The top 5 viral campaigns

For quite some time, I used to believe that viral ain’t a strategy. Even now, a product placement or a new ad campaign can hardly be strategized the viral route simply because the strategists (read brand managers) are too engrossed in the product/service and benefits thereof that they tend to forget that a viral idea, by definition is some random work which a few people like and that gets pollinated across networks and spreads.

Also, people tend to confuse viral marketing with social marketing thru networks, such as MySpace, Facebook, Second Life and blogs. Probably the best viral idea till date is Hotmail – which found its own users and replicated itself in almost every machine with an internet connection in no time by sheer WOM. Wikipedia defines Viral Marketing as “marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses.” From the purview of this definition, marketers have indeed come up with a few delightful concepts, which, though short-lived, have been able to create major traction and WOM publicity.

My top 5 takes on such campaigns are as follows…

1. Why So Serious

Elaborate, interactive marketing campaigns were launched in the months leading up to the release of “The Dark Knight”. One of these was an event at the 2007 San Diego Comic-con called “Why So Serious”, which involved fans following clues hidden around the city. The legions of Joker-painted fans ended up congregating in the street across from the convention center, where one of their numbers was welcomed into a black Escalade (with Gotham license plates) that had just pulled up. After a moment the fan started screaming and the SUV sped away. Later that day, a “Gotham City newspaper” was circulated reporting that a man believed to be the Joker was found beaten to death. Included were “crime scene photos” of the fan who had gotten into the Escalade, and a mention that he was found with a playing card in his hand, on which was scribbled “See you in December.” The alternative reality game whysoserious was also launched, creating mass participation.

2. Nike

This clip is one of the all time greatest virals ever, with more than 50 million views globally. Featuring world famous soccer star Ronaldinho hitting the crossbar no less than four times, without the ball touching the floor. The creative material is from Framfab, in Denmark. The product on display is the Nike R10 football boot. A massive discussion on whether the clip was actually real or computer edited drove millions of interested viewers to the campaign.

Framfab won two Gold Lions on the Cannes Lions Festival for the campaign. The other winning clip was The Chain, a user generated initiative, consisting of more than 500 user uploaded soccer sequences edited together as one long clip of soccer celebration.

To watch the ads click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsO6D1rwrKc

3. Where the Hell is Matt

Matt and his friend were standing around taking pictures in Hanoi, and his friend said “Hey, why don’t you stand over there and do that dance. I’ll record it.” He was referring to a particular dance Matt does. It’s actually the only dance Matt does. He does it badly.

Eventually Matt and his girlfriend take a break, visit 42 countries, do the same dance with just about anybody, from basements to “war-free zones”, make a video out of it, and someone posts it onto the internet. A couple years later, someone found the video online and passed it to someone else, who passed it to someone else, and so on. Now Matt is quasi-famous as “That guy who dances on the internet. No, not that guy. The other one. No, not him either. I’ll send you the link. It’s funny.” Today, Matt is a million-dollar brand ambassador for Stride Gum.

4. Diet Coke and Mentos Eruption

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmkxfEjPmtk

This campaign was never planned, neither by The Coca Cola Company nor Mentos. It started out as an experiment by Eepybird with a video showing two men adding Mentos tablets to a Diet coke. Watch to see the results. Several videos resulted, which makes it difficult to estimate exactly how many views the campaign has generated so far. But a qualified guess would be more than 50 million in total, including both the original and all the user generated videos.

This very unofficial campaign has generated loads of PR and causing thousands of consumers to contribute with their own eruption videos. Much of the hype around it was caused by statements whether or not it would be dangerous, or even lethal, to actually drink a Diet Coke and eat Mentos at the same time.

5. DOVE Evolution

 Already a classic, even though it is one of the newest      campaigns in this selection. Ogilvy & Mather, Toronto, used  time-lapse photography to show the transformation of an  normal woman into a glamorous billboard model using  beauty stylists and Photoshop enhancements. The clip was  released under the slogan “No wonder our perception of real  beauty is distorted”.

 http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

 Dove Evolution took top honours in both the Cyber and Film  categories on the 2006 Cannes Lions pointing to the  colliding worlds of consumer-powered digital distribution  and brand building. It’s the first time in the festival’s history that the same execution won in both categories, an even more impressive achievement if you consider that this huge success was almost single-handedly was achieved using online seeding. Only very few times has the commercial been aired on television.