MontyPython opened a channel on YouTube on the 13th January 2006. It may not have been run by the real guys initially, but in 2008, they decided to do something with the channel. They decided to stop fighting the crowd’s uploading of key clips of their famous productions and instead provide the clips themselves, in high quality, on their own YouTube channel.
On 14th November, a video explaining the decision is published as the main channel video, together with 20 3-minute clips from their productions and 3 documentary style videos. The channel page is nicely designed with typical Monty Python imagery and has a simple link to their “Daily Monty Python” website. The explanatory video encourages people to watch and distribute the free clips, while at the same time pointing out the intention to sell more DVDs of the full videos from the Monty Python store. Each of the 20 production clips has a URL to the full DVD on Amazon in their description. No fancy overlay-ads are used.
Barely a week after the publication of the clips, NewTeeVee reports success of the strategy: apparently a 16,280% increase in sales of DVDs in Amazon!
People like the organised YouTube channel to get a quick, pre-sales overview of their works and entice a new generation to content that hasn’t had any new releases since 1983. They like the easy of linking to a site where they can get more information and buy the full DVDs, who come with extra material and therefore extra incentives to purchase. The secret of the YouTube channel is to use it as a pre-sales marketing instrument – as a way of viral advertising by using extracts of original content.
At the same time, Monty Python has refrained from upsetting their biggest fans and not issued take-down notices on clips that were published on other channels on YouTube. Our suggestion would be to use fan clips for further advertising. It seems a sensible move, since MontyPython’s own clips are by far not a complete set (yet?), and since the fan clips are often of as good a quality and have view counts in the millions that the newly uploaded Monty Python clips haven’t quite achieved yet.Therefore, if somebody searches for a particular Monty Python clip, they will most often land on a fan-uploaded clip. Why not make use of the already existing virality to further drive DVD sales?
Monty Python also has a square focus on YouTube in this activity. Checking MySpace.tv and Dailymotion, there doesn’t seem to be a similar channel there. This is another oppportunity missed for diversifying the activity and gaining a broader audience. In Europe, for example, Dailymotion’s take up is larger than YouTube’s. And a different kind of audience hangs out on MySpace to YouTube.
Overall, this is an example of a well executed and successful viral video advertising campaign. It shows respect for the fans, it provides the right teasers, and it provides subtle links to where to buy the full content.