THE 14TH ANNUAL SHORTY AWARDS

The Shorty Awards honor the best of social media and digital. View this season's finalists!

Special Project

Special Project
From the 10th Annual Shorty Awards

"The Bjorn Identity"

Entered in Video

Objectives

As a highly-involved father of three, I have been familiar with, and a fan of the Baby Bjorn for nearly a decade. One day as I was eating breakfast, which consisted of my kids' leftover food, I came up with this comedic spoof I called "The Bjorn Identity", which I turned into a video for my YouTube channel:

While video got a modest +/- 5,000 views on YouTube, it was licensed out a number of times, including to ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/dad-spoofs-jason-b...

As the children grew, however, I noticed a certain design flaw in the Baby Bjorn - at least for the dads. Inspired and motivated by the success of the first video, I made a second video humorously highlighting this less-than-optimal design for dads:

The objective was to bring attention to this design flaw (at least for dads, which I am convinced is an ever-growing market for Baby Bjorn) without undermining or tarnishing the overall quality and functionality of the product, or the image of the brand in general.

Strategy and Execution

It's a fine line to walk when addressing a product design issue that results from increased use of the product by a secondary demographic. Indeed, you do not want to undermine or tarnish the overall quality of the product or brand, but you want to draw attention to an improvement that ought to be made to improve the product for a certain demographic. After producing the first "Bjorn Identity" video, I made the "Baby Bjorn Design Flaw" video. The strategy was to use humour through to highlight the overall functionalist of the product, while drawing attention to the design flaw through content that would engage dads (and moms who may have witnessed the horror!).

Ultimately, I wanted to produce original content that people could relate to in the hopes that mommy and daddy bloggers would pick up on the video and share it with their respective audiences.

Results

The video itself was successful on YouTube, with nearly 60,000 views. It had even greater success on various other third-party platforms, where it was licensed multiple times and featured on various parenting blogs. The additional reach beyond YouTube was immeasurable, but objective. I sent the video to the Baby Bjorn team, and they loved it as much as they loved the "Bjorn Identity" video.

Below are links of third-party platforms that licensed, shared or otherwise covered the video:

Mashable: http://mashable.com/2017/06/17/babybjorn-design-flaw-dad/?utm_cid=hp-h-28#LdbC1HPsokqL

Dearly: http://dearly.com/2017/06/4053-dad-points-major-design-flaw-baby-bjorn-moms-never-noticed/

AOL: http://beta.on.aol.com/video/dad-shows-one-major-design-flaw-in-the-babybjorn-5943e97fb90afb45de30b54c?context=PC:weird-and-viral:PL7006:1460894118916

Magie Maman: http://www.magicmaman.com/video-voila-pourquoi-les-porte-bebes-ne-conviennent-pas-toujours-aux-papas,3506312.asp

Vira Scoop : https://www.virascoop.com/dad-demonstrates-major-design-flaw-babybjorn/

2OceansVivbe : http://www.2oceansvibe.com/2017/06/19/babybjorn-design-flaw-not-great-for-family-jewels-video/

Anith https://anith.com/dad-demonstrates-a-major-design-flaw-in-the-babybjorn/

Kidspot: http://www.kidspot.com.au/baby/real-life/humour/dad-points-out-painful-flaw-in-his-baby-carrier/news-story/baa1147f5235c56ec2a5081cf860c3c4

Little things: https://www.littlethings.com/dad-baby-carrier-life-hack/

OMG25: https://www.omg25.com/dad-demonstrates-a-major-design-flaw-in-the-babybjrn/

Codebringer : http://www.codebringer.com/earth/dad-demonstrates-a-major-design-flaw-in-the-babybjrn/

Nigeria Today http://www.nigeriatoday.ng/2017/06/babybjorn-design-flaw-not-great-for-family-jewels-video/

Anglais News: http://anglaisnews.com/post/papa-demonstrates-a-major-design-flaw-in-the-babybjörn

Sud info: http://www.sudinfo.be/1868542/article/2017-06-21/ce-porte-bebe-a-un-terrible-defaut-qui-fait-souffrir-ce-jeune-papa-video

Media

Video for "The Bjorn Identity"

Entrant Company / Organization Name

Viva Frei Productions Inc., Baby Bjorn

Link

Entry Credits