What makes a great viral?

It’s not surprising that these days, all the brands are after a good viral. The cult of the internet video is really kicking off and everyday we all receive new links to clips on video sharing sites.

What is surprising is that the definition of a good viral campaign is being confined to video sharing between peers. Hence as a result there’s an assumption that a viral campaign needs to be funny or rude to be effective.

While a good viral video clip can be very effective and beneficial for a brand, viral marketing is not limited to sharing a video clip. Viral marketing is about encouraging communication in the brands target audience. It’s about communicating an idea to the opinion formers which will filter down to the rest of the target audience. The vehicle for this can take any form, and is very sophisticated.

There’s no doubt that producing a funny or rude video clip helps the viewing figures However what is not so certain is if a brand can benefit from this. While we have a good idea of what makes a good viral campaign, no one really knows for sure. To create a good or great viral campaign we need to understand the mechanics of communication so that we can move away from producing “funny” or “rude” films and really start talking to our target audience, who in turn will talk to their friends and spread the message.

A good place to start producing a good/great viral campaign is to consider the following;

• What is the brand / product?
• Who is the target audience?
• Crafting an idea / message that the target audience will understand and believe in.

Live Strong Yellow Wristbands

Livestrong campaign is part of the "Wear Yellow Live Strong" educational program intended to raise money for cancer research, raise cancer awareness, and encourage people to live life to the fullest in cooperation with Nike who manufactures the "live strong" bands in Austin, 70 million Livestrong bands sold to date.

What makes this campaign great is that virtually no publicity or marketing was done. In a very short space of time the bracelet has now gone from a fundraiser to being a part of global fashion landscape where A-List celebrities were featured wearing them raising millions in the process.

Bravia Balls

The Bravia Balls ad was shot with real balls on the streets of San Francisco. It got a huge viral kick because of that very reason. San Francisco is the internet capital of the world and as it was being shot people who witnessed the event were blogging about it and sticking photos on Flickr Before the ad was every released there was a huge online buzz about it. Soon the searching for the term "advert" in Google returned the Bravia site in the top three results.