The Blank Video Project Case Study
Challenge
Challenge the value of a YouTube View
In a world where over 300 hours of new video content is uploaded to YouTube every single minute, marketers often use views as a quick and easy indicator of content power. Believing creative effectiveness is rooted in engagement not view counts, we challenged convention and set out to prove that views are a false indicator of success.
The Solve
Show that even a blank video can go viral
We created a 4-minute blank video. Literally, four minutes of emptiness – no sound, no motion, no graphics. Then we uploaded it to YouTube, where our blank video generated 100,000 views. In fact YouTube metrics showed 46% of viewers watched for at least 30 seconds. And that 22% watched the entire four minutes. How could that be? We simply spent $1,400 – 1.4 cents per view – promoting our video using YouTube TrueView In-Stream advertising, thus proving views do not matter.
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Results
Much ado about nothing
- Widespread press coverage including featured articles in Fast Company, Adweek, CreativeReview, Hubspot and more
- Millions of earned impressions from hundreds of social media users who made the project part of a global conversation
- A 10X spike in agency website traffic
- An additional 73,000 unpaid blank video views
Client Quote
“In the agency’s compelling four-minute look at – well, nothing – the fact that YoutTube views are a useless metric for measuring what people are actually paying attention to becomes abundantly clear.”
-Dan Solomon, Fast Company
