Overnight viral sensations: good lessons and great opportunities for marketers

In spite of this, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel for viral campaigns if you know where to look and how to utilise this phenomenon to benefit your product, service or cause.
A few weeks ago, the Internet around the world was flooded with one simple viral question about the colours of a specific dress. Is it black and blue or gold and white? Within 24 hours, the world was split with mixed but genuine responses through millions of votes and mentions from Internet users around the globe, including Thailand.
Shortly after the dress went viral, a South Africa-based advertising agency felt that it could employ this phenomenon even further, and out came a speedy campaign for the Salvation Army.
What this agency did with the dress was unexpected. It released an advert showing a picture of a victim donning the very same dress but with bruises all over her body, along with the message: “Why is it so hard to see black and blue?”
The purpose of this speedy advert was to bring out a powerful message about domestic violence and encourage people around the world to stand up against abuse. The quick-witted campaign made the dress a double-shot viral sensation.
Another great example of a user-created viral campaign that became active a few days after the dress phenomenon concerned a photo of an Englishman with a few extra kilograms dancing in a club. The picture was posted by an anonymous user with the intention of shaming this man for dancing despite his weight.
But another user saw how this man was being discriminated against and thus helped raise a campaign to cheer up the dancing man virally. Many celebrities and businesses responded, offering the now-famous dancing man sponsorship and endorsement deals.
As these recent stories show, user-created viral content has been proved to be extremely effective when it comes to gaining awareness and popularity.
To utilise such organic viral content, we need to understand the elements that make a campaign successful and how to implement them.
First, if we examine the dress and the dancing-man viral phenomena, both were uploaded by Internet users for other Internet users. There was no involvement of brands or companies. Thus these campaigns were purely organic.
Why is that a good thing? According to IPG Mediabrands’ “Waveonline” study, 64 per cent of Thai Internet users demand that a brand is straightforward about whether it is involved in any online content.
Basically, Thais are quite sceptical of viral content they first see online. They wonder if any particular brand is behind the content and probably would feel they had been deceived if they found out later that they have shared brand-sponsored content without knowing.
Hence viral content from genuine common users would likely grab more positive attention than branded content. If you are a marketer, you may want to be bold about pushing out branded content to viewers in future campaign planning. You may also want to keep your eyes and ears open for the next big organic Internet viral phenomenon and employ it accordingly.
Second, both of the above viral examples were utilised later by a brand or organisation for a good cause. The dress content was reused by the Salvation Army to promote awareness about domestic abuse, while the dancing-man content was used by celebrities and organisations to help abolish discrimination.
This is very relevant to Thai consumers when it comes to support for good causes. According to Video Research’s “T-Cube” study, 67 per cent of online users believe that a company that supports good causes will have a good, positive and worthy image for them.
With this in mind, if you are a marketer with viral planning in mind, you should plan it with good intention that is relevant to local issues. Thai users will more than likely help you share if it is for a virtuous reason. So, next time a plan to go viral comes to mind, remember three things: be observant of organic viral phenomena to ride along if you don’t want to make one yourself; make your campaign honest; and publish with a good cause.
If you are able to do all of the above in your campaign, then let the sharing games begin.

MAAS VIRAJOTI is group head, strategy and
innovation, IPG Mediabrands Thailand.