Viral marketing is gaining popularity. To talk about the company and product, some organizations resort to it. Creativity and spontaneity make viral advertising attractive. The consumer is surprised and even shocked; he is interested in you.

The task of viral advertising is to unobtrusively present a company, product or service. Most consumers are tired of the same type of advertising. They ignore her. With the virus, things are different. It is almost impossible to pass by it. It's a bright flash that's intriguing.

Sometimes the importance of viral advertising is comparable to PR promotion, which gives a successful start to your business. When other methods of promoting a product have failed, creatives resort to the virus. As a result, they get their audience, some of which later become clients.

Your audience is men

Before you launch a viral ad, you need to know who will see it. You must define your target audience. Experience shows that men aged 16 to 40 with above-average income are susceptible to the virus. They are well versed in information technology, actively use the Internet, enjoy sports, and love to travel. Correctly influence this audience, and buyers will be drawn to you.

Women also do not ignore the virus, but they are not so willing to be interested in the advertised product. This may be due to the fact that the products of companies that use viral advertising in business are made for men (cars, cigarettes, office equipment, etc.).

Planning work

Before you start producing viral advertising, it is important to pay attention to the work plan and answer a number of questions.

1. Develop a marketing message. You need to clearly decide what product you are going to advertise.

3. Will email be used? Are you going to send viral advertising?

More provocations, sensations and shock

Experience shows that consumers are interested in something unusual, funny, and sometimes shocking. Your viral advertising should be exactly like this. But don’t go too far, be ethical. Chasing provocation can be costly. Not all audiences are ready to adequately perceive the same black humor and someone else’s tragedies. This sometimes becomes the main theme for the virus. You'd better skip the dirt and focus on relevant topics. What is trending now attracts attention.

I immediately remember a viral video in which the police detain a passerby on the street. A young man (a native of the Caucasus) calls the police “borscht” and asks to return his red moccasins. A “random” witness films the arrest on camera, comments on the actions of law enforcement officers and, as if by chance, shows the audience a green car from one of the Moscow companies. It contains addresses and telephone numbers, the name of the organization.

The authors of this viral video got into the trend: some social network users like to joke about red moccasins, which are worn by everyone. Result: the video received thousands of views, the company successfully advertised itself.

Give preference to video

Unlike photos or text, video will be distributed faster among your potential buyers. Remember the following rules for shooting a viral video:

1. Shoot video with a regular camera. Shooting with a camera like this feels like home, people won’t even think that you are showing them an advertisement.

2. The length of the video should not exceed two minutes. The best option is 30 seconds.

3. Prepare several videos that will be united by a common idea or hero. Organize a series for your potential buyers.

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 to promote a business. 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

There has been a lot of buzz around viral marketing lately. 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. When used correctly, 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, the majority of the active audience on this social network are girls between 20 and 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 choose groups with a large number of target audiences. 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 a “specialist” promises quick creation and distribution of a video, you should not order or trust him with business promotion. 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

Now is the time. This technique became known at the end of the 19th century, but now it has become widely used thanks to the rapid development of the Internet, and social networks, in particular, where people exchange photos and videos without any problems. The statistics are inexorable: every fourth user shares interesting and creative materials with friends, including those of an advertising nature. Viral marketing is widely used in advertising by such companies as Microsoft, Volvo, Mercedes, IBM, Old Spice, Adobe, Nike, Adidas. Also, a good type of advertising on the Internet is targeted advertising on social networks. You can read more about this advertisement here. If your company, product or service needs promotion on the Internet, contact our company.

How to make viral advertising

You will need

• — Product or service;
• — advertising message;
• — Computer with Internet access.

Instructions 1 Formulate your marketing message. Think about what product or service you are going to advertise and create a message that describes the benefits and uses of the item you are selling.
2

Create content on your site to share with other people and communities. For example, you can allow visitors to add funny videos from your site to their own blogs.

A social media link is another way to spread information from one person to another.

Learning to make viral advertising

Viral marketing is gaining popularity. To talk about the company and product, some organizations resort to it. Creativity and spontaneity make viral advertising attractive.

The consumer is surprised and even shocked; he is interested in you. The task of viral advertising is to unobtrusively present a company, product or service.

Important

It's a bright flash that's intriguing. Sometimes the importance of viral advertising is comparable to PR promotion, which gives a successful start to your business. When other methods of promoting a product have failed, creatives resort to the virus.

As a result, they get their audience, some of which later become clients.

How to make and launch cool viral advertising

Paid online advertising can also help increase viral views. Example: The Audi Green Police commercial was originally launched during the Super Bowl and was also supported by a major online campaign, including the Interactive Challenge and many other related online videos. 10. The Luck Factor Anyone planning to launch a viral campaign must recognize the presence of such a factor as luck.
For various reasons, some campaigns inspire audiences to create parodies, humorous versions, and become topics of online discussion. At this stage, the marketer begins to lose control of his advertising campaign, and things can take an unexpected turn - but if you are lucky, you will experience success in the form of a massive viral rise in interest in your brand.

Viral advertising, or how to infect the target audience with your ideas?

Content comes to the fore here, and in second place is the task of advertising the product/service. 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:

• Saving advertising budget.
  As we found out, one of the differences between viral advertising is that it spreads from person to person. Therefore, there is no need to spend money on distributing the material.
• Formation of a positive attitude on a psychological level.

About a safe virus or a little about viral advertising

You need to clearly decide what product you are going to advertise. 2. Will there be a separate website for advertising your products, or will you place the virus on certain Internet resources? 3. Will email be used? Are you going to send viral advertising? 4. In what form will you advertise? Will it be video, photo, text? More provocations, sensations and shock Experience shows that consumers are interested in something unusual, funny, and sometimes shocking. Your viral advertising should be exactly like this. But don’t go too far, be ethical. Chasing provocation can be costly. Not all audiences are ready to adequately perceive the same black humor and someone else’s tragedies. This sometimes becomes the main theme for the virus. You'd better skip the dirt and focus on relevant topics. What is trending now attracts attention.

Smartberry research

Another striking example of social advertising from the Ministry of Health is a video with a lichen squirrel in the title role. Notations that alcohol is harmful to health are simply not perceived anymore, and the video itself instantly and clearly conveyed this idea to the audience. More examples? One of the best viral videos in the world is a creative advertisement for Evian drinking water. After the release of the video, brand awareness worldwide increased by 10%.

Attention

A sharp surge in popularity, decline and calm.

Unpredictability. You can never predict in advance which particular video will cause a viral reaction among Internet users.

What is viral advertising on the Internet?

Viral advertising is one of the fashionable and very effective ways to promote products on the Internet. This is usually a fun, funny or shocking video, flash cartoon, game or photograph. Such online advertising has nothing to do with computer viruses, it’s just that the method of distribution on the Internet is similar. It is based on an interesting psychological technology.

The point is simple: there are types of information that practically force a person to share it with others. The essence of viral marketing is that users share a message containing the necessary information voluntarily - simply because it is interesting to them.

A little history It is believed that the term “viral marketing” was coined in 1996 by Jeffrey Rayport in his article “The Virus of marketing.”

How to create viral advertising to promote information?

But seeing an advertisement for the same bread on TV is not necessary. After all, there are ways to make food in advertising tasty and appetizing, and we all have long been convinced that what we see does not always coincide with reality.

Friends, in turn, will share with their friends, who will share with their friends, and so on ad infinitum... Actually, that’s why the content of viral advertising should be bright, creative, memorable, with an unusual idea. According to statistics, almost every third user who receives an interesting message forwards it to friends.

Launch of viral advertising

This is how really cool, worthy videos become famous and popular. And often, on a global scale. High-quality viral advertising is characterized by distribution in almost geometric progression.

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, which 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 that 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.