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Online Video is a Whopper: Burger King Uses Online Video to Boost Sales |
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Thursday, 14 February 2008 |
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In early December 2007, Burger King began its "Whopper Freakout" campaign, a series of TV commercials and online videos in which real Burger King customers are told the Whopper is no longer on the menu.
The hoax took place at two Burger King locations in Nevada. Employees were substituted with actors and hidden cameras were placed around the ordering counters to capture customers' reactions to the prank.
According to an article in The Wall Street Journal called "Hey, No Whopper on the Menu?!," the "Whopper Freakout" campaign is based on a market research technique called deprivation research:
Burger King has been conducting deprivation studies for several years, getting small groups of people considered core customers by the fast-food chain to voluntarily forgo eating Whoppers. As part of the experiment, the people kept food diaries so Burger King could analyze what they ate instead.
The purpose of deprivation research is to help measure brand or product loyalty, and to help marketers create messages that hit home with consumers. The "Whopper Freakout" campaign takes this technique to a new level. It's not just about the research used to create the message -- it is the message.
The success of this campaign demonstrates the power of video, specifically online video. In addition to TV commercials, "Whopper Freakout" clips are available all over the Internet, from the campaign's companion website, WhopperFreakout.com, to all major video portals, like YouTube and Google Video. According to the WSJ article, the original 8-minute, documentary-style clip, which spawned the series of commercials, was viewed over 3 million times on WhopperFreakout.com, and over 350,000 times on YouTube.
Burger King maintains that the campaign contributed to more than a 10% increase in Whopper sales in the quarter that ended December 2007.
The lesson from all this is that if you can generate captivating video content and get it online, the results can be spectacular. It wasn't the commercials alone that impacted Burger King's sales; rather the combination of TV and the Internet. While TV ads cost millions to produce and air, syndicating a video across the Web can cost next to nothing!
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AuthorViews' George Ingmire Works on Award-Winning Katrina Documentary "Trouble the Water" |
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Wednesday, 13 February 2008 |
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AuthorViews would like to congratulate George Ingmire, our Production Manager, for his work on the film Trouble the Water, which just won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.
Directed and produced by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, both of whom worked with Michael Moore on Fahrenheit 911 and Bowling for Columbine, Trouble the Water is a poignant documentary about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. The film includes real video footage of the storm shot by Kimberly Rivers Roberts, a resident of the 9th ward who was unable to evacuate.
Ingmire, with 10 years of video production experience, is in charge of sound and camera on AuthorViews shoots, as well as editing and cutting all footage. He was approached in early 2006 to work as the sound recorder for Trouble the Water and he accepted the job whole-heartedly.
A resident of New Orleans for the past 15 years, Ingmire evacuated to Virgina during Katrina and returned to the Crescent City in October 2005. Since the storm, Ingmire has devoted a great deal of his work to telling the story of Katrina. He has worked on several Katrina films, including Spike Lee's HBO documentary, When the Levees Broke, which won 3 Primetime Emmys in 2007.
When asked his thoughts on Trouble the Water, Ingmire replied, "Of all the Katrina documentaries I've worked on, this film came closest to telling the real story."
For more information on Trouble the Water, check out these articles:
GreenCine Daily
Cinematical.com
Soros.org
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Author Verita Thompson Deceased at 89 |
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Tuesday, 12 February 2008 |
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Verita Bouvaire Thompson, author and prominent New Orleans figure, died of natural causes on February 1, 2008. She was 89 years old.
AuthorViews had the privilege of interviewing and filming Thompson about her book Bogie and Me: A Love Story, a memoir about her 17-year secret love affair with Humphrey Bogart, a portion of which overlapped with Bogart's marriage to Lauren Bacall. Bogie and Me was published in 1982, creating quite a stir because it was the first time Thompson had revealed the affair publicly.
AuthorViews shot Thompson's video in New Orleans, where she lived for the last 18 years of her life. She was a stunning woman, well-known throughout the French Quarter for her glamorous style, party-girl attitude, and of course her history with perhaps the most famous movie star of all time. The Associated Press via MercuryNews.com states: All the way to her death, her friends said, Thompson adhered to a striking style and outlook reminiscent of the 1940s and Bogart's movies, dressing in Chanel suits, high heels, hat and gloves - with a whiskey smash in hand. According to Contactmusic.com, Thompson was offered the opportunity to evacuate New Orleans by private jet right before Hurricane Katrina hit, but refused, exclaiming, "Lauren Bacall failed to chase me out of Hollywood. Katrina won't force me out of New Orleans."
For more information, check out the articles at:
Contactmusic.com
MercuryNews.com
BayouBuzz.com
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AuthorViews is proud to present an excerpt from Princeton scientist John F. Brinster's The Abduction, a philosophical and historical novel that challenges the very foundation of Western religion.
The Abduction is a controversial tale about the early life of Jesus of Nazareth, based on an ancient Chinese legend in which a Chinese ambassador abducts Jesus as a child and raises him among Buddhists in Western China.
This excerpt details the education and teachings of Jesus (known as Jem) as he grows up and matures as a member of an aristocratic Chinese family.
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New Book: The Girl's Guide to Building a Million Dollar Business |
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Thursday, 07 February 2008 |
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AuthorViews is proud to bring you an excerpt from The Girl's Guide to Building a Million Dollar Business, a new guidebook for women by small business expert Susan Wilson Solovic.
According to Solovic, women-owned businesses comprise the fastest growing segment within the US economy; but only 3% of these businesses exceed a million dollars in annual revenue. In The Girl's Guide to Building a Million Dollar Business, Solovic uses her experiences as co-founder, CEO and Chairman of SBTV.com (Small Business Television) to help inspire and teach women how to build their startups from the ground up and grow them into stable and profitable companies.
In this excerpt, Solovic discusses the four factors she deems instrumental to growing a business: mission, management, marketing and money.
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New Book: Alive and Kicking |
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Thursday, 31 January 2008 |
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AuthorViews is proud to present an excerpt from Alive and Kicking: Legal Advice for Boomers, by elder law experts and professors Kenney F. Hegland and Robert Fleming.
Alive and Kicking is a book about the legal, financial and family issues that arise as people grow old. Hegland and Fleming, both with decades of experience in law, incorporate an array of serious matters into an entertaining, uplifting and even humorous legal guidebook for the elderly.
In this excerpt, the two lawyers offer advice on alcoholism and gun safety.
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New Book: Bonnie Rozanski and "Borderline" |
Authorviews is pleased to bring you an excerpt from Bonnie Rozanski's newest novel, Borderline.
Borderline is not only a warm and humorous coming of age tale; but an informative treatise on several widespread societal concerns -- fast-food diets, genetics and autism. Rozanski elucidates these issues and uses them to bring to life a fast-paced plot with dynamic, engaging characters.
This excerpt from Borderline portrays the scene in which the Ritter family first realizes that little Austin's developmental problems are more severe than they had thought.
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New Video: Sarah Honenberger and "White Lies" |
AuthorViews is pleased to present two-minutes with author Sarah Honenberger, cut from an interview at the 2006 Virgnia Festival of the Book.
Honenberger discusses her novel, White Lies: A Tale of Babies, Vaccines, and Deception, based on a true story. Honenberger's comprehensive research into the scandal behind the National Vaccine Compensation Fund helps her create a realistic portrayal of a mother's struggle against a powerful drug company.
In this video, Honenberger discusses the great lengths the government goes through to avoid paying legitimate claims to the 1986 National Vaccine Compensation Fund. She also warns all mothers to question what they're told regarding childhood vaccination and to demand as much information as possible from their doctors.
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New Book: Health Care Reform Now! |
AuthorViews is proud to present an excerpt from Health Care Reform Now!: A Prescription for Change -- a comprehensive plan for universal health care in America, by Kaiser CEO, George C. Halvorson.
With over three decades of experience in health care management, from HealthPartners to Blue Cross and Blue Shield to Kaiser, Halvorson is one of today's chief figures in American health care. In Health Care Reform Now!, Halvorson details his proposal to amend our health care system and create a system of universal health care that works for everyone -- doctors, nurses, patients and policymakers.
In this excerpt, Halvorson discusses eight recent developments and trends indicating America is ready and in prime position to undergo significant health care reform.
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New Book: The Oil and The Glory |
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Wednesday, 23 January 2008 |
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AuthorViews is pleased to bring you an excerpt from renowned oil correspondent and journalist Steve LeVine's The Oil and The Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea.
LeVine spent 18 years in the former Soviet Union, Pakistan and the Philippines reporting for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Newsweek. In The Oil and The Glory, LeVine brings his experiences and research together to create a riveting historical account of politics, greed, corruption and oil in a turbulent, but relatively unpublicized region.
This excerpt from The Oil and The Glory portrays the final series of negotiations for the development of Caspian oil fields and the division of profits. The excerpt takes you from Istanbul to Houston to Washington, D.C., where private and state-owned oil companies and American and Azerbaijan diplomats engage in heated negotiations to finalize a quarter-billion dollar deal.
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New Video: Jonathan Gross and "Thomas Jefferson's Scrapbooks" |
AuthorViews is proud to present two minutes with the erudite Jonathan Gross, taken from an interview conducted at the 2007 Virginia Festival of the Book.
Thomas Jefferson's Scrapbooks is one of the earliest anthologies of American literature, with 243 poems that Jefferson himself collected -- beautiful prose concerning nation, death, love and family. By exploring Jefferson's taste for American poetry, Gross is able to examine Jefferson through a lens neglected by most historians and biographers. Along with the poems, the anthology contains annotations, essays and photographs that together make this one of the richest volumes ever created on America's third President.
In this video, professor and Jeffersonian expert Jonathan Gross talks about Jefferson's use of poetry to teach his grandchildren how to read, as well as Jefferson's fascination with romantic poetry.
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Wednesday, 12 December 2007 |
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AuthorViews is proud to present the debut novel of a new talent out of Texas: Barbara Bergin!
Medicine, horses, and romance are some of the key ingredients in this fascinating crossover novel. These are topics that the multi-talented Mrs. Bergin is quite familiar with as in real life she is an orthopedic surgeon, a devoted mother, and a competitive rider. Her lavish descriptions of ranch life are counterpointed by thrilling accounts of medical procedures, all set against a back beat of mystery that shrouds her main character's past.
The book follows Dr. Leslie Cohen, a locum tenens physician on assignment in Abilene, TX. (I must confess that the term locum tenens was a new one to me when I first picked up the novel. It means a doctor who moves from one temporary assignment to another.) As the story unfolds we see her relationship with a local rancher blossom. It is this closeness that brings to light the tragedy lurking in her past, the tragedy that has kept her moving from place to place, eschewing personal ties and friendships.
The excerpt from Endings: A Novel, which we have permission to display, is a window into the initial stages of Dr. Cohen's relationship with Regan Wakeman, a local rancher she meets in Abiline. In this excerpt Mrs. Bergin delivers a well-rendered psychological portrait of a woman who has a knee jerk reaction against forming personal ties, a reaction rooted in tragedy...
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New Video: Robert Fanney and "Luthiel's Song" |
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Wednesday, 28 November 2007 |
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From the world of fantasy AuthorViews brings you two minutes with Robert Fanney, a new author video, filmed at the 2007 Virginia Festival of the Book
Luthiel's Song is geared towards young adult readers, primarily young girls (11-16 years old) with a taste for the heroic and fantastic. Fanney shares with us this world he has created, a place where dreams and nightmares often intrude upon day to day life.
His foundling hero, Luthiel, breaks from the pattern of the traditional changeling in that rather than being an elf left to be raised by humans she has been left with the elves. On the advent of her fifteenth birthday things change drastically. She finds herself fighting through the dreamworld in a quest to save someone close to her from dying.
Dreams are the source of magic in Robert Fanney's world, which is cause for both hope and fear. Now through the magic of the internet you can hear him share the thoughts and ideas that compose the framework of this delightful fantasy world!
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