The REDPILL Branded Video Review: featuring Hostelworld, Pepsi Max & GoPro!

REDPILL rating: 75 per cent

Hostelworld has teamed up with the new poster boy for budget living - none other than Get Rich or Die Tryin' superstar 50 Cent - for a goofy parody of MTV's noughties series ‘Cribs.’ Playing on Fiddy’s recent money issues, Hostelworld wants to show that you can still enjoy “all the bling without the sting.”

50 shows off the hostel with a wonderful sense of self-aware humour (and a lot of in-your-face MTV editing) that never detracts from the main point of the video: showing off how swank a hostel can be, from the personal rooms with balconies to pools full of attractive people. And some “high-quality glass” - who wouldn’t want to spend a couple nights?

Volley 360 | Pepsi Max | #MAXFOOTBALL

REDPILL rating: 70 per cent

Pepsi hops on the 360° video bandwagon with a Euros - focused ad. Remember last year’s epic and visually stunning Drone Football? This is not quite as impressive as that one, but it gives it a run for the money.

Inspired by epic volleys from the UEFA Champions League, Pepsi invited 6 talented athletes to fire off some acrobatic volleys. The choreography is epic, and the talent is impressive, but the choice of 360° feels very arbitrary - in fact, the interactive version of the ad loses much of what makes the promo above so successful. The bullet-time frozen shots do a much better job of showcasing the acrobatics than the 360° video, which leaves you scrambling about to find the action.

Pepsi made the right choice pushing the non-interactive promo, and it has benefitted them well. In this industry that fetishises new technology, the most important lesson here is don't use a technique because it's buzzworthy, but because it fits the situation.

GoPro: When We Were Knights

REDPILL rating: 90 per cent

Finishing off this week is a 12-minute tear-jerker from GoPro. GoPro has recently been softening their extreme sports image in an attempt to appeal to a broader market. This usually takes the form of sentimental videos with a wide variety of subjects that do not feature death-defying stunts. This one features lots of them.

A truly powerful meditation on life, death and friendship, When We Were Knights, is tribute to a partnership cut short. Matt Blank reads a letter he intended for his friend Ian Flanders should Matt die, over archival footage of them both living a life in which death is always waiting at the bottom of a BASE jump. What comes through is the love between these two friends and their sport. If it doesn’t get to you, you have a heart of stone.

The author, Matthew Davies, is a director at REDPILL, a specialist branded video agency who deliver a fully integrated approach to social video production and distribution for brands around the globe.