Home Publishers How Thrillist Studied The Impact Of Its Biggest Branded Viral Hit

How Thrillist Studied The Impact Of Its Biggest Branded Viral Hit

SHARE:

Thrillist-GrandpaWhen Thrillist’s branded video of a fake grandpa weightlifting on Muscle Beach tallied more than 50 million Facebook views in 48 hours, it seemed to validate the pub’s 2015 decision to expand its editorial and sponsored video operations.

But Thrillist CoLab, the branded content arm of Thrillist, wanted to test if the viral hit actually drove results for the sponsoring brand, MillerCoors’ Smith & Forge hard cider.

“Fifty million views in 48 hours is great, 90 million [to date] is insanely great,” said Paul Josephsen, VP of Thrillist CoLab. But: “Does viewership matter [for a branded video] if brand recall isn’t there?

CoLab surveyed people it believed saw the video (using contact info from its data management platform and Facebook audience manager), asking if they remembered, for example, who sponsored the video and the sponsor’s tagline.

Because Thrillist works with many alcohol clients, it was able to confirm that the results outperformed norms in the category for metrics like lifts in purchase intent and awareness, Josephsen said.

“This is a big step in qualifying branded video and exactly what The CoLab has always been focused on – content that meaningfully moves the needle for brands and is proven through research,” Jospehsen said.

Thrillist also tried to figure out why the Smith & Forge video resonated with Facebook viewers.

“A lot of prank videos make people feel bad or set them up in a position to fail,” said Bill McCandless, the SVP of video programming. “No one is embarrassed [in this video]. They encourage him.”

The video aligns with best practices for Facebook.

Thrillist tagged “Smith & Forge” in the Facebook video post. In April, Facebook went from not officially allowing publications to post branded videos to permitting them as long as publications tagged the brand.

Tagging the brand clearly did not affect reach, and Thrillist so far hasn’t see branded videos treated differently by Facebook’s algorithm.

Subscribe

AdExchanger Daily

Get our editors’ roundup delivered to your inbox every weekday.

Thrillist also customized the video to compensate for the fact that many users quickly scroll through videos and watch without sound. Though the video goes on for 3 1/2 minutes, the first 15 seconds work as a complete joke of its own: the grandpa lifting a huge weight and quipping, “Just warming up.”

The highly visual prank works even with the sound off, and Thrillist added subtitles to accommodate viewers watching without sound.

“When we look frame by frame, it’s to make decisions to get people from three seconds to 10 seconds to 30 seconds,” McCandless said. We are happy to get videos that retain the audience versus something that massively shares.”

Even with a massive hit under its belt, Thrillist isn’t promising virality – which is more exception than the norm. However, Thrillist usually pays to amplify branded posts on Facebook. “The danger in viral is trying to replicate,” McCandless said.

Instead, Thrillist emphasizes the alignment it can achieve with its audience. “One of the most impactful things we can do for a brand is naturally fit them into what we are doing,” Josephsen said.

 

Must Read

Comic: No One To Play With

Google Pulls The Plug On Topics, PAAPI And Other Major Privacy Sandbox APIs (As The CMA Says ‘Cheerio’)

Google’s aborted cookie crackdown ends with a quiet CMA sign-off and a sweeping phaseout of Privacy Sandbox technologies, from the Topics API to PAAPI.

The Trade Desk’s Auction Evolutions Bring High Drama To The Prebid Summit

TTD shared new details about OpenAds features that let publishers see for themselves whether it’s running a fair auction. But tension between TTD and Prebid hung over the event.

Monopoly Man looks on at the DOJ vs. Google ad tech antitrust trial (comic).

How Google Stands In The DOJ’s Ad Tech Antitrust Suit, According To Those Who Tracked The Trial

The remedies phase of the Google antitrust trial concluded last week. And after 11 days in the courtroom, there is a clearer sense of where Judge Leonie Brinkema is focused on, and how that might influence what remedies she put in place.

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters

The Ad Context Protocol Aims To Make Sense Of Agentic Ad Demand

The AI advertising agents will need their own trade group eventually. For now though, a bunch of companies are forming the Ad Context Protocol, or AdCP.

OUTFRONT Is Using Agencies’ AI Enthusiasm To Spur Wider Programmatic OOH Adoption

The desire for a data-driven reinvention of OOH inspired OUTFRONT to create agentic AI tools for executing and measuring OOH campaigns and comparing OOH to other channels.

Inside PubDesk, The Trade Desk’s New Dashboard That Shows What Buyers Actually Care About

A peek inside PubDesk, The Trade Desk’s new dashboard that gives sellers detailed info on how buyers value their inventory.