Remind you of something?  No? How about the video “Did You Know?” that was done in 2008 and slept until 2009 before going viral.  Did You Know was not trying to drive a brand though and could be the difference between multimillion views and a couple hundred.  

The graphic design and animation that goes into these works is a unique job.  A whole range of these videos are popping up on the web and people are liking it pushing clips like the Crisis of Credit into viral status.     

We have touched this next video in a previous article and it has moved since then but is still waiting to be really picked up.  Notice the style and how the story is told.  The clip is well put together but has not utilized its potential yet.   

This is the start of a new style of video making.  It is right in line with the digital world.  Some videos use film and add effects like Super Chameleon.

Others use an all digital environment (Beat the BS is included here)

And amazingly, some use an incredible combination of both.  

These new age artists will lead the professional web video world as they hold the skills to impress a generation of information at a glance, ADHD, keep my interest or I’m gone, poof! style of media consumption.

Cheers!

The Super Chameleon is pushing for viral status.  Closing in on 400k (below) the video had an impressive start but will need a little more publicity to get over the million mark.  Ray Ban is hoping to see its 18k daily average (left) hold strong as summer approaches and consumers start to think about what shades to buy.  At the above rate it will take the clip just over a month to reach 1 million views and position it squarely on the edge of summer in beautiful May. 

In a creative round table the creator of virals like, Guy Catches Glasses and Cow Gives Birth to Dude, talks about his strategy for their latest video.  Releasing the videos on the NeverHideFilms channel the Super Chameleon has a running start.  

This is pillar number 1.  With a rough estimate of 2,500 subscribers to start the channel instantly gets the ball rolling in terms of getting put on the rising videos and popular charts.  Great videos can sit as sleepers without any initial push.  Distribution is a little easier with a small army of subscribers, an agency and the client behind you.    
The strategy discussed at the creative round table is about making a video that is border line believable.  It’s a classic example of making something that begs a debate.  Pillar number two in this case.  Does the Chameleon actually change color as it crosses over the strategically placed Ray Ban product?  Call the debunkers!  We need to know if this is an After Effect’s illusion.  

The video is popular enough that the comments like “Awesome” or “That’s so cool!” push the debunking explanations out of immediate site.  So the comments about chameleon emotions and After Effects get recycled over and over priming the debate.  

Pillar number three could potentially put this to be viral in the animal category of the viral catalog.  There’s something about showing animals in different ways that is innately attractive.  NeverHideFilms understands this from their work with the LEVIS Monkey. 

Cheers!

Additonal notes:

1) NeverHideFilms got over 30 new subscribers last week (now 2678) and their video had already past its initial hype. 

2) This isn’t one video for Ray Ban, it’s a huge addition to a campaign.  Guy Catches Glasses with face had just broken the 4 million mark when the March 24th spike (below) came from the Super Chameleon.

Source: About Viral 2009

In order to completely grasp the above model a few terms have been defined below. It is not logical to consider all virals equal. Therefore, identifying the patterns, similarities and content categories will aid anyone addressing the subject of viral production to view it in a more holistic manner.

The Grid – Y Axis

The grid is split between whether a viral video becomes popular from the production or distribution side. Production often relies heavily on quality content. Quality is not specific to resolution or whether the clip was well shot but also its likability. The homemade baby laughing virals are a testament to heavy production based content.

Distribution heavy virals can be movie trailers where heavy promotion makes them available to a wider audience based on monetary compensation for sharing. YouTube Partners, who have built up a large list of subscribers, are also distribution heavy as they have carved out a niche audience around their channel. (AV subscribes to most YouTube Partners)

The Grid – Bull’s-Eye
Levels of Mainstream Interest

The bull’s-eye represents the increased interest and similarly the audience present. The outer circles (5 & 4) show a more niche type audience whereby a select few people are interested in the viral’s subject matter. Subjects could be certain sports or a specific genre of film.

As the circle gets smaller (3, 2 & 1) the content becomes increasingly more mainstream and the audience grows in size. Virals that are found close to the center will generally have greater mass appeal and will be composed of more elements of popularity i.e Sports combined with a Shock and Awe component. These videos can often be listed in multiple categories.

Optimal Content Balance

The bull’s-eye represents the optimal balance within content. A video can’t please everyone so this position at best is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Flu Virals

Flu virals rarely reach the highest interest level. They are often sports highlights or date specific events that lose their appeal as time goes on. A streaker at a home opener ball game peaks early as the game is fresh on the audience’s mind resulting in most traffic coming in the days immidiately after the game.  But, more games will be played and inevitably more streakers will jump the fence and make a hopeless dash for freedom. Let’s be honest, when was the last time you saw someone putting their clothes back on outside the arena without any bruises?

Seeded Virals

Seeded virals are often within the realm of flu virals as companies enlist the services of web influencers to push a video into an audience’s view whether they know about the hidden agenda or not.

Sleeper Virals

Sleeper virals are content that lean hard to the production side of the model. These clips are generally uploaded from relatively unknown users and sit amongst the sea of videos uploaded each day. After an extended period of time moving around personal networks and within organic conversation a couple blogs or social influencers catch on and spread the clips increasing their popularity exponentially.

Addictive Epidemics

Music is an example of content that causes addictive epidemics. It’s the type of content that a wide audience can enjoy, put in a playlist and share with their friends easily. The content promotes remixes and multiple plays which is why, on our last check, music dominates the Top 100 Videos of All Times. If you look at the number one all time song on YouTube and match it to the pattern within the model you will see that initially RCA Records would have pushed the song in the market and then allowed the content to take over and run it to all time viral position it is in today.

Simple Viral Threshold

Human nature for sharing can be extremely complex or extremely simple. A simple way of looking at it is looking at any one individual having three broad options seen in the image here. The goal of any viral would be to consistently hit the third stage of any online media consumer.

Integrated Media Campaigns

An integrated media campaign takes the distribution side of the grid and blankets anyone with eyes and ears via promotion over multiple outlets. Levis jeans uses integrated tactics when they release web videos of a monkey doing Hollywood, someone doing a backflip into a pair of jeans and then additionally setting up a website to send crotch gifts to each other.

Organic Web Catalysts

Organic web catalysts are little gems for viral videos. They immediately show up as statistic blips as one or more online networks, online influencers or an event occurs launching a video into the spotlight. Some of these catalysts include Digg.com, a YouTube feature (regional and then worldwide), increased comments and ratings placing a video on page one of “what’s popular” or “rising videos”, multiple blog posts to gain recognition on The Viral Video Chart or a spot on The Best of YouTube.

Wrapping it Up

Each video that generates a certain level of success will be able to be plotted on the above grid. The more statistical data available from the release of the video to its climax the more accurate one can place the video into a given pattern.

The model helps to identify the what and why surrounding certain videos and ultimately creates a better understanding of the digital media landscape and the overall concept of Viralism.

Cheers!

In previous decades the question was debated through examples of companies like Comcast and Disney (who almost joined under one umbrella way back when).  Comcast and Disney both flirted with the idea of having Pocahontas and Simba following through cable pipelines controlled by one entity, but they are still pitted to battle over what is king. 

When the distribution nuke (commercial Internet) dropped, companies like YouTube formed and Dan Ackerman Greenberg released an article in November 2007 titled “The Secret Strategies Behind Many “Viral Videos”.  The article itself has reached an astounding number of comments (757, March 16th 2008) and rehashed the argument as to whether content is king in this New Media age.      

The comments, like any really good article, are full of opinions from both sides.  Some recognize that marketing has been manipulatively presenting material for years only the back end work took place in the pubs, restaurants and clubs that the newspaper editors or TV tycoons use to hang out in.  Now the playing field has moved online.

Secondly, others think it’s disgusting and that Dan is ruining the credibility of the Internet as a medium, instilling paranoia and distrust in the readers of online content.  

Thirdly, the middle of the spectrum opinions outline a few things that Dan is doing are actually unethical, such as having a conversation with himself via fake users (creative self spamming) but, see the value in the other strategies present.         

Here is the fine line between promotion and spamming.  Dan’s claim that there’s just too much content out there to dream of your video ever becoming viral rings like a justification for the strategy but viral videos still make it to most viewed pages organically.  It depends on the subject matter of content.  

Dan is right in the sense that a video designed to steer an audience towards an agenda of driving attention or sales to a company is not the most appealing content for the majority.  Therefore, the Comotion Group has decided to implement these tactics to compete with the mass amount of “real” videos that they are competing against.  

The above posted video shows the irony of his claim that content is not king.  There are numerous examples of organic content going through a series of events to reach Viral status.  Cue Star an A Cappella Tribute, Her Morning Elegance or Everything’s Amazing Nobody’s Happy to name a few recent ones.  

The category of content Dan needed to promote (trailers) is said to be the Film Cloverfield.  Trailers have marketing budgets and can be referred to as “Flu Virals”.  They appear, are extremely visual and exciting, everyone talks about them, the release date comes, the actual (peer) reviews come out and people are inoculated getting their fix or decide it’s not worth it.  
Arguably there are a few trailers that change the upper echelon of viral videos.  Slumdog Millionaire for one, but that film boast pure quality.  It won numerous Oscars and is scored with an example of viral music; MIA’s Paper Planes.      

Finally, the concept within the Cloverfield trailers is driven by content.   The fact that you never see the monster in the clips isn’t a distribution element.  It is a classic tactic of suspense creation.  To borrow from Lucky Number Slevin’s line “That’s when villain is most effective”.   

Content is king.  Certain people or companies, with built up networks focusing on certain subject categories will be able to influence the attention specific content gets.  This is especially true if they implement Dan’s tactics but by no means should this be considered the Bible of viral marketing, maybe just a chapter in Revelations.

Cheers!

Update March 20th: Zideo.nl is a video content site and the founder has this strategic advice for youth when making their videos.    

Create the video around these guidelines:   50% Content, 15% Metadata, 20% Thumbnail and 15% Promotion

Viral Videos have added a new weapon to the marketers arsonal.  Agencies and production companies alike boast their portfolios of online content.  But how can an organization say they specialize in Viral Video production?  Arguably there isn’t an ironclad formula for making videos that, for a host of reasons, ends up breaking a million views.  It might even be considered arrogant to say you or your company can make Viral Videos.  Many videos high at the top of the charts aren’t business related at all (hahaha for example).  

In the attempt to map out the dimensions of these media gems the Viral Catalog has been broken into categories.  Flushing out these categories should help find similar patterns of success.  So next time you come across a video that’s destined for greatness see where it fits in and submit it.  

Real

The Real category contains videos that gained their popularity because the attractive features of the content come from deep within the subject(s) on camera.  The people live their lives the way the video portrays them. 

Slapstick

Think Charlie Chaplin – Three Stooges 
or visit Wikipedia.

Animal

If you are reading this blog and you don’t know
what the animal category might consist of…/Pity 

Kids

/Pity 2x

Uniquely Creative

This category shows off videos that truly stand out.  
The producers of these clips need sheer determination or they have invested a lot of time, maybe both.  Many of these videos are clever showing something common from a different perspective.     

Shock & Awe

Videos belonging to this group will leave the majority of viewers with big eyes and hanging jaws. 

Commercial

Anything to promote a product or service.  

Music & Dance

Music and Dance needs to be considered in a league of their own because they dominate the online world. This category has a higher bar of entry and has an increasingly large gray area as more mash ups go viral.