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).
When Youtube came around, sharing videos became much easier and short, funny home videos which creators never expected to take of ended up with millions of hits. Soon, marketers started to realise viral videos are, what has now been described as, the most cost-effective method of promotion(Kirtiş and Karahan, 2011). Brands such as Old Spice (whose ‘the man your man could smell like advert’ currently sits at over 50 Million views) created some of the first and most popular viral adverts.
After these success stories, companies started to invest more and more in viral marketing, in 2010 there was a 180% increase in viral adverising from 2009 (neild, 2015) and viral advertising spend is forecast to reach $5 Billion in 2017 (Larsen, 2015). Proving that, although the media space might be free, the creative work that makes for a great viral campaign isn’t.
Viral Marketing Done right
ALS ice bucket challenge
The ALS Ice bucket challenge is one of the most notable viral phenomenons and involves posting a video of yourself throwing a bucket of icy water over your head and donating money for Motor Neurone Disease, and then inviting your friends to do the same. The campaign result was 2 million Youtube uploads, 4.48 million mentions on Twitter and quadrupling the amount of donations received by the ALS charity (Ridley, 2015 & Sipress, 2015). The campaign coupled donating with ‘daring’ your friends to promote sharing. Since the campaign ALS is now a household name, and $100 million has been raised for the charity (Jarvis, 2014).
#kony2012
In 2012 the online world was sharing the below movie to promote a charity protesting the african warlord Joseph Kony. It was the fastest growing viral movie of all time and in 6 days received 100 million hits (Invisible Children, 2015). Shortly after the videos release, a national phone survey in america found that 58% of young adults had at the very least heard of the video (Rainie, et.al., 2012). It’s fair to say that the initial video was a huge success putting the charity behind it (invisible children) in the spotlight for the first time. It seems that charities like Invisible children or ALS have a much easier time getting campaigns to go viral than consumer brands. This is because people are happy to share something they are passionate about, know is a non-profit organisation and by sharing something as meaningful as charity, users are able to show what they care about to their friends and family.
Gangnam Style
Gangnam style is the most popular video on Youtube ever and with over 2 billion views it has a billion more views than it’s closest rival. The video blew a relatively unknown South Korean musician (PSY) into the Western World mainstream thanks to the ridiculous video and catchy music. But how did he do it? The popularity was no accident. The record label behind the video (YG Entertainment) spent years setting up offices in America and building an organic audience so that when the video was ready there was a platform to share it with (The drum, 2015). When the video was posted it was slow to take off in the Western World until blogs and news websites like Gizmodo and Gawker picked up on it. This promoted readers and celebrities to start sharing the video to their followers which created a sudden increase in traffic and so pushed the video to the top of Youtube Trends allowing it to reach everyone.
3 tips for successful viral marketing
1. Evoke emotion
The first thing your viral campaign needs to do is evoke emotion. This can be any emotion, as long as people feel passionate about it. Humour was used by brands like Old Spice and PSY; compassion is something that most charities use; and even provoking controversy and creating arguments is something that works well for many as it gives people a motive to fight their corner and share something to argue what they believe in. For example, GoDaddy’s advert below mimics Budweiser Superbowl ad but instead shows a puppy farm receiving up raw from animal rights activities. Like it or not the advert received a lot of attention in the press along with the GoDaddy brand.
2. Get people to share
Motivating the customer to share a video is what makes it Viral. This is no easy feat but there are a few things you can do. Ho and Dempsey (2010) suggest that to get people to share something, you need to include them and make them feel like a group. The #Kony2012 video discussed previously is a great example of this as throughout the video the audience is always reffered to as “we” and “us”. Furthermore, Ho and Dempsey go on to say that posting videos allows the audience to express their personalities and how they are different. Posting a link to the Kony video or ice bucket challenges shows your network that you care.
3. All about brand
It’s easy to forget, when trying to make something go viral, that the focus is on the brand. You need to convey the right message and explain what your brand do. The old spice commercial did this excellently and another great example is the Dollar Shave Club Youtube ad which went viral fairly recently (below). Although the whole video is made in jest, it is still able to explain what the brand does and how they differ. Really great marketing.
Viral marketing shouldn’t be underestimated. Although many marketers think of it as ‘free marketing’ it takes a lot of preparation to get it right and even then, sometimes they just fail. The truth is, no one can really tell you why things go viral. Im sure no one would have guessed that the internet would be full of funny cat pictures or that Rick Astley’s ‘Never gonna give you up’ would have such a great come back. But as time goes on brands are going to become more and more desperate to go viral as that’s where their audience is, and at the end of the day, thats what marketers want. Brands go where their audience is, and as that is online, viral marketing will become more and more prominent in marketing plans.
References
The Drum. (2015). Case Study: How Gangnam Style went viral with a strategic marketing campaign from YG Entertainment. [online] The Drum. Available at: http://www.thedrum.com/news/2012/10/30/case-study-how-gangnam-style-went-viral-campaign-yg-entertainment [Accessed 14 Apr. 2015].
Ho, J. and Dempsey, M. (2010). Viral marketing: Motivations to forward online content. Journal of Business Research, 63(9-10), pp.1000-1006.
Invisible Children, (2015). KONY 2012 | Invisible Children. [online] Available at: http://invisiblechildren.com/kony-2012/ [Accessed 14 Apr. 2015].
Jarvis, L. (2014). Buckets Of Money For ALS Research. Chemical & engineering news, 92(36), p.19.
Kirtiş, A. and Karahan, F. (2011). To Be or Not to Be in Social Media Arena as the Most Cost-Efficient Marketing Strategy after the Global Recession. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 24, pp.260-268.
Larsen, K. (2015). Going Mobile is the New Viral Video Marketing Strategy. [online] Vertical Rail Creative. Available at: http://www.verticalrailcreative.com/viral-mobile-video/ [Accessed 14 Apr. 2015].
Leonard, D. (2015). How Trey Parker and Matt Stone made South Park a success – October 30, 2006 . [online] Available at: http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/10/30/8391792/index.htm [Accessed 14 Apr. 2015].
Neild, B. (2015). How viral ads have exploded into the mainstream. [online] Available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/BUSINESS/06/17/viral.marketing/ [Accessed 14 Apr. 2015].
Rainie, L., Hitlin, P., Jurkowitz, M., Dimock, M. and Neidorf, S. (2012). The Viral Kony 2012 Video. [online] Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. Available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/2012/03/15/the-viral-kony-2012-video/ [Accessed 14 Apr. 2015].
Ridley, L. (2015). It’s Official. We’ve Not Seen A Craze As Big As This Since The Harlem Shake…. [online] Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/08/27/ice-bucket-challenge-als-most-popular-icebucketchallenge_n_5722394.html [Accessed 14 Apr. 2015].
Sipress, S. (2015). ALS Ice Bucket Challenge – The 5 Keys to Its Huge Viral Results. [online] Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-sipress/als-ice-bucket-challenge-_b_5725676.html [Accessed 14 Apr. 2015].