This week, we’re looking at what might seem like a perfect weekend… movies, football, and dinner out.
Each seems like an obvious event for social video, but digging under the surface reveals a wide variety of timing, content, and effects not immediately noticeable to the casual eye.
This week, we’re looking at…
- Shang-Chi’s video launch strategy
- Fantasy football’s gameplan
- A “Fancy Like” effect
Shang-Chi’s Success Started Early and Sustained
The latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, debuted over the holiday weekend to great success. Its $75.5 million 3 day box office was the 2nd highest domestic debut since the pandemic, and its $90 million four-day weekend total made it the highest Labor Day weekend opening ever.
And while social video activity the week of release was certainly high, it was the groundwork laid months ago in June that started the forward momentum.
The first Shang-Chi teaser debuted back in April, with 24.2 million views on Marvel’s official YouTube page (but plenty more elsewhere), and followed that up with a second trailer netting 22.2 million views on June 25.
Since April 1, the movie’s generated over 325 million YouTube views, with 72% of those coming since the second trailer arrived. Marvel itself owned a good portion of that content, though it was bolstered by the likes of movie and comic book-focused media. Since July 25, more than 8K videos about Shang-Chi have been uploaded to YouTube.
Fantasy Football: Ground Game vs. Air Attack
The new NFL season is kicking off this week (pun fully intended). That means armchair quarterbacks nationwide spent the last few weeks cramming in preparation for their fantasy football drafts, and social video was a popular destination for information.
Fantasy (NFL — not “soccer”) football videos have generated nearly 36 million views on YouTube alone since the beginning of August, and there’s no one-stop-shop for content.
In fact, nine different creators have at least 1 million views in that time period, and none have more than 3.1 million. This would indicate some parity among creators — which is an opportunity for media and brands in the space with the resources to build out a greater content presence.
The appetite for fantasy football also breeds longer watch-times as well. More than half of fantasy football views on YouTube in the timeframe came from videos that ran at least 20 minutes long, while just a fraction were from videos that ran for fewer than two minutes (though engagements per video didn’t drop off significantly compared to the longer-format videos, either).
So either approach can work. It just depends on whether you’re looking for more engagement or views.
“Fancy Like” Halo Effect
There’s no denying the viral power of country artist Walker Hayes’ unlikely TikTok hit “Fancy Like.” The song and the dance craze it inspired generated nearly 30 million views on TikTok and inspired just under 600,000 fan-made performances on the platform.
It also generated another 23 million-plus views on YouTube in the last 90 days. Much of that stemmed from TikTok reposts and additional fan-made videos. But restaurant chain Applebee’s made a big dent after it created a TV ad in support of the song and the videos it inspires. After all, the song is about dining out at Applebees.
Two versions of the restaurant’s ad — a 15-second clip and a 30-second clip — lead YouTube views at over 8 million collectively since they were added on August 23. And the impact it had for Applebees was massive.
Love it or hate it, the ad proved a big win for Applebee’s. The chain’s YouTube views shot up from 5,000 and 7,000 in June and July, respectively, to 3.6 million in August and 4.1 million in September so far. Engagements exploded from 58 in July to over 1,000 in August and has already reached nearly 2,000 in September so far.
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