YouTube Becomes Interactive

YouTube is becoming increasingly more interactive, allowing users to further connect with the site’s interface in creative, unexpected ways. The Desperados campaign is a classic example of the new territory YouTube is entering and shows just how effective this can be.

As the video begins, you’re whisked into a house party and asked to click if you want to party with men or women. As you mill around among your chosen fellow friends, the room begins to shake, and as panic begins to grow from the revellers, you’re asked to turn down the volume using the YouTube volume control button. As you do so, a crack in the wall appears to reveal a larger, cooler Desperados party. The only way to gain access to this is to slide the slide bar along numerous times to break the wall. As you do, the entire YouTube interface begins to crack, and eventually the whole YouTube site breaks up to expose the huge Desperados party.

Throughout the clip you’re asked if you want to publish your journey to Facebook and Twitter, and if you don’t carry out the commands you’re told to, a member of the party reaches out from the screen and does it themselves.

Another example of clever YouTube interaction is the Tippex Bear campaign. Here, we see a hunter who gets approached by a grizzly bear, and as he grabs his gun to shoot it, we’re asked to complete the ending to the story with the opportunity to either 'shoot' or 'not shoot' a bear. After we click to decide, we’re asked to type in exactly what we’d like the hunter to do with the bear.

To most users’ delight, Tippex has put together a different scene for practically every written option, so after typing in ‘hug’, ‘drink with’, ‘dance with’ and ‘sing with’, each has its own unique scene played out between the two characters. This is cunning as it presents the user with the unexpected, and most of us remained on the site for about ten minutes trying to think of all the different scenes they might have made, so there is potential for deep engagement here.