Viral marketing is described by Ho and Dempsey (2010) as recommending entertaining content, news or information in the new online environment. Typically, viral marketing is carried out by brands trying to increase brand recognition. There is no set formula to successful viral content, only being able to engage the largest audience possible and make it as easy as possible to share. The internet and social networking has made both of these things easier than ever.
Viral videos are usually considered the the most popular form of viral media as it’s so easy to share a link to YouTube or other video site. Video doesn’t necessarily have language barriers and can stimulate more of our senses through sound as well as images. But YouTube was not home to the first ever viral videos. Believe it or not, in 1995, 10 years before YouTube was born, Matt Stone and Trey Parker passed out a few copies of an animation on VHS that they had created at home. Again, thanks to technology the video was copied and passed around friends. This video was soon picked up by Comedy Central and became the pilot episode for what is now South Park (Leonard, 2015).