it’s part of the scoreboard which says, “Hey!  This puppy’s going viral.”  So let’s get started from the start.  First Kiss:  where did the idea come from?

Melissa: 

Well, basically, it’s sort of what I’d mentioned where I wanted to make some content that was emotional, and was truly authentic, and people would connect with.  And that was one thing that I kind of sort of discovered when kind of thinking about what makes ideas spread.  And essentially, most people sit at their screens all day, their computer screens, and they could be very faceless and impersonal, and people really want a way to connect to others in their life and one way that people are doing that these days is through sharing emotional content.  They feel this emotion and they want their friend to feel this emotion and they connect to one another through sharing it.  So with that kind of premise, I basically connected with a few directors that I know of in LA…

Tim: 

Oh here we go, LA again.

Melissa:

who are friends through various means.  I decided to go with one friend in particular who I’ve known since I got out of high school.  I met her in New York and we sort have been friends for ages.

Tim:

This is Tatia Pilieva?

Melissa:  

Exactly.

Tim:

Yeah.

Melissa:   

And so from there then, it was the same thing, reaching out to various people that I knew that were either friends of mine or what I describe as friends of the brand, say a singer who maybe we lent clothes to for a photo shoot or have kind of a relationship with through a variety of different means.   And I wrote this email saying, “Hey, we’re doing this project.  Do you think you’d want participate?” and a lot of people said yes, some people said no.  Through kind of the whole process, we got a group of 20 strangers together and the results are what you see on film.

Tim: 

So, Melissa, just on the point before getting to the recruiting of the talent in the film, you met with Tatia, Tatia was the director, clearly Tarantino was busy on the day of the filming or Scorsese was out to lunch but maybe there’ll be next you know.

Melissa: 

Yeah, absolutely.

Tim:

Now that you’ve proven yourself.

Melissa:

I don’t think so high on this stuff.

Tim: 

So you and Tatia get together.  At this point, you don’t have an idea, you have a premise that you want to spread an idea and you know that emotional content works but you don’t have the idea so you two just over a frappucino or chaelatte…

Melissa: 

Actually, it all came together quite quickly.  I knew that I had to have the video done by a certain date because we were going to launch it with style.com which is a fashion site here.  They have something called a video fashion week which they cover say New York Fashion Week or runway shows or Paris Fashion Week and then they have this new thing that they created that’s just about videos for the brands who don’t want to do a fashion show but still wanted to kind of participate in that coverage.  So we had a tight deadline, we literally met essentially over a frappuccino and the whole thing.  It was really pulled together in if not a week and a half, two weeks ago.

Tim: 

That’s stunning.  That is stunning.  When the idea was raised, was it you or Tatia who said, “Hey, why don’t we just film people kissing for the first time?”

Melissa: 

Yeah, Tatia sent me an email saying about “why don’t we do this?” and I thought that that was great and kind of set out from there to conceptualize it.

Tim:  

Did it you go yes immediately, like “Wow! That’s just such a no-brainer.”

Melissa:   

Well I felt like it was a wonderful concept and I felt like combining that with the participants that I was thinking of that would be able to actualize this and really kind of bring it to life, and give the video all the wonderful feel that you see.  It just seemed like a no-brainer.

Tim: 

Yeah.

Melissa:

And then from there, after it was done and kind of seeing the reaction people were having to it, we really knew that this was special and it accomplished its objective to a level that I haven’t anticipated.  You know people were getting teary when they were watching it.

Tim:

I did.

Melissa:

Yeah, I mean there’s certain points in the video that when I was reciting something or sharing that one of the participants had said, even though I shared that line many times, I would still get goose bumps and it was just really touching, and I think people really related to it.  They related to maybe the first kiss they had with someone or all those feelings that you have when you’re connecting with someone.  And so that I had a feeling kind of from that reaction that this was going to be special but certainly, I had no idea that it would do what it’s done and also all the debate that it’s raised about the state of marketing, about the state of advertising, about the state of the internet essentially.  You know when I touched on in the beginning of our conversation about how the internet’s really changed things and we acknowledge that it sounds so silly, it’s been around for so long but I’ve been so surprised with kind of the conversation that’s popped up around this video to sort of get the impression that so many marketers or so many big bucks brands don’t really get that.  They don’t really see that things are different and you need to be different in order to connect to consumers especially the sort of savvy kind of people out there who I think are typically harder to reach.

Tim:   

That is music to mine and many of the motivated business owners listening to this, Melissa, because you know Jeff Bezos of Amazon talks about Amazon being at day 1.  I mean that’s Amazon.  That’s like leading, leading company in the world in terms of technology and so absolutely.  I mean we are in such early days for all of these and I come across business owners who think, “Oh, the train’s left the station.  It’s too late to do video marketing.  I will never get a viral video done.  Podcasting is you know too late, too late to start blogging.”  It’s just not. It’s just like its early days.  Can I take you back?  This is the male in me.  I need to know how this video came about so I have a couple of questions before we talk about end results.

Melissa:

Sure.

Tim:

So you and Tatia, you’ve got the idea, you’ve got 2 weeks to get the video together for this fashion event, you have recruited a number of actors, artists, musicians from around LA and I know that’s been a bit of a bone of contention amongst some commenter saying this is not—and I guess people assumed “oh this is just random off the street”. This in not random off the street, it’s people who have some sense of camera and some sense of performance but…

Melissa:

Very easily, I mean that’s a very interesting debate as well.  One early article sort of said, “These are paid actors.” And then everyone was upset and then like “Gosh! You guys don’t know how far from the truth that is.”  And we kind of went over sort of what the budget actually was and the fact that everyone there was truly there because they wanted to.  No one was compensated.  The premise is 100% authentic.  Everyone did meet for the first time on camera as you see.  They didn’t even know the other person’s first name so you couldn’t Google, you couldn’t do any behind the scenes kind of research on what would be happening to prepare yourself.  And you know there are people who are actors by profession but someone in the video, he also works for me.  He’s my production manager.  There’s someone in the video who works in a store, he’s a salesperson.  So there are people of all different professions.  You know it really is a cross section of the LA population and of course there’s going to be performers and actors in there.

Tim: 

Yes.

Melissa:  

because it is LA after all.

Tim:

That’s LA.  Am I right?  Is my research right in saying the budget, it blew out to a massive, insert drum roll now, you blew out to a massive $1300?

Melissa:  

Yeah, exactly.  I read an article from someone else saying like estimating the budget.  I don’t remember what they said.

Tim:   

Yeah.

Melissa:

Something like, “Well this must have been $50,000.  And I was like “No, not exactly.”

Tim:

Oh, this is so inspiring.  I hope you know how inspiring this is.  So your talent roll up, did they know they were going to be in a video, did they know as they walk into the studio they’re going to have to kiss a stranger?

Melissa: 

Yes.

Tim:

They do.

Melissa: 

In the email that I sent out to everyone, I said like, “Would you be interested in participating in this?  The premise is you’ll kiss a stranger, it’s going to be filmed in black and white, we’re going to capture moments before and after” and that was kind of it.  And the girls who were quite easy to get them to sign on, they were familiar with the concept of a fashion film, they were familiar with these more kind of out of the box creative things that we do at Wren.  Whereas the guys were a little bit more like they didn’t really get it.

Tim:

They’ve been like, “Count me in.  A free kiss!”

Melissa:

I thought they would be too!  I think they were a little bit more kind of suspicious like, “What are you guys doing?”

Tim:

Yup.

Melissa:

So it was actually surprisingly harder to cast the males in the video which really took me by surprise.

Tim: 

Really?

Melissa: 

Yeah.

Tim:

How funny.  I would have thought they would just go over, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.  That’s fine.”

Melissa: 

I know.  I thought so too.

Tim: 

“Do I have to take my top off?”

Melissa: 

Exactly.

Tim:

Brilliant.  And then on the day, you said you had 20 talents.  From memory, there’s not 20 talents in that final cut, is that right?

Melissa:

Yeah, there is 10 couples.

Tim:

Oh there is 10 couples?

Melissa:  

Yeah.

Tim: 

Goodness me!  It felt like less.  I found myself getting immersed in one or two.  You pick your favorites.

Melissa: 

Most definitely, most definitely.  I think it’s nice too that people definitely respond to different performers in the video.  It’s been interesting to hear from the different people who participated what their experience has been like afterwards, you know, different people reaching out and getting in touch, different opportunities that have arisen from being in the video.  It’s really been kind of a fascinating social experiment in that respect as well.

Tim: 

I got to be careful here but one of the older ladies, maybe the older lady in the video, she kisses the fellow who I’d say leans in just a little bit too aggressively and I think puts his tongue in just a little bit too far.  I felt as though she was a little bit put off by it.

Melissa:

That’s Erin, my production manager.

Tim:

What did she, did she kind of look forward to the end of First Kiss?

Melissa:

I don’t know.  I think that you definitely see what the different appearances of people, their personality coming through?

Tim:  

Yeah.  Right.

Melissa:

That was really interesting to me.  For example, one of the girls, her name is Zee, she’s quite over the top some say in life and quite enthusiastic.

Tim:  

Did she have the stripe top on?

Melissa:

She did.

Tim:  

She wanted to take that off.  She wanted to get naked.

Melissa:

So that wasn’t surprising to see, kind of that’s how her kiss went or there’s other girls I know who are a little shy or who felt especially awkward.

Tim: 

The gay guys.

Melissa:

They were actually the ones who were like we were a little bit worried they really didn’t kind of go for it in the same way that the others did.

Tim: 

Yeah.

Melissa: 

But I think that that was nice because you see kind of all different I guess levels of the making out.

Tim:

Yeah.  Brilliant, brilliant.  Now I’ll move away from the mechanics of First Kiss.  Suffice to say that I think it’s fascinating how it came to get it.  It’s inspiring that it was $1300.  It’s inspiring that you just asked people to be involved, looking and knowing that someone would say yes, some would say no, and that you got it up in 2 weeks so to speak but it’s just like that is for a small business marketer who kind of thinks everything has to be well literally, this is Hollywood production.  It’s funny you know I say to my listeners and when I present in regards to video marketing, you don’t have to make it a Hollywood production but this almost literally is, isn’t it by default?

Melissa: 

By default.  You know it’s interesting kind of in the planning phase of what we were going to do, one thing we explored was even filming a video using an iPhone.  This obviously went a very different route but I came to find out there’s for example an Oscar nominated documentary called Searching for Sugarman and I found out that they ran out of money and there were scenes in this documentary which obviously was very successful that were filmed on an iPhone and then I found out that Soco, who’s one of the performers in the video, she’s filmed videos on an iPhone using different apps and I thought that that was really inspiring as well.  There are ways around investing tons and tons of resources that you can still do things that look beautiful, feel beautiful, and really get your message out there.

Tim:

First Kiss wasn’t shot on an iPhone?

Melissa: 

No.

Tim: 

Not.

Melissa:  

Not at all.

Tim: 

Okay.  Okay.  Let’s talk about commercial outcomes.  I mean a sort of part of me, you were creating art.  Again, one of the things I say to small businesses, “You’re not in the business creating art.  There’s got to be some commercial reality.”  Now Wren Studio has branding at the very front and a tiny little credit at the back.  And the actors are wearing Wren Clothes but all intents and purposes, we don’t know that.  So what’s been the commercial outcome?  Have you completely sold out of your fall collection?  Have you signed an amazing deal going forward?  What’s been the big commercial outcome of First Kiss, Melissa?

Melissa:  

Well I would say that the biggest and most immediate outcome was directing more people not only to our website but our online store.  Traffic was up significantly.

Tim:

Yeah.

Melissa: 

I mean that’s an understatement obviously.  And the exciting thing was 96% of visitors have never been to the site before.  We continued to see a huge spike in online sales which has also been beyond our wildest dreams and absolutely wonderful.  And obviously also, we’ve gotten the word out more about what we do as a brand which you touched on in the opening of the show which we’re conceived to function as a content studio as well as a brand so there’s a lot of excitement surrounding that.  One interesting thing in this experiment you know, this was putting the video on Youtube and sharing it that way was something that we tried that was new where typically, the videos are, as I mentioned, on Style.com are more of in a fashion context so there might be a write-up that surrounds the video that kind of reviews the collection or explains what it is and this reached people that were beyond our intention, beyond that style and fashion sort of space.  And so I think part of sort of that question really touches on the fact that we were reaching people that we didn’t anticipated which has been phenomenal and fantastic but also kind of makes our connection in terms of what you were noting or saying briefly in the beginning, in the end, cloudier in people’s minds were typically in the past.  It’s a little bit clearer because of the context in which you see the video.

Tim: 

I mean there’s a lot of wastage.  Often when a brand runs a commercial on TV, it’s seen by 10% of people who are going to ever buy from that brand.  And the 90% of people are never going to buy from the brand.  You’d be the same, in a sense.

Melissa:  

Absolutely, most definitely.  And that’s the thing.  We are most definitely reaching a lot of people that would never be our customers for example.

Tim:   

You obviously can’t match their socks with their shoes.

Melissa:   

You know also too because this video has created such a huge dialogue in the business marketing and advertising community and we’re having so many people finding out about the brand and the video because of that dialogue, many of the people who are interested in the video, it’s because of the questions and the ideas that was raised about the state of our industry versus these are our typical consumers.  So while it’s definitely, we’re having that drop off in terms of who would actually to be able to buy clothes are our target consumers, we’re also just raising brand awareness across the board, which has been a very interesting and unintended part of the whole experiment.

Tim: 

Has it—clearly, I was going to say—caught you unaware?  So clearly it has.  In a sense, to that, maybe you found yourself not with enough stock.  I look at your website and I say this with all respect because First Kiss is brilliant but your website as an ecommerce platform could be stronger?  And has it put pressure on you to then go “well next time if we can ever do that again, do we need to be set up better to make it easier for people to buy from us?”  I mean I’m no style guru but I found it difficult to kind of find my way around your website.  Is that a surprise to you or not?

Melissa: 

I mean definitely with hindsight being 20/20 and I know that we would have 69 million potential ways to connect to consumers, there’s dozens and dozens of things that I would change in terms of being able to capitalize on the success of the video.

Tim: 

Right.

Melissa: 

And while it was a surprise that it was that popular, we definitely set out to make something that the people would share.  We didn’t ever anticipate having what’s called the most viral video of all time.  You know I mean there is no way for anyone to plan for or anticipate.

Tim:

Is that a fact, is that the most viral video of all time?

Melissa:

I’m told that yeah, we’re on track to become the most viral video of all time and it’s been called the most successful fashion film of all time which is pretty amazing considering the other brands who were doing things like this are people like Burberry or Louis Vuitton or endless pockets.

Tim:

Exactly.  You know, here, again, one of the things I talk about, marketing world change forever and the playing field is level like we are now competing against the big brands.  “Look out big brands” is all I’ve got to say.  Well, one last question, Melissa, and thank you so much for sharing us all those insights in the First Kiss and into Wren.  I think it’s a really interesting business.  What’s the craziest, most surprising thing that’s happened in the last few weeks since First Kiss’s gone viral?

Melissa: 

Well I have two things.  I’ll share two stories.  One thing that I was especially just so happy to hear is Soco, who’s one of the performers and also she generously shared her song that is the soundtrack to the video, she has debuting on the Billboard Hot 100 which is the rating.

Tim:

Wow.  Yeah.

Melissa: 

For the very first time in her entire career, she’s debuting in the top 10 which is phenomenal thing to happen and that just fills my heart so very much that her generosity in participating in this, this kind of unexpected outcome has come.  And then my most interesting story is that the person that I actually had my very first kiss with sort of came out woodwork and emailed me so I thought that that was kind of interesting funny full circle to that.

Tim:

Beautiful.  And what have you done with that?  Are you hitting up for a frappuccino?

Melissa: 

I don’t know about that.

Tim:

Melissa Cocer from Wren Studio and the person responsible for First Kiss.  I’m in awe, I’m in absolute awe.  I’m so honored that you’ve chosen to share this story on small business big marketing.  I look forward to seeing what you do next.  I’m not going to say I cannot wait because there must be massive pressure on you, and the world will be watching but good luck, a big virtual kiss from me, wishing you luck and well done.

Melissa:

Thanks.

Tim: 

It wasn’t a tongue-y, it was just one of those LA kisses.  You know, you go both sides of the cheek.

Melissa: 

Absolutely.

Tim:

Thank you, Melissa!

Melissa:

Thank you!

A kiss is not a contract but it’s very nice.  It’s very, very nice.  Just because we’ve been playing tons of hockey doesn’t mean we get discovered going that’s in my jockey.

Tim:

Wow! Team, did you love that interview?  If you did, can you please leave a comment in the commend section of episode 180 at smallbusinessbigmarketing.com because I love to know what you think.  I truly am inspired by what Melissa has done.  I’ll share my top 3 learnings with you shortly but before, let me quickly tell you, and I mean quickly tell you, about swiftly.com.  I say quickly because that is exactly what Swiftly is all about: small design fixes real fast.  Swiftly is ideal for altering your business card details, getting your logo altered, bannerette updates, even photo touchup.  And who doesn’t love a good little photo touchup.  God bless Photoshop!  You simply upload the artwork that needs fixing, tell them what needs doing and boom!  Within 1 hour, it’s done, often much quicker all for just $19.  Check them out, swiftly.com.  That is S-W-I-F-T-L-Y.  You will be amazed.

Now back to that interview with Melissa.  A couple things:  I want to share my top 3 learnings but there was a couple of questions that I forgot to ask.  I was so involved in having a chat that there were a couple:  One was how did she get the video out there in the first place.  I think we did touch on the fact that she launched it at that fashion week, that fashion festival but she also emailed 20 friends and said, “What do you think of this video?” and off the back of that email, they passed on the more, and more, and more, and 69 million views later, history tells a wonderful story.  The other question I didn’t ask was what about the spoofs that are now appearing, the takeoffs of First Kiss.  I wanted to know what she thought of them.  My guess is that—and what I mean by that is—there is some rather disgusting ones like First [censored], and First Fart, and First dog.  I reckon Melissa would actually be really honored that people have bothered to copy it and it only gives further fuel to the fire of First Kiss, so yeah.  A couple of questions that I didn’t ask but there are my answers on behalf of Melissa of course.

Now my top 3 learnings, wow!  I mean there’s so many more.  Again, each episode it’s hard to get it down to top 3 but here’s my top 3 takeouts:  #1, look for joint venture opportunities.  Melissa called them collaborations.  She talked about one she did with the Moccasin brand prior to First Kiss.  First Kiss is a collaboration as well.  Look out into your networks and see who you can develop partnerships with.  You know all of a sudden, one and one equals three and you’re not doing everything yourself.  It’s about leverage.  #2 learning, focus on creating emotional content.  This is a recurring theme.  While it’s a recurring theme in great marketing, it’s a recurring theme on the show.  Emotional content makes ideas spread.  Now we could think about how and why First Kiss became so viral.  That would be an entire workshop.  However, it’s probably an entire thesis.  Someone probably will do that.  Suffice to say that emotional content does spread ideas. Think about the wording on your website in your brochures.  Tell stories instead of pushing the features of your product or your service.  Create richer content beyond words, start sharing pictures, create audio, do a podcast, create video, write a book, create emotional content, and get clear on your editorial mission, a lot of discussion about all that stuff inside the small business big marketing forum.  And # 3 learning, utilize your assets.  Melissa did this so well.  She utilized her network.  I mean that’s a massive asset for her as a fashion designer living in LA, she’s got great connections, they’re the assets that she made best use of.  Think about what you have access to and really, really make best use of them.  That could be about joint ventures and partnerships but it just might be that you have someone within your business who’s a great illustrator, or a great writer, or whatever it might be.  Make best use of those assets because it could well be a point of difference.

I hope you enjoyed that interview with Melissa, creator of the world’s most viral video as much as I did.

That almost, almost brings us to the end of episode 180 of Australia’s #1 marketing show.  Now as I said at the start, I’m honored to have Ron Burgundy join us and share some listener feedback and some listener reviews.  There are some old ones.  I wanted to share some old ones off iTunes and so did he, so they date back like a year, a year and a half because I’m so honored that people will leave those reviews on iTunes.  And if you want to go and do that, feel free to.  A big thank you to Net Registry.  They help you get your online marketing sorted, a big thank you to Swiftly, small design fixes done fast.  Don’t forget to head over to the small business big marketing forum at smallbusinessbigmarketing.com.  I’m in there every single day answering your marketing questions.

Next week’s guest is Amanda Stevens and Amanda is an expert on how to market to women, a very, very interesting chat I have with Amanda.  Alright, team, I’ve been Timbo Reid, I still am actually and probably will be next week.  You’ve been listening to Australia’s #1 marketing show.  May your marketing be the best marketing.  Bye for now.

You’ve been listening to the Small Business Big Marketing show with Tim Reid.  Want more marketing goodness?  Then visit smallbusinessbigmarketing.com.

Ron: 

Ron Burgundy here.  Well done, Timbo on another great show!  Myself and others love the marketing gold you share each week.  Here’s what others have to say:  This first one comes in from Arthur Me in fact and it’s titled Anybody in Business Needs to Listen to This.  “I first left a rave review on this podcast almost two years ago.  Timbo, this is gold and it just keeps getting better.  2012 interview reminded us of the gems you’ve shared throughout the year and your sessions with AG have been platinum.  Can’t wait for the rest of 2013.  Thanks!  Not So Big Guy.”

The second review comes in from V8M.  It’s titled Stop, Go no Further.  “It is amazing to realize that SBBM is up to 110+ episodes as I started listening from episode 1.  Over the years, I have tried other podcasts including the best-known names and schools in the world.  I gave up trying 90 episodes ago and have now taken the leap of starting my own web/online marketing business with 90% of my services having concepts, practices, and marketing gold from this podcast.  In this first month, I have four major clients and word is growing faster than I can count.”

And finally, folks, this guy keeps it nice and simple.  It’s titled Great Stuff from Zombie Apocalypse 2012.  Hi Tim!  I just wanted to let you know the show has revolutionalized my way of thinking about approach to business.  I am currently working my way through listening to the entire backlog of shows and gathering heaps of new ideas and inspiration for new business ideas.  I have also bought and downloaded the Marketing Master Class which was pure gold, highly recommend it.  Regards, Peter O’Leery.”

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