Ho & Dempsey (2010) define the process as – “Viral marketing typically starts with the marketer creating some form of electronic content such as a video or a mini-site, the aim of which is usually brand-building. The URL (web address) for the electronic content is made available to Internet users, who after viewing the content will decide whether they want to pass the URL along to their friends. If the URL gets forwarded and the Internet users receiving it also keep passing the URL along, the electronic content has the potential to reach a large group of Internet users at an exponential rate”.

Since the introduction of Facebook in 2004 and Twitter in 2006 social media has erupted creating an infinitely valuable resource for companies to tap into public values and opinions. This has made viral marketing even more effective as – through social media – it can reach huge numbers of people very quickly.

Here are four examples of viral marketing campaigns that have been a success:

1). Felix Baumgartner landed safely after jumping from an estimated 39km (21mi), the iconic space jump was sponsored by Red Bull and took place October 2012. This jump broke three world records. The Mission Highlights video alone on Red Bull’s channel has over 37.4M views. I guess their slogan Red Bull gives you wings is quite appropriate here.

2). Volvo Trucks launched an advert with the iconic movie star Jean-Claude Van Damme doing the splits between two of their Trucks (while travelling in reverse of course). This video secured over 75 million views highlighting Volvo’s ultra precise steering system.

3). Everyone around the world heard of and took part in the ALS Icebucket Challenge including many celebrities helping to endorse the campaign . Before this came about I hadn’t actually heard of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis so to everyone who said that it was pointless and couldn’t understand how it raised awareness there you are. Not to mention the fact that this campaign helped to generate nearly $100 million for the ALS Association (US). Below is one of my personal favourites.

4). ‘The Athlete Machine’ another viral campaign by Red Bull is probably my personal favourite as it is just awesome. It has racked not as many views as some of the others which is surprising but none the less over 20 million views is not a figure to be reckoned with. Again this is endorsed by celebrities in the form of extreme sports athletes.

Conclusions:

• Using well renowned celebrities of any kind is an effective strategy as the public pay attention to what celebrities are doing.
• The length of the video does not seem to be too important so long as it is engaging.
• Audience interaction like with the ‘ALS ice bucket challenge’ or the ‘no makeup selfie’ that the public can get involved with seems to be a useful technique helping the video go viral.
• Most viral videos are combined with music and/or audio commentary which contributes to helping the video engage with the audience.

Here we take a look at two viral market campaigns that have failed:

1). Microsoft’s totally failed viral video campaign of employees dancing with customers in a Microsoft store. Nearly five whole minutes of not very impressive dancing with – in my opinion – poor filming of the whole video. It’s hardly surprising this video failed to go viral, perhaps it could have gone viral for being so bad and laughable since it was created by such a huge corporation like Microsoft.

2). Hyundai released a video campaign in 2013 making light of suicide. Not much more needs to be said on the matter other than it was distasteful and no doubt a few people lost their jobs over it. This was a PR disaster and the video can be watched here:

http://adage.com/article/news/hyundai-apologizes-u-k-ad-depicts-suicide-attempt/241119/

Conclusions:

•  Although viral advertisements are designed to trigger an emotional response it would be advisable to stay away from certain topics e.g. the one highlighted above.
• Consider your target audience carefully and ensure the ensuing advertisement is appropriate.
• Must be interesting, something people would share.
• Inserting humour into a dry topic can be effective.

Overall it is clear to see viral advertisements need to be carefully thought out, it is not as simple as creating something that one marketer thinks will work because everyone has different opinions and perceptions. It would appear that extreme stunts which Red Bull has used in their viral campaigns regularly are an effective way of creating a viral advertisement.

Anything that really wows the audience is going to go some way to creating a successful campaign. Of course timing can be crucial as well, if for example a plane crash has recently taken place then a viral advertisement created with anything similar to this would have to be postponed as it would be seen as disrespectful to the people and families involved and make the relevant company look unethical and even ignorant.

Mochalova & Nanopoulos (2014) say that Viral marketing can become more effective when prior knowledge about potential markets within the network is exploited. Using a targeted approach is of more crucial importance in the case when the majority of users are indifferent (or negative) to the viral marketing campaign.

References:

Ho, J. and Dempsey, M. (2010). Viral marketing: Motivations to forward online content. Journal of Business Research, 63(9), pp.1000–1006.

Mochalova, A. & Nanopoulos, A. 2014, “A targeted approach to viral marketing”, ELECTRONIC COMMERCE RESEARCH AND APPLICATIONS, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 283-294.