Social media and online relationships are revolutionizing marketing. The advent of Facebook, Twitter, and many other social networks allows users to share information exponentially quicker than ever before. Users have at their fingertips extensive, spiderweb-like networks of friends and colleagues that can be reached in seconds. This ability to share (and share quickly) has led to an interesting phenomenon: News and information that is so popular it spreads like an infectious disease. Someone clever named it Going Viral or Viral Marketing Its incredibly powerful, but extremely rare and difficult to accomplish. In fact, its usually done by accident. Going Viral has vaulted some companies into instant stardom for next-to-nothing. Other attempts at Viral Marketing have cost millions and yielded zilch. Over the next few paragraphs I plan to show a few of my favorite campaigns and some cost/benefit analysis. I’ll then list several Viral Marketing links and references and leave it up to you to decide whether or not your idea has a chance at Going Viral. Good Luck!
NIKE Write the Future
On May 17th, Nike released a three minute video called Write the Future. Within the week the video had 7.8 million views on Youtube and had smashed Nike’s own previous record. The ad is a three minute long soccer video that describes how one clutch play during the World Cup can effectively “write the future”. I’ve followed the ad over the course of the last few weeks, and as we approach the World Cup opening day, Write the Future is approaching 14,000,000 views. Obviously, this ad has been a huge success. It has very much Gone Viral. The shorter one minute version that aired during the European Club Final on May 22nd, is nothing near as entertaining. The focus is on the Youtube video and the Nike Write the Future Youtube channel and Facebook page. Nike intended for this ad to go viral, and it seems they’re getting the response they expected. The only question is, is it worth it?
Write the Future includes appearences by Cristiano Ronaldo, Didier Drogba, Wayne Rooney, Fabio Cannavaro, Franck Ribery, Andres Iniesta, Cesc Fabregas, Theo Walcott, Patrice Evra, Gerard Pique, Ronaldinho, Landon Donovan, Tim Howard and Thiago Silva. Nike even mentions to squeeze in non-footballers-but-still-huge-stars including Kobe Bryant, Roger Federer, and Homer Simpson! The video was produced by advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy and directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu (critically-acclaimed producer of Babel). The reason I’m telling you all of this is so that you can begin to imagine in your mind exactly how much this video cost. No exact number has been released, but its probably safe to say at least a few million.
So, for Nike, it essentially comes down to a game of Millions-for-Millions. Millions of Views for Millions of Dollars. Is it worth it? Well, every soccer fan I know has seen and loves the video. It has reached cult-status, and many non-footballers even enjoy it. The questions for Nike is, where’s the breakeven? How do you know when the money you spent on getting Cristiano Ronaldo to fake a tumble and take a penalty kick in your cleats has convinced enough aspiring-greats to pull the trigger and buy a pair of Nike Mercurial Vapor SuperFly II’s ($400 MSRP)? It’s a very difficult metric to obtain, but I think its safe to say that Nike has accomplished their aims in this SuperVirus of an ad.
Microsoft MegaWoosh
In my humble opinion, Microsoft’s MegaWoosh viral ad campaign was a failure. You’ve probably seen the video, which has produced over 4.5 million views on Youtube alone. Unfortunately, the most popular version of the video doesn’t include the first few seconds, which include a shot of the website MegaWoosh.com. This unfortunate coincidence led to a professionally directed, produced, and edited video that had no visual references to anyone or anything. It went viral alright, but no one had any idea that it had anything to do with Microsoft. Microsoft’s idea was to show how Microsoft Office Project 2007 helped Bruno Kammerl (a fictional, eccentric German engineer) create an extremely low-friction material and launch himself perfectly over a 130 foot gap into a kiddie pool. The video: Outstanding. The Viral Ad Attempt: Pretty Unsuccessful. The ad was primarily aimed at Germany, so I’m not sure if it reached it’s target audience, but as far as I know, it yielded a miniscule (if not negative) Return on Investment.
Threshers 40% Off Coupon
This last example is perhaps the most practical and applicable for most startups. It is the story of Threshers and their “mistakenly-released” 40% Off coupon. Threshers was a popular wine and beverage store based in the UK. With the 2006 holiday season approaching, they had an interesting idea: issue a coupon that seemed to good to be true. They quietly released a 40% Off coupon valid on all the wine and champagne they sold. Believing that they had found a secret coupon meant to be used solely by “friends and family”, the consumers quickly made more purchases in one month than the entire previous year! Threshers saw 800,000 downloads of the coupon, and the visitor volume was so great their website crashed. Soon after, Threshers revealed that it was not a secret coupon, and that it was actually a marketing campaign. After all, the 40% off was only slightly better than their 3-for-2 deal on most items (40% compared to 33%). Threshers’ coupon shows how a simple, creative idea can be wildly successful if done correctly.
So there you have it. Three very different examples of Viral Marketing. Now the question is whether or not you could (or should) try pull one off. If you were secretly hoping for a few more examples, please refer to the links after this paragraph. You’ll see several examples of successful techniques. As a final note, I admit that I am no expert, and that there are several examples that I could have included, but didn’t. I look forward to the comments on this post. Feel free to post a link to your favorite Viral Ad. I would love to see some great ideas!
-Hunter Beaumont
Viral Ad Pages:
The Top Ten Viral Marketing Campaigns of All Time
The Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing
The Top Ten Viral Ad Campaigns
Examples of Viral Marketing Campaigns
