Tag: Rich media

The Expendables: YouTube Takeover

This is the latest campaign element for the launch of The Expendables movie. A YouTube takeover that plays like an “interrupted interview” with Sylvester Stallone, where the film breaks into the page and turns the platform itself into part of the spectacle.

The fun is in the escalation. What starts like a normal promo interview quickly flips into a chaotic on-page moment, with the surrounding YouTube environment becoming the canvas for the film’s tone. It is not just a trailer. It is a takeover that behaves like a scene.

When the page is the stage

The mechanic is simple to understand and hard to ignore. The interview drives the narrative, but the “takeover” is the real payload. The experience makes YouTube feel temporarily owned by the movie, which is exactly what you want on launch week when everything competes for attention.

It also sidesteps the usual ad fatigue problem. People do not feel like they are being “served” something. They feel like they discovered a disruption, and discovery is what drives sharing.

In blockbuster entertainment marketing, interactive takeovers work best when they turn passive viewing into a moment of viewer participation that feels native to the platform.

Why interruption works better than interruption marketing

Most pre-roll is an interruption that people resent. This is an interruption that people watch because it is designed as entertainment first. The twist is that the platform is part of the joke, so the format is the message.

It also gives viewers a clean decision point. Keep watching because it is funny. Close it because you are not interested. Either way, the brand moment is delivered fast.

What the studio is really buying

The business intent is talkability at scale. A standard trailer competes with every other trailer. A takeover creates a story about the trailer. That distinction is what earns press pickup and social forwarding without requiring extra explanation.

What to steal for any launch with a short attention window

  • Make the format do the selling. If the medium changes, people lean in.
  • Build a one-sentence retell. “Stallone destroys YouTube during an interview” is easy to repeat.
  • Use escalation. Surprise, then bigger surprise, then payoff.
  • Stay platform-native. The takeover should feel like it belongs on that site, not pasted onto it.

A few fast answers before you act

What is a “YouTube takeover” in campaign terms?

It is a custom YouTube page experience that changes how the video and surrounding interface behave, so the platform itself becomes part of the creative, not just the player.

Why does the “interrupted interview” trope work so well?

Because it starts in a familiar format, then breaks the rules quickly. The contrast creates surprise, and surprise is the fastest path to attention and sharing.

What is the main advantage over running a normal trailer?

A normal trailer is content. A takeover is content plus a story about the content, which increases earned pickup and social forwarding.

What is the biggest risk with platform takeovers?

Annoyance. If the takeover feels forced, slow, or hard to exit, people turn against it. The experience needs to be quick, optional, and satisfying.

What should you measure for a takeover?

Completion rate, replay rate, and earned mentions. If people describe the mechanic accurately when they share it, the concept is working.

Uniqlo: The Lucky Switch Banner Campaign

A banner that hijacks the whole page

Here is a strong example of a banner campaign that refuses to stay inside the banner frame. For Uniqlo’s end-of-year clearance push, the idea came in two parts. A blog or website widget, and a set of banners connected to a competition.

Flip the switch. Every image becomes a ticket

The core mechanic is simple. Embed the widget on a site, press it, and it transforms every image on that page into a Uniqlo “Lucky Ticket” that promotes the sale and the competition.

A widget is a small embeddable code block that adds interactive functionality to a webpage. In this case, it acts like a page-level switch the viewer controls, rather than a passive ad slot.

In Japan’s fast-fashion clearance cycles, speed and novelty matter, and the web is a shortcut to scale.

Results that make the concept concrete

The outcome is the part that makes this more than a clever demo. The widget was voluntarily installed on almost 5,000 blogs and generated over 2.8 million banner clicks.

Why it lands. It feels like a playful hack

A standard banner asks for attention. Lucky Switch gives the user a satisfying action with immediate, visible impact across the entire page.

This is the mechanism to why sentence. Because the viewer controls the switch and sees the whole page change instantly, the ad feels like a game mechanic, not a media placement.

It also reframes “click” into “cause”. The click is not a request to leave the site. It is a trigger that changes the environment.

What Uniqlo is really optimising

This campaign is not just chasing CTR. It is building voluntary distribution. Every blogger who installs the widget is effectively turning their own site into Uniqlo media, and every visitor is invited to interact with the brand on someone else’s page.

Extractable takeaway: Lucky Switch is what happens when you treat distribution as the product. Make the interaction so satisfying, and the reward so clear, that other sites choose to carry your campaign for you.

What to steal for your next interactive format

  • Design for “whole-page impact”. If your interaction only affects the ad unit, you are still competing with content. If it affects the page, you become part of the experience.
  • Make the click do something now. Deliver instant feedback before you ask for any deeper action.
  • Use viewer control, not autoplay. The switch metaphor makes participation feel self-directed and repeatable.
  • Reward both the host and the visitor. If you want voluntary installs, give both sides a reason to play.
  • Turn scarcity into a daily rhythm. Limited goods or rotating rewards create a reason to come back, not just click once.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Uniqlo’s “Lucky Switch” in one sentence?

A widget and banner concept that turns every image on a host page into a Uniqlo “Lucky Ticket”, making the whole page behave like the ad.

What is the core mechanism?

A page-level switch the viewer controls. Pressing it transforms the environment immediately, so the click delivers instant visible impact before any deeper action.

Why does this feel more engaging than a normal banner?

Because the user triggers a change across the entire page. The interaction reads like a playful hack, not a boxed-in ad unit competing with content.

What business intent does it serve for fast fashion?

It creates a high-speed, novelty-driven route to scale through voluntary installs, while driving sale awareness and competition participation.

What is the most transferable takeaway?

If you want banners to perform, make the click do something “now” in the user’s environment, not just ask them to leave the page.