With nearly 2 million views on YouTube after just two weeks, Beneful’s Dog Goldberg Machine video caught a lot of media attention (including a piece on CNN) and social media traction. Before explaining why it worked so well, I want to illustrate just how big the impact was.
The effect of the Dog Goldberg Machine
Since January of this year, Beneful has been facing negativity within social media incited by an Examiner.com article making several accusations. According to Netbase.com, Beneful’s net sentiment on Twitter from January 1st to June 30th (just before the video launched) was -8%. In other words, there was more negative said about Beneful than positive.
However, if you look at July 2nd to August 31st (the two months after the video launched), the net sentiment is 26%! Not only did the conversation turnaround, but it swung hard in a positive direction.
The video has also driven 254 new subscribers, a 9% increase, to their YouTube channel. So let’s just say that it’s worked well (and shows the power of good content).
Here are my thoughts and observations as to why.
Invoked the right emotions
The first point comes from Jonah Berger’s book Contagious.
Jonah writes that there are several key emotions that when invoked make people more likely to share content. One of those emotions is Awe, or a sense of great admiration or grandeur.
Beneful’s version of a Rube Goldberg machine invokes Awe. Here are some comments from YouTube:
What a fun commercial…..makes me smile after a hard day at the doctor’s office processing all sorts of sick people with health issues.
Best commercial ever!! love love love it.
The joys of dogs and gizmos joined … who can resist?
It’s hard to watch this video and not want to share it or talk about. Which leads to the next point.
The brand is present but not omnipresent
Try telling someone about this video without ever mentioning dog food or Beneful.
You can do it, but it’s kind of hard. Beneful and dog food are kind of central to the video. The point of the machine is to feed dogs. So how do you talk about a dog feeding machine without mentioning feeding dogs?
Therein lies the genius.
The brand and its product are tightly woven into the content but not in a heavy-handed way. Beneful isn’t constantly in your face. It just shows up at the right moments.
Nailed the brand’s current communications
The last reason is this video is an embodiment of the brand’s current campaign, “Play. It’s good for you.”
Brands spend a lot of money and time creating positioning statements and campaigns around good consumer insights (the stuff that resonates with target consumers). The job of a good marketer and agency, in this case Deep Focus, is to then bring those insights and campaigns to life in a creative way.
This video has “Play,” and therefore Beneful, written all over it and represents everything that the brand is about and how they are trying to connect with consumers.
And with nearly 3 million views, I’d definitely say they have struck a chord.
Disclosure: I was an intern for the Beneful brand team when this video launched. Though, I had no involvement with its creation.