The viral power of video
In 2006 I put a movie on YouTube. As YouTube started at February 14, 2005, this was in the early days of the platform that currently hosts a staggering 800 million monthly visitors and 4 billion hours of video viewed per month. I created the movie with the guys of The Mute Zone at IFA: one of the biggest electronics tradeshows in the world. I was responsible for the online press room for media, and in addition to the standard press releases and photos, we shot a couple of movies of the innovations on display. The topic was a new technology from Philips that made it possible to integrate LEDs in textiles, called Lumalive. After a couple of days, the movie exploded: we already had over 500.000 views and requests from all big companies that were interested to use the technology for promotional campaigns.

The results
The movie resulted into almost 3 million views, and over 2000 leads. Unfortunately we only had a prototype, and the technology was not mature enough to produce in large numbers yet. But this action has given Philips some great new insights and contacts.

Now the technology has been integrated in a number of products that are commercially available, like large luminous surfaces, luminous carpets, but also wearable light therapy solutions like the BlueTouch pain relief patch that can support people with chronic pain. And both the Sugababes and Lady Gaga have used prototypes of the technology in their shows…

At the request of the Lumalive team I have hidden the movie. But luckily we still have the pictures (and an illegal copy at YouTube)!