Brilliant Newsjacking alert - The Artistifier

My friends over at Urgent Genius released a terrific little application last night during the Academy Awards called The Artistifier.

The Artistifier allows you to turn any YouTube video into an "award-winning" silent movie in the style the Oscar-winning film The Artist. You can even add your own captions before sending your finished black and white masterpiece via Facebook and Twitter.

I turned one of my speaker videos into Artist-style and it is really cool.

Fun with Newsjacking

This is a terrific example of Newsjacking. The idea of taking something that is being talked about in the news and drafting off of it in order to get media mentions and social sharing is a fantastic strategy for real-time PR.

However, the vast majority of PR people are still in campaign-only mode. They focus on what's important to them and not what's important to the media and the public. If you think in real-time and create content that is valuable for the moment you can use Newsjacking to get ink and shares. Sometimes you can get a lot.

If you're going to the South-by-Southwest interactive festival in March, you can hear me speak about Newsjacking. Stop by and say hello.

SXSW Friday March 9, 2012 at 2:00
Newsjacking: How to Inject your Ideas

In addition, the team behind The Artistifier will be at two SXSW panel discussions:

SXSW Saturday March 10, 2012 at 11:00
Real-Time Newsjacking & a Cold-Blooded Tweeter

Monday March 12, 2012 at 12:30
The Not So Allied Forces of Social TV Comedy

Comments

[Tony Faustino]

And, the Academy Award for Best Newsjacked Oscar Category goes to "The Artisifier" by Urgent Genius (with an assist from Executive Producer & Real-Time Social Media Influencer, David Meerman Scott).

This is way cool. And, demonstrates Urgent Genius's creativity in capitalizing on the news-at-this-moment. Brilliant!

[arif]

Yea this is really cool.

[garaughty]

Another great find David! The fun factor of this alone is awesome. Brilliant timing/execution by Urgent Genius! I wonder how long they've been planning this?

[Colin Warwick]

Great fun (although I was hoping Hugo would win best picture)... Here's my attempt... http://www.theartistifier.com/view_1993

[Social Media]

This is a hilarious mashup of YouTube with video and sound effects typical of this year’s hit film “The Artist”. Go grab any YouTube URL and create an Oscar-worthy masterpiece in seconds. Don’t forget to add captions like I did on poor Mits’ previous Adverblog post of a Japanese viral.

[Aubrey Johnson]

The Artistifier is a brilliant idea and could definitely be taken advantage of by companies and PR professionals. I can just picture a YouTube video going viral after being turned into Artist-style. People will be intrigued by the video because it will be different with its effects, and if is created soon, professionals will be taking advantage of the real-time PR phenomenon. The application was just launched, and people will recognize that and will be more turned on to whatever is displayed in the video created in this program. I love how you connected the Artistifier to Newsjacking, and I think that if people or companies use the program, it will be shared and it will be talked about because it is the new app on the block!

[MicroSourcing]

The Artsifier is a good way for marketers and PR teams to ride the coattails of the Academy Awards or Oscars during the awarding season to get the public's attention.

[Anne Sorensen]

So clever (and cool!) The UrgentGenius folks are living up to their name in every way! :)

[Wooden Bookshelves]

The Artistifier is a brilliant idea and could definitely be taken advantage of by companies and PR professionals.

[Cindy]

I copied the URL, clicked "Artistify" and nothing happened. What am I doing wrong?

[David Meerman Scott]

Cindy - sorry, I do not know. Maybe you can reach out to the people who created it instead of me.