Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence; as defined by Practical eCommerce.
Viral messages are messages that are shared at a rapid speed to thousands, even millions, of people. They could take form of posters, videos or plain text. In this post, I would like to zoom in on videos that have gone viral.
An example from Melbourne – the Dumb Ways To Die campaign was created to promote public safety. The video instantly became a hit worldwide and even won numerous awards. The YouTube video has garnered 128 million views (as of May 2016) thus far and the number of views have been constantly growing. The Dumb Ways To Die application was even created as a game, free to play.
Another video that went viral was the Redbull jump conducted by Felix Baumgartner from space. Baumgartner is an Austrian daredevil, skydiver and BASE jumper.
“I LOVE A CHALLENGE, AND TRYING TO BECOME THE FIRST PERSON TO BREAK THE SPEED OF SOUND IN FREEFALL IS A CHALLENGE LIKE NO OTHER.” Felix Baumgartner.
He made the leap to test his limits and set a world record for the lowest BASE jump ever.
This video has received 40 million views thus far.
This video from the Korean music industry has gotten 2.57 billion views as of today; and is constantly growing. It was made viral due to the fact that the dance moves were both quirky and unique and there were many hilarious scenes in the clip. Psy has been made incredibly famous since the video; making special appearances in reality shows and talk shows in Hollywood.
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Videos can be spread quickly by viewers who like to share. Marketers should target those who like sharing content online. Since YouTube is a big sharing community, it would be a great place to start to put your videos out there. Videos should also be unique – something relatively new to the general public.
What do you think made these videos go viral? Feel free to leave a comment below and share your thoughts! 🙂
Emma Khoo 