It is a bit of a mystery really but it is certainly a dream most creatives/clients try to achieve when producing commercials these days.
The ad above was produced by Saatchi for T-Mobile, the youtube video actually hasn't received that many views yet, presumably because it has just launched and the client probably didn't think too much about seeding it. In all fairness I had only came across the ad from going through my rss marketing feeds, so at least some marketing folks are seeing it, T-Mobile actually has a YouTube channel too.
Nevertheless I think there are some common attributes on how creatives can become viral.
But let's be clear...first of all, viral in effect is something you cannot create, it is something that happens. The most common videos to go viral born out of a marketing purpose are usually ads that don't really have a sales pitch, they are created essentially for branding purposes via entertaining means instead of doing the cold hard pitch to win over customer's wallets.
Some good branding examples that have gone viral and essentially kept the brands interest (I refrain from using the term "cool" since it is hard to pinpoint what that is) and be relevant to keeping a pulse on popular culture.
Levi's did an ad with a funny take on how to wear their famous 501 jeans. Which later would inspire Ray Ban's to do the same with their wayfarers.
I think it is also important to note, these contemporary Gen-Y brands (both Levi's and RayBan have modernised their brand values to stay fresh and relevant with their target demographic) are building interesting dialogue via offline media, event sponsorship and unusual but well designed digital forums and media to stay top of mind for their consumers to wanting to affiliate their lifestyles with these brands.
We all need to work together, so let's embrace digital with everything else to make an good idea even stronger. Hating brings bad Karma!
- jeff yiu
303 Digital
The funny thing about viral is that it is not something that you can set out to do. It just happens.
ReplyDeleteI like viral cos it makes me think of virus's. Mmmmm Virus.
ReplyDeleteWe should do something Viral for Robitussin. Maybe we should actually create a virus called the cough virus that makes your computer screen flash uncontrollably every few minutes. the only way to stop is to go on the Robitussin site and click on a cough mixture.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering when train stations became so ubiquitous in 'cool' viral.
ReplyDeleteReal people, doing real stuff *gasp* - creatives patting themselves on the back.
I'm not sure if I agree 100% with 9:38pm... If T Mobile didn't think they would get any buzz/press/whatever out of this, I don't believe they would have done it...
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