Hey, remember that Zune Masks spot? Feed Company, which seeded it on YouTube and elsewhere, sent us metrics on how well it fared.
No word on whether it improved Zune sales or even people’s opinions about it. Just a lot of hype about the number of views and compliments about the animation.
From the report (stats refer to the spot’s popularity on YouTube):
– Over 6,500 users marked “Masks” as a “favorite”
– The video gained “highly positive” rating from over 4,000 viewers
– 561 users subscribed to Zune Arts channel
– 50 users responded to “Masks” with their own video
– The video was featured on the YouTube homepage during the first week of January, bringing “Masks” and “zune-arts.net” front-and-center of the site’s immense audience for a period of one week, thus increasing awareness of Zune Arts and driving traffic to the micro-site
– It was featured as a film and animation feature on all 18 international YouTube sites
– Labeled “Stellar animation from Zune Arts” by YouTube Editorial Team
– Featured on Lisa Nova (YouTube celebrity with over 75,000 subscribers) channel
Over eight weeks the video enjoyed 850,000 views, 3200 comments, and 110 linkbacks across all social media.
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To be fair, there was a lot less online haterade revolving around the Zune in ’07 versus ’06. In December 2006 it captured 2 percent market share, coming in 5th in technology sales on Black Friday. In November 2007, it outsold every other MP3 player on Amazon, mainly because of a firmware update and an $89 price tag on Black Friday, making it the second-most-purchased item online that day.
Improved brand awareness, coupled with the irresistibly low price-tag, probably pushed a lot of buyers over the edge. If you didn’t like it, you could probably hock it on eBay and get an iPod instead. $89 to satisfy your curiosity is no big loss compared to the whoppin’ cost of an iPod, which ranges from $49 for an innocuous Shuffle to $499 for the 32GB iPod touch.
But hey, you’re guaranteed to love the iPod. Unless it crashes or something, which, incidentally, it often does.
Back on-topic. See the most recent Zune ad, which we like a lot more than Masks. The Zune’s no iPod, but boy are its spots spunky.
