Archive for the 'Viral Video' Category

Unlike most other forms of marketing, viral video makes a claim that it can almost never live up to: It will be so compelling that people will want to share it.

Client: “We’re thinking we’d like to do a viral video… like “Will it Blend” except instead of blenders, we’d feature our product”
Me: “Will Network Policy Enforcement Software blend?”
Client: …Okay, how about the “I’m a Mac thing? I know a guy in the lab who would be perfect to play the Mac guy… no, the PC guy, he’s the bad one right?”
Me: “A skit?”
Client: “Exactly! We want it to spread virally to millions of people.”
Me: “Who is the target audience for this video?”
Client: ” Senior Network Managers in mid-sized health services companies.  That’s our sweet-spot.”
Me: “There’s millions of them?”
Client: Well, there’s about 900 of them in North America. The other views would come from YouTube I guess.”
Me: Do you have a budget for this?
Client: “Viral is free, right? We’ve taken a couple thousand out of our cleaning budget to cover the production costs.”

The term ‘viral’ means different things to different people. In theory any video has the potential to be viral as long as you can reference it and/or share it online. The challenge is getting people to share it. Some say you can’t call a video ‘viral’ until it has hit the ‘million view’ mark. Others simply call a video ‘viral’ because it is intended to shared virally – much like calling a video ‘amazing’ because it was intended to be ‘amazing’. Whatever your definition of viral there many factors that can mitigate against the success of your video project.  So why do viral marketing projects fail?:

Great Expectations: Creating a hit viral video is like creating a hit record. It’s really, really difficult. Of the hundreds/thousands of viral-intended videos created every year for businesses only a handful truly go viral. Unfortunately these are the ones we hear about and therefore these are the ones that clients reference. Will it Blend?, T-Mobile Dance, or The Evian Roller Babies are all incredible but it is highly unlikely that anything you do will come close to this level of success.

Viral video is free and easy! No it’s not. It takes time, expertise/talent and facilities/equipment to develop a good viral video. Having more is always preferred in all three of these production resource categories (in spite of the ‘do less with more’ mantra.) ‘More’ costs more, always has, always will – just ask James Cameron. This comment from an article in Inc. Magazine says it all: “Even a company on a shoestring budget, using just a basic camera and simple editing software, can produce an entertaining demo that reaches thousands of prospective customers.” Yep, it’s just that easy!

Viral videos promote themselves! No, usually they don’t – they need help. ‘Video seeding’  is a common practice now for large scale viral videos where companies will help seed the market with videos by encouraging or paying influential bloggers, PR outlets and other influencers to promote a viral video. There are a growing number of companies that offer this service. Most popular corporate viral videos had a significant seeding component that contributed to their success.

Viral video is not risk free. Just grab a Flip and start posting your video online, right?  What if your video is embarrassing or just plain bad and it goes viral anyway? Would Apple or Coke or Nike allow this to happen? Does how you present your company to the world matter?

It is very difficult to measure success of a viral video. Is 167,000 YouTube views a success? Are any of those viewers your audience? Did they associate anything in your video, in a positive way, with your brand? Will that video affect their behavior or attitude towards your brand? Can you measure any of this?

The ‘viral’ label is a distraction. “…and we’d like the video you’re going to create for us to be viral as well.” I hear this quite often now. Clients want any video they do, regardless of the market, message and purpose to have a “viral component.” The way to create a successful viral video project is to start with that purpose in mind – the video is so compelling that people will want to share it. You can’t throw in ‘viral’ as an add-on to the project. Not only will the video not be viral, you may take away from the primary purpose of the video by trying to amuse, shock or bewilder people.

The term ‘viral’ is misused. I have read a number of recent articles that interchange the terms ‘web video’ and ‘viral video’ as if they refer to the same thing. A web video is any video (here are 42 examples of web videos) that is consumed on the web. Viral video is a specific type of video that is intended to be so entertaining, or remarkable, or shocking that people will be inclined to share it with their friends and colleagues.

There’s a fine line between selling and entertaining. If no one remembers or associates your brand with the video then you’ve wasted your money. Conversely, if the video looks like a two minute product demo no one is going to share it. A great example – Coke does a nice job (as usual) in straddling that fine line between promoting the product – the whole video is about a Coke Machine!, and entertaining – brilliant.

To truly succeed viral videos have to be great. There is extra pressure on viral videos to be really entertaining, or shocking or… something. Some of them are great and some of them are just plain awful. A viral video has to great in order to spread virally. Good usually isn’t good enough. The advantage of promotion through disruptive advertising (TV) is that your television commercial can be absolute crap and people will still watch it.