How AMC’s ‘The Pitch’ is scoring big on BuzzFeed
Reblogged from iMediaConnection, by Michael Estrin
What makes something go viral? It’s a common question these days. And in the quest for answers, brands would be remiss to neglect an entity like BuzzFeed, a platform described as a new kind of media company for the social world.
Jon Steinberg, BuzzFeed’s president, notes that visitors to BuzzFeed simultaneously engage with an endless mashup of high- and low-brow content, from news to wacky animal photo montages. All categories of content are welcome, Steinberg says, so long as they meet BuzzFeed’s simple threshold — is it shareable?
With nearly 27 million unique visitors a month (according to Google Analytics in April), BuzzFeed is clearly a careful steward of its content ecosystem. It also tends to be way ahead of the viral curve. As any BuzzFeed user can tell you, what you see on BuzzFeed today will likely be on Facebook tomorrow. Naturally, that’s a huge draw for brands looking to make a social media splash. But engaging with social media takes more than just showing up. So to help marketers reimagine themselves as social publishers, we’re showcasing five brands that have figured out how to buzz on BuzzFeed.
“The Pitch” (AMC)
If you’re the sort of person who would watch a YouTube video of one of Coke’s most iconic television ads, then you’re probably the sort of person who would click on — and possibly share — a list of “The 15 Most Memorable Ad Jingles Of All-Time.” But that BuzzFeed list, which includes jingles from Mentos, 7-Up, and Big Red, isn’t the work of an established brand. In fact, it is content from a brand most of the readers probably didn’t know about when they opened the list because the brand was AMC’s newest show, “The Pitch.”
The three lists AMC used to promote its new reality show about working in advertising blur the line between content and marketing. Take “The Absolute Best/Worst Foreign Ads Ever,” for example. That list is, in a sense, ad criticism. Fundamentally, “The Pitch” is ad criticism as well, but filtered through the familiar format of a competition reality show. Of course, the comments from users are also content that is very much on brand as well. So from television show to BuzzFeed content to comments, there is a media ecosystem without the traditional lines of demarcation. Or, put simply, this type of content allows the brand to start a conversation about a topic that is the perfect context for its new show… [Full Story]
