Case study: The most human commercial wins

For the rare few who may have missed the most “human commercial,” Nathan Apodaca of Idaho Falls posted a TikTok video featuring him skateboarding to work, drinking Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice, and singing along to “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac.

Although this happened a few weeks ago, I’ve been unable to get this quirky little video sensation out of my mind as an example of the radical industry transition I described in my book Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins.

In this book, I explained the inevitable decline of traditional marketing/advertising and the rise of the consumer as our marketer. Already two-thirds of our marketing is occurring without us. Marketing today requires a new mindset — how do we get invited to that two-thirds? How do we help our customers do this job?

Let’s dissect the Ocean Spray case study for five important lessons.

The most human commercial

With more than 60 million views and counting, this homemade video was more effective — by far — than any advertisement Ocean Spray and its agencies have created in the 90-year brand history.

The TikTok video propelled beverage sales and almost doubled the value of the Ocean Spray stock price. For good measure, “Dreams” reached №1 on iTunes and returned to…