Awesome video alert: Cat® Products launched their captivating take on Jenga as part of their #BuiltForIt campaign. Shot in a Caterpillar testing facility in Illinois, this two-and-half minute piece called “Stack” hits all the right branded video content notes with an unorthodox storytelling approach to boot.
“Show, Don’t Tell”
Not one single line is uttered by anyone in this video. There is no voiceover track. There is no spokesperson extolling the virtues of the company or product. There is no hard sell being verbalized. Instead, it’s all movement synchronized to the famous tune “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” Caterpillar is not really selling anything at first glance which may assuage weary/cynical audiences into giving the content a chance. Instead, the production team is focusing attention on the action itself, allowing a seemingly benign construction brand like Cat to reveal a playful, mischievous side.
Storytelling is the Sum of Your Editing
This work is a testament to the storytelling prowess of the editors of this video. Editing to a specific musical selection seems simple. In theory, it is. Making a coherent and compelling final product that depicts an exciting spectacle and builds to a climax is not. Even the best editing can only do so much to fix lousy writing, bad acting, poor visual compositions, or other production mistakes.
How does Caterpillar achieve something this captivating without anything spoken? First, the team superimposes eye-catching animated graphics onto certain shots that quickly informs audiences on what’s at stake. Here, we see the size and scope of the game.
We meet the five different vehicles facing the challenge. Then, the crew begins meticulously removing the first few blocks. Notice that these shots last for a couple seconds each and jump back and forth between the interior cabins of the equipment and the showcase floor. The team’s shown to be breezing through the challenge of the lower base.
However, the tempo begins to come alive around 70 seconds into the video. Similarly, the narrative being told shows the team beginning to fiddle with the middle tiers. It’s getting serious now. The average lengths of each shot start tightening by fractions of a second – a subtle indication that the tension, like the block tower, is rising.
Next, a montage depicts the various trucks zooming around to get the best placement and strategy for removing the next piece. There are cameras placed everywhere imaginable: inside the rigs, inside the buckets, on the lifts, and inside the tower itself. The editing matches this increasingly frenetic pacing with faster and faster cuts between a dizzying amount of different sources until the team displaces the wrong block. Down it goes.
Annotations & Calls-to-Action
Though the title is kind of clunky (“Built For It Trials – Stack: Largest JENGA® Game Played with Cat® Excavators”), it’s an afterthought compared to the core premise of the video. The pitch, “Jenga is frustratingly fun, now add construction equipment,” is enticing enough at face value. An annotation is utilized as soon as the video begins. Placed in the bottom left-hand corner, this insert drives you to a landing page that contains information on the company’s dealer network, product design, company history, and current offers.
Caterpillar also uses a ghost annotation embedded in its final graphics. The link features a matching black background and covers the entire center eye line of the video. This lack of color contrast may be difficult to spot for some viewers but it is certainly applied in a tasteful, non-jarring way. An annotation, featuring Caterpillar’s logo, is placed in the top right hand corner and links viewers to the official YouTube channel.
The Description
When we expand the description, what do we see?
The description starts off with a great line: “When we play blocks, we play BIG.” Soft calls-to-action appear further that link readers to the campaign landing page, a behind the scenes video, and social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter, Google+). The branded hashtag #BuiltForIt is consistently applied. Given the five line spatial limit, I would consider moving the “Learn more” call to action above the fold right after the “BIG” line. However, the formatting is clean and reads easily with several offers to audiences.
The Results
“Stack” is approaching two million views with healthy social sharing activity. This video alone has driven over 600 subscriptions to Caterpillar’s main YouTube channel, a nearly 3% increase in new subscribers. A brief scan of VidIQ measurements indicates this giant Jenga game has garnered:
- 26,750+ shares on Facebook (including nearly 30,000 likes and over 9,000 comments)
- 4,300 Google +1s
- 934 posts on LinkedIn
- 1,831 Tweets
- 1,092 YouTube comments
According to YouTube’s own internal metrics, “Stack” has an estimated cumulative watch time of 5 years. Christos Goodrow, YouTube’s head of engineering for search, recently reiterated the importance of watch time to video search rankings; the longer you watch a certain video, the greater the likelihood it appears in a better position in future queries (Smith).
“Stack” seems to be the first of a few upcoming videos to be released under the “Built for It” banner. Beyond that, Caterpillar is already poised for generating value on YouTube with a variety of content offerings such as webinars, product reviews, and dozens of other playlists. In addition, the company features 14 different YouTube channels covering topics like Landscaping/Construction, Forestry, Marine, Paving, Recycling, and others. Something tells me they are honing in on several different buyer personas and crafting material suited to those audiences. I, for one, welcome our new giant Jenga-playing overlords.
