Last Wednesday, cat food company Friskies announced that they’d signed Grumpy Cat to be the new face of their brand. Their choice is an example of a new era of advertising, where brands take advantage of established viral phenomena to market themselves and their product. Ok, so what do I mean by viral? Usually referring to videos, viral content is user-generated content that becomes extremely popular through the process of online sharing. People post the content to their Facebook pages, link to it on Twitter, and watch it on YouTube so much that the content seems to go from nowhere to everywhere overnight. Over the past few years, brands have taken advantage of that existing popularity to market their products, and have also begun creating content designed to go viral itself. Still not sure what I’m talking about? Here are a few examples:
Do you remember this early Quiznos ad? Airing in 2004, it featured The Spongmonkeys, strange little hamster-like creatures who sang about how much they loved Quiznos subs. The thing was, to many viewers, those little guys looked oddly familiar… Well, turns out that Quiznos had contacted the makers of a popular online video called “We Like the Moon” and asked them to revamp their Internet-famous characters for a Quiznos advertisement. It worked – Quiznos’ first television ad campaigns were highly successful, and are still talked about today.
Geico – Somebody’s Watching Me
So you might have been confused when you saw this Geico ad a few years ago. Who was this random guy, and why was he singing about being watched? Are those googly eyes in the background? Is that supposed to be the Geico gecko dancing along? Though it may seem like a backwards little ad, Geico did something brilliant here – they hired the “Numa Numa” guy who already had a large online following, included their popular gecko character, and referenced their new ad campaign – those googly eyes are the money you could have saved using Geico, and went on to be featured in multiple Geico ads.
Here we have a company creating its own viral marketing campaign. The Will it Blend series follows Blendtec founder Tom Dickson as he demonstrates the Blendtec line of heavy duty blenders. In each video, Tom attempts to blend something you wouldn’t normally put in a blender – golf balls, iPhones, even video games – and smiles at the camera as the Blendtec blender successfully demolishes each challenger. The company has turned this into a successful online campaign, with a YouTube channel that posts all new videos and accepts suggestions for future experiments.
Dollar Shave Club – Our Blades are F***ing Great
Dollar Shave Club seemingly exploded from anonymity into popularity overnight. They started operations in summer 2011, ran their first ad in spring 2012, and won the “Best Out-of-Nowhere Video Campaign” at the 2012 AdAge Viral Video Awards. Their second ad, released this past summer, has also gone viral. The trick? A great service, a funny and concise script, and a founder with an irreverent sense of humor.
Here is the most recent example of an advertising campaign gone viral. The video, for a product called PooPourri, was uploaded on September 10, 2013. Within 7 days it had 5 million views and had been spread across the Internet, featured on sites such as Buzzfeed, Jezebel, The Daily Mail, The Huffington Post, and Allure Magazine. Why is a video about a bathroom spray so popular? Once again, that irreverent sense of humor comes into play. A lovely girl with a posh British accent talking about stinking up the bathroom? Of course people find it hilarious!
What do all of these videos have in common? They are incredibly share-able. Someone sees the ad, and immediately wants all of their friends to see it as well. That type of ad used to be limited to Superbowl commercials, campaigns so interesting that they became water-cooler conversation. Now with online video marketing, companies aren’t limited to once-a-year opportunities. A good product and a great script can help anything go viral. And viral? Sells.
Featured Image Credit: Mickey Destro