Going viral

Notes from my notebook in the last year, in no specific order, on viral marketing, advertising, video:


- The utmost important asset any viral video can have is repeatability. You need to have SOMETHING in there that your audience can take away and use on their friends, with their friends, around their friends. This is the true virus. It's like a kissing disease at a party filled with hot people: by the end of the night, everyone's got it.

Examples: Lonely Island, Auto-Tune The News, Charlie Bit Me, Chocolate Rain

The last of which is a viral phrase unto itself. The kid says "CHARLIE BIT MEY!"... you know what it sounds like in your head if you've seen the video, if one of your friend says it, the rest of the day you'll be spouting it no matter HOW annoying it is.

2. Movie Spoofs and Video Games go Viral. Anything that has to do with any popular video game will go viral if it looks good, sounds good, and has a lot of Fan Service. Fan Service is basically a bad storyline straight from the game that caters to EVERYTHING that fans love about the game.

Well, no that's not really what it is, just make sure that you're not forgetting the fans.

3. Violence is pretty viral. It sucks to say, but some of the most viral videos are candid shots of people getting beat up, run over, falling from things, hurting themselves on accident etc. Violence still sells. But, if the violence looks staged, it may be forgotten.

See: parent whipping child with belt on facebook camera, chic falling from stripper pole, skateboarder skating into the street and surviving being run over by a van with no injuries

4. Misfortune in general. Everyone likes to see others suffer. MisFortune gets views.

See: don't taze me bro

5. Going Viral also has to do with communities. THere's this one community that shall not be named that will turn anything viral or into a meme in less than a day if it appeals to their trollish ways. This same community will also find you if you did something bad and you post it on the internet. That should be enough info to google and find out what the community is, but rest assured if you want to go viral, simply post your video there and if it's worth viral consideration, the next day it'll have several hundreds of thousands of views.

See: Chocolate Rain

- Timing. Is everything. Make sure you time it right and you could get a lot of play.


Now, why can't companies replicate this success? Because, it's staged.

Google/YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I9vip8z-hY

this is clearly, CLEARLY a staged effort by Pizza Hut to go viral. It fails, so hard. Although Jim Bruer cracks me the heck up in this, it fails... because they're trying to sell a product.

THE most viral videos happen either on accident, are plays on the misfortunes of others, or have to do with video games. The very last one is the closest I'd be willing to say you can make go viral if the video game franchise is large enough. That's why these companies can't replicate the free exposure to millions that people happen across, they're trying to go viral with a PRODUCT, which means they have to show the product in a certain light, etc.

It's not free form, you're just marketing, and I don't know if it's strictly because you can't do what you want, or your audience knows that it's staged that keeps it from sticking.

Quiznos has to have THE worst viral marketing campaign I have ever witnessed. I eat Quiznos a LOT... but, it's not because of those stupid cats and cute animals. That almost made me cease purchasing my favorite meal from the franchise.

I've got a lot more thoughts about the whole "Viral" deal, but those are some that came from my notebook.

Oh, and here's what Rainfall Films did that went viral: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBCzkz3gHb8

The view count on that link does not reflect the 10Million + Views Sam's pet project got on April 1st 2008. The video was featured on every major video game blog on the internet, ran on television in a few places and even made it to some major film blogs within a few days time.
 
My first question would be to define "viral" - what constitutes viral?
Are we just talking about view count? If so - what amount of views would be your cutoff?
Or are we talking about secondary press & exposure (i.e. blog posts/write ups about the video, etc)?

The word itself is a bit nebulous - which is why the responses to these sorts of questions always seem nebulous.
I know we all think "well I know it when I see it" - but in many contexts the term 'viral' means nothing more than "very popular."
And in that context, you can see how difficult it would be to answer the question - "what does it take to make a very popular video?"

So I would first say that you need to put some parameters around what you're looking to accomplish - then it might be easier to get some straightforward answers.
 
Jawa Ex Machina said:
But again, is there anyone who has first hand experience with this? That's what I'm looking for.
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I bet you won't find anyone, at the very least on this forum, that made a video go viral.

Frankly, I see this question as: "How can I write a blockbuster movie?" Even if you make it more specific ("How can I write a movie that will make $500m+ at the box office") you won't get anything.
 
Kholi said:
Agreed. The ugliest word in marketing, to me, is Viral. The second I see it, hear it, smell it I turn around and walk the other way.

Too often I see these corporations/companies attempting to do something viral, too often does it come off as just that... ATTEMPTING.

You're right, I can barely think of many examples of anyone pushing a product and also going viral... the two don't go hand in hand.
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Here's two recent examples that follow the exact same pattern, all of them have been discussed at DVXUser:

Last year, Old Spice made that "I'm on a horse" commercial, BMW made the retina-flash thing that burned the logo on people's eyes.

Both of these also released a "behind the scenes" explaination video that showed the actual making of the commercial was more interesting than the actual commercial because the concept of how it was shot was the idea.

Both these behind the scenes videos helped bring attention both to the product and the original commercial and they helped get people talking about it on forums and social media.

Actually, wasn't there also another car commercial where they put up individual animated frames, matched the shutter speed and mounted the camera on the car so they shot the animation using the car they were selling?
They also had a BTS video.

This is just one way of doing it, but things like this should be considdered by independent filmmakers because it's cheap. We have to find a way to apply this sort of thinking to what we're doing.
 
The Old Spice ad was an actual commercial. It was not viral marketing. It just happened to catch on because people at large enjoyed it.

I haven't even heard of the BMW thing, so how successful was that really?

Plus, independent film makers with no money can't (by and large) deliver that sort of quality (in the case of Old Spice).
 
Luis Caffesse said:
My first question would be to define "viral" - what constitutes viral?
Are we just talking about view count? If so - what amount of views would be your cutoff?
Or are we talking about secondary press & exposure (i.e. blog posts/write ups about the video, etc)?

The word itself is a bit nebulous - which is why the responses to these sorts of questions always seem nebulous.
I know we all think "well I know it when I see it" - but in many contexts the term 'viral' means nothing more than "very popular."
And in that context, you can see how difficult it would be to answer the question - "what does it take to make a very popular video?"

So I would first say that you need to put some parameters around what you're looking to accomplish - then it might be easier to get some straightforward answers.
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Good question, and thoughts, Luis.

I think Viral may not be a loose term at all: the worst viruses spread across the globe and can rarely be contained. To me, a viral accomplishment is one that annoys the living daylights out of me when I hear people spouting lines in a bowling alley or grocery store.

So, maybe it's a literal interpretation of the definition? Maybe.
 
Gary Huff said:
The Old Spice ad was an actual commercial. It was not viral marketing. It just happened to catch on because people at large enjoyed it.

I haven't even heard of the BMW thing, so how successful was that really?

Plus, independent film makers with no money can't (by and large) deliver that sort of quality (in the case of Old Spice).
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Yes, I was going to say the same thing. And, I don't consider it Viral. It was a cool commercial that broke some conventions, I can't remember a single line that Mufasa said in any of the commercials.

I can sing the entire Bed Intruder Song, though.
 
Kholi said:
Good question, and thoughts, Luis.

I think Viral may not be a loose term at all: the worst viruses spread across the globe and can rarely be contained. To me, a viral accomplishment is one that annoys the living daylights out of me when I hear people spouting lines in a bowling alley or grocery store.

So, maybe it's a literal interpretation of the definition? Maybe.
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I suppose it can be seen as a combination of the two then - both view count, embedding/spreading, as well as the speed at which it does those.

The reason I say you need to consider what you want to accomplish is because view count alone doesn't really mean much - it also depends WHO is watching your work. Take for example the vendor/client relationship video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2a8TRSgzZY

1.7 million views. Now I don't know if you'd consider that 'viral.' I suppose it could be - but on the scale of internet viewership numbers, that isn't an unbelievable high view count for a video that's been online for nearly 2 years now. But, I would consider it 'viral' within it's niche...meaning, just about every freelancer I know has either seen it, heard about it, and emailed me a link to it at some point.

So the first step to me when considering some sort of "viral" like campaign would be the same step you would take with any campaign - and ask yourself who your audience is.

I guess my point was just to say that view count alone isn't what matters (if you're talking about marketing, and not just entertainment).
 
I think it also depends on how long it took to get there. Surely a video with a million views within a week is more "viral" than a video that got a million views over two years or longer.
 
Luis Caffesse said:
I suppose it can be seen as a combination of the two then - both view count, embedding/spreading, as well as the speed at which it does those.

The reason I say you need to consider what you want to accomplish is because view count alone doesn't really mean much - it also depends WHO is watching your work. Take for example the vendor/client relationship video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2a8TRSgzZY

1.7 million views. Now I don't know if you'd consider that 'viral.' I suppose it could be - but on the scale of internet viewership numbers, that isn't an unbelievable high view count for a video that's been online for nearly 2 years now. But, I would consider it 'viral' within it's niche...meaning, just about every freelancer I know has either seen it, heard about it, and emailed me a link to it at some point.

So the first step to me when considering some sort of "viral" like campaign would be the same step you would take with any campaign - and ask yourself who your audience is.

I guess my point was just to say that view count alone isn't what matters (if you're talking about marketing, and not just entertainment).
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Now I see exactly what you mean. I haven't seen that video, but I'll watch it.

Examples as to what Luis is saying would be Tim and Eric and Starburts current "juicy solid" campaign.

Are movies themselves viral? I think I know just about every quote from THE HANGOVER worth quoting, but see, that's just good entertainment, right? Is it viral if we have to pay for it to be exposed to it first? That's a question I've actually got written in my notebook as well, it has no answer because I can't say.

Yet another reason why the hot phrase VIRAL MARKETING is so annoying.

Gary Huff said:
I think it also depends on how long it took to get there. Surely a video with a million views within a week is more "viral" than a video that got a million views over two years or longer.
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Yeah, Bed Intruder's view count skyrocketed to a few million in a matter of two days. I remember watching it when it was FIRST uploaded (brought to me by a friend who visits an undermentioned infamous web community) and it only had about ten thousand views. The next morning, 1.5M, then by that night a good two and a half.

That's Viral, and in most cases you can't buy that kind of exposure.
 
Jawa, I forgot to mention this one--

Blunders in current media. Another way to go viral VERY fast is to spoof a current topic in media that everyone between the ages of 14-35 knows about. Like, if something happens to a singer (cough Kanye West) you spoof it, spoof it good, spoof it fast.

Post it.

The best spoof wins all of the attention, the rest just get tossed to the side.

And, yeah, there's a way to apply all of this to marketing your feature film, if that's what you're wondering. >=]
 
ugafan said:
/b/ sent me here.
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R O F L

Yes, yes, and more yes. That's exactly it.

Let's definitely NOT openly discuss that, though, because I think it's bannable on DVXuser. It's on topic, though, and I thought Jawa should know about it at least.

Moving on...
 
Kholi said:
Another way to go viral VERY fast is to spoof a current topic in media that everyone between the ages of 14-35 knows about. Like, if something happens to a singer (cough Kanye West) you spoof it, spoof it good, spoof it fast.
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Agreed. Modify the topic and age group and you've got the spoof that they did on the BP oil spill.
Remember the "BP spills coffee" spoof? :)


 
Kholi said:
The best spoof wins all of the attention, the rest just get tossed to the side.

And, yeah, there's a way to apply all of this to marketing your feature film, if that's what you're wondering. >=]
Click to expand...
You mean "The spoof that wins all of the attention is best, the rest just get tossed to the side."

Of course I'm looking for a way to market Marianne.


I even have a double rainbow shot in it.
 
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