Ideas & Innovation, mediahub, Social Influence //

The myth of viral hits

Posted by Dustin Johnson on 08/30/10
tags: , , , , ,

Have you ever heard the following statement?

“We have no funds, I think we need to do something viral. Something that leverages our community and gets a whole bunch of new fans and sells a lot of stuff.”

Or how about this?

“I know it’s the end of the year, but we want to change it up, I think this is an opportunity to do something amazing. We could win Titanium with this, if you’d just open your mind to the possibilities.”

I have. And every time I get fired up imagining myself flying first-class to Cannes and scaling back my career to work on my plans for saving the planet, with full treatment in Fast Company to boot. And, with those dreams burning, short of money and time, I set off to craft my magnum Internet opus. My “Subservient Chicken,” my “Dynamite Surfing”, my “Elf yourself.”

Ideas get executed and sometimes my tchotchkes please A.E.s and clients, and together we achieve a modicum of success. But thus far, a titanic Internet sensation has been elusive. Why? Where is my “Evian Baby Roller Skating?” Am I not talented enough to “Monk-E-mail?”

Tormented by this over the years, I have finally come to a conclusion. These things are all a myth. The idea that fast, cheap viral/social smash hits occur is a trick ad people play on ourselves when our backs are against the wall. They don’t exist. What exists is well thought out, realistically funded ideas we have time to make and distribute.

Forbes Magazine recently published their list of the best social ideas of all time. All the biggies that drive me crazy are on it. The most intriguing thing about the list is how many concepts are from major companies with large media budgets. This list should be read by every advertising person sitting up late at night with no resources or time dreaming of their social smash.

Wake up Don Draper, the good enough revolution isn’t good enough.

Now back to the drawing board.

“What’s the budget, again? Nice. How much time? No, no problem boss, it’ll be juuuuust like “Tea Par-tay.”

  • http://twitter.com/LoveintheDumps Love in the Dumps

    The only good ones happen by accident anyway, and people like them because they’re authentic.

  • http://blog.ecairn.com Laurent Pfertzel

    Dustin
    To me those social ideas are just old ideas applied to the new media. They’re social on the surface but not much more than that. May be I’m a purist but the best social ideas of all time is when a company unleash it’s people and let them go out there in the communities where they fit. Companies like the defunct Sun Micro or IBM have done that from many years. And this is social. Because behind social there’s the notion of a network.
    Laurent

  • David Nagel

    Viral is not an objective, it is an outcome.

    Viral is not an objective, it is an outcome.

    When taken from that view, your perspective changes. All you can do as a marketer are put the elements in place that are conducive to something having potential to become viral. Ultimately your idea is at the whim of the consumer to experience, enjoy and share. Going in with the anticipation that it will BE viral is folly.

  • http://twitter.com/chriswooster Chris Wooster

    Viral is an ends, not a means. Clients need to understand this and understand it well, because most of what is designed to “be viral” will fail in market, and likely quite magnificently.

  • Mdurwin

    I couldn’t agree more. Besides “we want something out of the box”, which is usually followed closely by “this is to weird, can’t we go with something simple like (fill in competitor name here)”, “We want to do something viral” is the next most common phrase I hear. This is from small companies to major brands and all have the same thing in common: minuscule budget, ridiculous timeline (usually between Thanksgiving and Christmas), and the fact that it can stray from the brand’s message. So, we leave out sex, humor, animals, babies, politics, dancing 3D robots, explosions, and any sort of home footage. We’re not off to a great start.
    If cheap viral wins are so easy, then why isn’t it standard practice? Three reasons:

    1) Marketers can’t insure a viral hit. They can’t write something edgy-funny-sexy, get all of the elements in place but the fact is that those that determine viral success are consumers. Your spot has to just hit them in the right spot, they’ll make it viral if they want. Unfortunately that “viral spot” is a moving target. It changes daily, by audience, by technology, etc. I recently had over 400 reTweets. With less than 4000 Followers it was nothing short of amazing. Even Tom Hanks son Colin reTweeted me, I was hoping for Alyssa Milano. The problem: I didn’t plan it. It was an off the cuff remark that just happen to hit the psyche of my audience in the right place at the right time. Do I know how to recreate it? Possibly. Will I ever be able to? No. Why? See next.

    2) Brands will not allow it. It’s a very rare brand that is willing to put their name behind a marketing effort that will become a viral sensation. By all accounts Elf Yourself was a viral success but a marketing failure for whoever did it. Why? Who knows who it was for? Heavily branding a viral piece is difficult at best, and what it takes to go viral rarely fits the companies brand.

    3) Budget. I do a fair amount of video editing for both web, commercials and branding. I can tell you that a spot like Dancing Babies was far from cheap to produce, never mind licensing the music. It’s a hard sell for a brand to put 5-6 figures behind a viral piece that may never go viral. Let’s face it, these pieces listed in this article are far from viral successes when compared to Charlie Bit My Finger. Of the top viral video hits they are split pretty evenly between cheap, consumer generated video that will do nothing for a brand, or music videos from Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber. See if either of those artists fit in your budget!

  • http://www.briancbarth.com Brian Barth

    …and what’s even more problematic is that the internet community knows when it’s being targeted. I wrote a bit about two viral spots last year for sainteliotandco.com (http://sainteliotandco.com/blog/i-dont-like-them-apples/)

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