Viruses that create advertising. Viral advertising, or How to infect the target audience with your ideas? Advantages of viral advertising

We've released a new book, Social Media Content Marketing: How to Get Inside Your Followers' Heads and Make Them Fall in Love with Your Brand.

More videos on our channel - learn internet marketing with SEMANTICA

Main distinctive features Viral advertising is the naturalness of the message, which contains information regarding the product/service, as well as a unique and extraordinary idea that is sure to attract the attention of the audience. This type of advertising received its name “viral” due to the fact that it is transmitted from person to person.

How and by whom is viral advertising used?

Today, viral campaigns are actively used by large and medium-sized companies. It is especially relevant for global corporations, whose products are known almost all over the world. These enterprises have already reached high level skill in carrying out such advertising campaigns.

The main forms used in viral advertising: audio recordings, videos, photographic materials, original news feeds and the launch of rumors, short informative texts and news, holding flash mobs. Content is composed in such a way as to evoke emotions in the audience. Preferably positive.

Pros and cons of viral advertising on the Internet

First, let's look at the advantages of viral marketing:

If we talk about the advantages for advertising customers, we can note the absence of any restrictions, there is not even any special censorship. This even opens up opportunities for promoting special categories of goods, for example, products for adults/alcohol/tobacco products and so on. And again, it is worth emphasizing the duration of the life cycle, which ranges from three years and above.

The disadvantages include the following:

It is not easy to plan and forecast a campaign. Today it is almost impossible to determine whether the campaign will be successful and whether the “virus” will spread; it is impossible to calculate even the approximate speed of its spread. This is due to the fact that the main role in distribution is played by a live audience, users. It is quite difficult to predict their behavior.
The cost of a good idea and preparation of a viral product can be high. It’s not enough to come up with a great idea, you also need to implement it well, otherwise the whole effect will be lost and will not make sense.
Audience limitation. Unfortunately, viral advertising on the Internet only reaches Internet users. If you are promoting products/companies/services that are more aimed at users who are rarely online, it is better to abandon viral marketing.

Examples of viral advertising

Such advertising is aimed at a male network user; he will obviously be interested in such a “motorcycle” and will pass it on to his friends.

Here's another good example. The pizza is so hot that even the cat lay down on it to warm up. Well, how can you not be touched and send it to a friend?

And here is an interesting Hugo Boss banner. It is clear that this is editing. However, many take it at face value and share it with friends.

Speaking of video content, Android's "Friends Furever" video is a must-watch. It was shared 6,432,921 times in 2015 alone, when it first appeared. This speaks of a colossal success.

How to run viral advertising

First you need to analyze the target audience, on which Internet resources they spend most of their time. Perhaps it social media or video hosting, etc. Then a viral marketing strategy is drawn up, since the matter is not limited to the publication of one material. In this case, you need to take into account all the characteristics of potential clients.
Content development. This is the most difficult stage: you need to work out the material in detail and create a high-quality advertising product that can boast high potential.
Spreading. After the advertising message is ready, it is necessary to distribute it online. If the ad is really interesting, it will be viewed by thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of users of the World Wide Web. Advertising of this type allows you not only to attract new customers, but also to force existing customers to place a new order.
Monitoring. As you know, we do not control what we do not consider. It is necessary to constantly monitor the process and monitor for feedback. You need to get statistics on the prevalence of the virus to see the picture and draw conclusions about the effectiveness.
Grade. It is necessary to calculate such indicators as demographic data, number of unique views, peaks of activity, tone of feedback, volume of comments.

It will be useful to use the principles of creating viral advertising. This tool designed to attract the attention of the audience and transfer it to the product/product.

You can do this through:

Scandals. Incredibly, fights and scandals spread on the Internet at breakneck speed.
Shock. The public needs to be shocked, break existing rules, and do crazy things.
Laughter and humor. Advertising messages with a touch of humor spread much faster, since we all love to laugh and want to make the people we know smile more often.
"Cutness." These are our beloved kittens, puppies, little children. All this cannot but evoke tenderness, along with a desire to share.

When traditional online promotion methods don't work, it's time to look for a different, more creative approach to the problem. This could be viral advertising on the Internet. Viral advertising is one of the most effective ways business promotion. That is why such large brands as Samsung, Nintendo, Volkswagen and hundreds of others regularly use it in their advertising campaigns.

What is viral advertising and how does it work?

Viral advertising is any advertising on the network that is voluntarily distributed by users themselves. A sort of “word of mouth” of the 21st century. The fact is that trust in commercial advertising is now at a low level. Company promotion is not always led by a professional marketer. Therefore, the intrusiveness, irritability and uniformity of frankly bad advertising did their job - it became invisible to Internet users.

Viral advertising, unlike classic advertising, works on a different principle. Trust in it is due to the fact that it comes not from the company itself, but from acquaintances, friends, and relatives. Is there any reason for a person not to trust the opinions of loved ones? Definitely not. Everyone listens to the advice and reviews of real people much more than to empty advertising promises. Therefore, when using viral advertising, it can give impressive results. But only if you approach its creation correctly.

History of Viral Marketing

The history of viral marketing begins with a 1996 article written by the founder and chairman of the division of the largest strategic consulting company Marketspace LLC, Jeffrey Rayport. In his article, he also introduced such concepts as “psychological advertising”, “socio-organic advertising” and “self-valued advertising”.

According to the expert, the classic 20-30 second commercials between television programs are gradually becoming obsolete. Therefore, there is a need to organically fit advertising into the lives of consumers.

“Most marketers know that penetrating the consumer's mind is the most difficult task; the usual answer is to simply turn up the volume. Viruses are smarter: they find their way into consciousness under the guise of other, unrelated activities.” (excerpt from article)

In addition, Jeffrey Rayport has developed 6 rules for successful viral marketing. And, despite the fact that the article was written 20 years ago, these rules are still relevant.

Rules for successful viral marketing:

Cunning is the essence of entering the market correctly.
Give the client something for free - the profit will come later.
Advertising must convey a message to the target audience.
Advertising should look like an organism, not a virus.
Harness the power of weak ties.
Invest to reach the tipping point.

According to the expert, viral marketing can revolutionize the idea of promotion. And, despite the fact that the effect is not immediately visible, the results can grow exponentially. Therefore, positive dynamics are a sure sign that viral marketing has worked.

Reasons for the popularity of viral marketing: pros and cons

IN Lately There is a lot of noise around viral marketing. Some argue that this method of promotion fits perfectly with the modern consumer, while others, ardent supporters of traditional marketing, doubt its effectiveness. Therefore, you need to consider the pros and cons of viral advertising.

Cheap distribution. The promotion of the commercial is carried out by the users themselves, so the costs of its distribution are significantly lower than classical promotion.
Increased user confidence. Most often, viral advertising comes from people you know, which increases its credibility.
Lack of intrusiveness. The user has the right to independently choose whether to open the link or not.
Easy targeting. Channels for seeding are determined by the advertiser at its own discretion, taking into account the parameters of the target audience and the format of future advertising.
No censorship. Using viral marketing, the advertiser receives complete freedom, or almost complete (videos of a pornographic, violent, etc. nature are prohibited).
No time restrictions. If you compare viral videos with television advertising, there are no such restrictions as when using airtime.
Large audience reach. At correct use advertising spreads like a virus, reaching audiences of millions.

Difficulty in predicting the outcome. Viral advertising is unpredictable. You can hire a team of marketers and order a high-quality video that will only get a couple of thousand reposts. Then, an amateur video shot on a regular smartphone will easily cross the 1,000,000 mark.
High cost of implementing the idea. The idea is the basis of viral marketing. And sometimes the budget for its implementation reaches six figures.
Limited target audience. This type of marketing can only exist within the Internet space. It is impossible to implement it offline.

Examples of viral online advertising

To fully understand the essence of this marketing tool, you need to analyze it using specific examples. There are thousands of them on the Internet, in particular on the popular video hosting site YouTube. Moreover, among them there are both brilliant ideas and not so great ones.

Photo.
Video.
By text.
Application.

As examples, we need to consider all 4 types of viral advertising, which worked equally well.

Viral photo from Nikon.

According to the marketing planners, it is immediately clear that the advertising is aimed primarily at a male audience. Moreover, the brand saved a lot on the advertising campaign budget without compromising the effectiveness of the viral photo.

Viral video from the John Lewis chain of foreign department stores

The number of views of this video is simply off the charts - 26,630,934. Viral promotion of the video on YouTube also turned out to be very productive - almost 2 million reposts. His secret is simple - the video made the audience laugh sincerely. Of course, judging by the quality of the video, a lot of money was spent on implementing the author’s idea, but the result clearly paid for all the costs.

Viral article on the Huffington Post website

Promoting the Lipton brand through a viral application

The “Favorite Farm” application is widely known among users of the social networks vkontakte.ru, odnoklassniki.ru and mail.ru. The company, having integrated its brand into this application, attracted 1.3 million new users within one month.

There are many successful examples of successful viral marketing. But in order to launch the desired advertising format, you must first analyze the target audience and then determine distribution channels. Since the advertising format mainly depends on the platform where it is placed.

How to make viral advertising?

Having been inspired by the examples, you can start planning an advertising campaign for your own business. But the question immediately arises - where to start? And you need to start with the basics of viral advertising on the Internet.

Today there is no special technology for success in creating viral advertising. But according to the observations of marketers, there are standard techniques that increase the likelihood of its rapid spread. Users are most loyal to advertising that contains:

Children.
Animals.
Stunts and special effects.
Girls of model appearance (only for male audience).

But sometimes the psychology of viral advertising turns out to be much more complex. And materials that seem guaranteed to bring success remain unnoticed. In this case, one can only hope that the next attempt will be more successful.

Viral advertising on VKontakte

Social networks are an excellent platform for spreading viral advertising. Users of social networks, in particular VKontakte, without any coercion, like, comment on posts, and repost content that interests them.

When viral advertising is ready for seeding, you need to immediately determine the channels for its promotion. If, at first glance, it seems that it is enough to throw it on your VK page and then it will promote itself, then this is not so. To spread a virus across a social network you need to:

Select groups where the largest number of target audiences are concentrated.
Agree with the owner about publication.
Track all events related to the advertising campaign.
Prepare an escape route if viral advertising has the opposite effect.

It is worth noting that viral advertising does not always work as it should. Sometimes a provocative video becomes a reason for condemnation and a lot of negativity towards the company. To preserve the brand’s reputation, you need to immediately think of an option that could smooth out this situation.

An example is a video advertising the game Word of Tanks. There, Vadim Galygin, in the role of a father, locks his supposed son in a closet and nails him with boards in order to play the above-mentioned game. This story caused a lot of negativity and reproaches. The company was also accused of child abuse. Therefore, the company representative had to state that this video was not an official advertisement produced by their company.

Viral advertising on Instagram

Viral advertising on Instagram is most often presented in photo format. Text is not suitable, since users often do not read what is written under the photo. And YouTube is intended for viral video promotion; Instagram is used only as an additional channel for seeding.

Unobtrusiveness. The words “Promotion”, “Sale”, “New” and other advertising cliches should not be mentioned in the photo and in the description below it.
Humor or cuteness. Funny and touching photos are best promoted on Instagram. And there is a reason for this. According to statistics most of The active audience on this social network is girls from 20 to 30 years old.
Relevance. The message that the photo carries must correspond to current trends. In order not to make a mistake, you should conduct an analysis and study the interests of the target audience before creating advertising.
Discussions. It’s good when advertising not only evokes positive emotions, but also provokes users to enter into a discussion. Therefore, the idea of the plot must be controversial so that a person has a desire to express his point of view.
Advertising message. In all circumstances, one must not forget to establish a connection with the brand. This could be a barely noticeable logo or the use of a unique product in the story, the sight of which makes it immediately clear who it belongs to. For example, black pumps with red soles are immediately associated with the famous Christian Louboutin brand.

Popular public pages or accounts of opinion leaders are selected for distribution. The last option is the most effective. Because Instagram users watch the lives and publications of their idols with great interest.

How to create viral advertising in Odnoklassniki?

Odnoklassniki is a social network for a more mature generation of users. The main advantage of this social network is that “class” is both a like and a repost. Therefore, it is enough to make a post that users will simply like.

Most often, viral posts on Odnoklassniki are those with the caption “Do you remember this?”, “Have you had this happen too?” And so on. Therefore, when creating advertising in Odnoklassniki, it is best to “press” on nostalgia. The 40+ generation remembers their early years with pleasure.

To distribute viral advertising, as in other cases, you should select groups with big amount target audience. Promotion in Odnoklassniki occurs much faster than in other social networks. Because, by putting “class”, the user, without realizing it, promotes viral advertising among his friends.

Calculating the success of viral advertising

A sad fact that all marketers know is that the success of viral advertising cannot be calculated in advance. Therefore, no one can guarantee a positive result of an advertising campaign. If the “specialist” promises quick creation and distribution of the video, you should not order and trust him to promote your business. Conscious concealment of possible risks is not professional behavior of a marketer.

The success of viral advertising can be determined after 3 days from the date of its launch. This period marks the peak of its distribution after sowing. As research by Unruly Media shows, if an advertisement has not gained popularity within this period, we can consider that the advertising campaign has failed. Although in some cases the life cycle of viral advertising can reach 3 years.

Examples of viral advertising

1. Script writing and evaluation

· The incredibleness of the scenario: The plot of the video should “blow” the mind.

· The idea must be “catchy”, showing an unusual look at familiar things or demonstrating something fundamentally new.

· Advertising connection with the advertised brand should be subtle and unobtrusive. If the video is overtly promotional, viewers will not share it and viral promotion will not work. Purely commercials are still a rare exception, like any masterpieces.

· Relevance: how well the plot of the video corresponds to current events, news and people’s moods.

· Spread speed: the essence of the emergence of a viral wave requires that the main number of views occur in the first 2-3 weeks after the video is launched on the Internet. Experience shows that successful videos receive 40% of all views in the first week.

2. Shooting a video

· You don't need professional video shooting in the studio. All you need is an ordinary household video camera or even a high-quality mobile phone. Home filming does not reduce the chances of a video becoming a hit, since it is not associated with direct advertising. However, do several takes and edit the video well so that it fully reveals the original script.

· Final the video should be short, maximum 2 minutes, and ideally 15-30 seconds.

· Prepare a series of several videos at once united by a common idea. Viewers who are inspired by your first video will always want more, and you shouldn’t keep them waiting, as interest in your videos will quickly fade over time. Having a series of videos at hand, you can try to display them one by one on the main pages of video hosting, which cannot be done with a single video, since the lifespan of each video on the main page is limited.

· Use a sex theme– Hire the most beautiful women you can find to film your videos.

· Provide an opportunity for a remix. As the popularity of your video grows, there will be enough people who want to parody it. Help them in advance - the video should be simple enough that fans can easily re-edit it and voice it in their own way.

3. Virus culture

You can’t hope that your video will be noticed on video hosting sites and will get a start in life on its own. No matter how good your viral video is, it won’t get even several thousand views on its own. Tens of thousands of videos are uploaded to popular video hosting sites every day, and the chances that your video will be seen by anyone just like that are very small. There is simply no chance that it will become popular on its own. For a video to become popular, the virus must be seeded correctly.

First of all, our goal is to get on the main page or in the “popular videos” section of the video hosting site, so that we can get the full power of its own audience. To do this, you need to ensure a certain number of initial views and comments on the video. Fortunately, this is not so difficult, especially if you prepare for video promotion in advance:

1. Think “in depth”, not “in breadth”– you should not post the video on 50 video hosting sites at the same time. For the realities of Runet it is enough to limit yourself to YouTube, RuTube, [email protected] and the video service Vkontakte.ru, which has become popular recently. These video hosting sites are the leaders in terms of traffic, which, taking into account the low overlap of the audience of these video hosting sites, will ensure maximum audience coverage.

2. Optimize your profile on video hosting. These sites allow their users to subscribe to playlists and other people's video lists, and if you have a lot of friends, they will immediately see your new videos. Therefore, by the time the video is uploaded, it is advisable to “pump up” your profiles so that you have several hundred (preferably a thousand) friends. To do this, add videos that have already proven their popularity to your favorites, create good selections in your profile thematic video, become a member of thematic communities and make friends with other video hosting users whose interests coincide with yours.

3. Optimize your video description. Video preview picture, text brief description and the video title should work together. Try to make them intriguing and challenging. For a preview it would be ideal to be present in the frame beautiful woman or at least human face or figures. When the video gets on the page of a popular video, such a combination of an intriguing title and a picture with beautiful girl will provide him with an additional competitive advantage.

4. Post all your videos at once. If you have prepared several videos in a series, post them not sequentially, but all at once. In this case, seeding and promotion are carried out only for the first video, but the viewer has the opportunity to immediately watch the continuation of the series. Thus, our goal of advertising our own brand is more reliably achieved - the viewer sees not one, but several of our videos. When the maximum potential has been squeezed out of the first video, we erase the second video from the video hosting site, upload it again and begin seeding, trying to get to the main page again.

5. Use unique video tags. When posting a series of videos, use non-descriptive keywords aimed at searching for the video by visitors to video hosting sites. No, no - come up with your own set of unique tags, the same for the entire series. The tags you choose should not be used on video hosting in the description of other people's videos. This way, you will be able to control that in the “similar videos” section, the viewer is presented with all the videos in your series, and not a set of other people’s videos that have nothing to do with you and your brand. A week or two after planting the viral campaign, edit the tags so that the videos are found in searches using obvious keywords.

6. Let everyone know about your video. Send the video to entertainment portals, write letters or via ICQ to all your friends, post the video on your home page on the Internet and on social networks such as Odnoklassniki.ru and Vkontakte. Post the link or the video itself on popular thematic forums and communities. Yes, all this requires a lot of effort and time, but we need to ensure as many views of the video as possible in the first day of its placement.

7. Don't forget about bloggers. Be sure to include in your plan the placement of the video in the blogosphere. Modern systems connections with bloggers, for example blogun.ru, allow you to quickly and effectively cover the blogosphere and quickly get a large number of views and comments for your video.

Relatively recently, the concept of “viral advertising” appeared in the everyday life of Internet users. This is somewhat different from what is usually imagined in the interpretation of viruses as such. In fact, such advertising is not initially created to distribute viral and malicious codes (although such cases are not uncommon). And any user can create such a presentation for more successful business, attracting the interest of a potential buyer of goods or services. True, for this you will have to plunge a little into the mechanisms of work and marketing.

What is viral advertising?

To begin with, it is worth defining the very concept of viral advertising. As is already clear, spreading viruses with the aim of causing damage to a user system or an enterprise network is not at all the main task.

As statistics show, viral advertising on the Internet is more focused on getting an Internet user interested in some product or service, so that he not only follows a link (often hidden) to a site with a redirect, but also disseminates information or methods of transition among his acquaintances And the Internet is not always needed for this.

Agree, even in those days when there was no World Wide Web, people passed on information, what is called word of mouth. And today this technique is as relevant and efficient as possible. The example is the simplest: a person was “fallen” by the description of the product, went to the store and bought it, after which he immediately told a friend that the price was lower and the quality was higher. Do you think a friend will ignore the product after such a flattering review? No! He will buy it to see for himself that it really does what it was advertised to do. But the trouble is, it often turns out to be a complete disappointment.

But if we take into account modern network technologies, the question of what viral advertising is can really be interpreted as a means of distributing malicious codes or potentially dangerous (or unnecessary) software. In the simplest case, you can look at the installation of some programs, which during the installation process appear various kinds of offers for installing additional components, which most often concerns browser add-ons and plugins. Most users don't pay attention to this. And this is precisely the main advantage for those who create this kind of software.

But since now we are talking about how to make such advertising as effective as possible, we will start from this. And first we need to find out how this all works both at the Internet level and in terms of its impact on the psyche of the average person.

History of Viral Marketing

As in any other industry, before creating an advertising video or banner that the user must be interested in, a statistical market study should be carried out.

The peculiarities of viral marketing, the concept of which appeared only in 1996 thanks to Jeffrey Rayport, who in his detailed article talked about possible methods of transmitting information (not always positive, by the way) from one individual to another, is that quite often all this happens almost on a subconscious level.

Some call it “word of mouth”, others call it the 25th frame effect. Regardless of the interpretation of the term itself, the impact on the human psyche is always the same.

This is the simplest understanding of the activities that are provided by videos of this type. But to be frank, the impact on the human psyche is much broader.

Viral advertising: features of human perception

Psychologists, as a rule, note several storylines, which can interest a potential visitor:

original and unusual tricks;
presence of animals and children in the video;
hidden and unnoticeable humor;
models in swimsuits (targeted at a male audience);
the youth and freshness of the actors, emphasizing, for example, the use of a particular drug.

These are not all the methods that viral advertising on the Internet uses. But even based on this, it is not difficult to notice that many react to such videos as quickly as possible and press buttons or transition links, almost without thinking. This is the whole mechanism.

How does it all work?

Now another look at what constitutes viral advertising on the Internet. Examples can be given even with the participation of famous and highly respected global brands. But the main condition is that the brand itself is not clearly advertised, but rather veiled, although the end user is given a message specifically about it.

What is worth looking at as an example? Please! An example of Nikon's viral advertising, clearly aimed at a male audience (with photos of a semi-erotic nature), haunts many.

Here's hot pizza. Remember when animals were mentioned? Well, why not a classic of the genre? Such a video will obviously be viewed both on social networks and on the same YouTube hosting. So why be surprised?

Here comes Hugo Boss. By the way, it is quite obvious that this is a real montage. But many people fall for it...

How to interest a potential client?

The basic principle, which is used almost everywhere, is that information reaches the end user from trusted sources (relatives, friends, acquaintances). The same social networks are a real Klondike, where viral advertising on the Internet has almost unlimited possibilities in terms of distribution. And these are not simple words.

Easily accessible – viral photos and videos should have fast speed opening, take up little space, easy to copy and quickly transfer to other users; free - programs, videos, games and other materials should be free to view and use; explosive - any “virus” should evoke strong emotions and stand out from the rest of the content.

2. Stages of viral advertising

You can develop viral content in three steps.

Step 1. Idea

Step 2. Implementation

Step 3. Implementation

3. Viral advertising techniques

To create viral content, answer these questions for yourself:

What will interest or be useful to the target audience?

1. Humor

Create funny and funny posts. Users willingly share such content with each other.

2. Emotions

Evoke emotions. They can be both positive and negative. The more emotions you can evoke in a person, the greater the chances of your content going viral. To achieve this, adhere to the following principles:
create material that is filled with love or hate; make people think you are a genius; do things that make people happy or irritate them.
3. Motivation
Create a call to action. This technique is used by sporting goods sellers. For example, Nike’s famous slogan “Just do it” can be found on many social media pages.
4. Exclusivity
Come up with something unexpected and unusual. No one is interested in information that is already familiar. Users want new experiences. Think about what's unique about your niche. Start with questions:
What's the most obvious thing about your industry? Turn it around and do it the other way around; what unusual examples from other fields can you use in your own?
5. Stories
Don't make a "user guide" video. Create stories. For example, a video in which rescuers filmed saving a kitten on the company’s camera received a huge number of views.
6. Provocation
Come up with risky content. People love to watch things that disgust them.
7. Consistency
Post content regularly. One-time posts are quickly forgotten.