by Carl Cardinelli (@CarlCardinelli) It’s 2016. Two thousand and sixteen. Am I the only one who is still receiving briefs for “viral campaigns”? Didn’t we laugh off this request some time ago?
With branded content being a bigger commodity than ever, we find ourselves in a position where the vast majority of (previously technophobic) clients are playing catch-up with the big brands — and we are being forced to relive the torment of explaining why viral remains a unicorn. The difference now is that there is a proven method for guaranteeing clicks, likes and shares. Rejoice! We can finally assure our clients’ success in reaching millions of people.
Draft template
To illustrate this, I’ve taken the liberty of drafting a template response to your client when this request pops up. No need to thank me. It truly was my pleasure.
Dearest [insert client here]
Many thanks for your email, even more so the request for a viral campaign on your modest budget. As I’m sure you can imagine, we adore the challenge of precisely pre-empting the constantly changing and unpredictable nature of the internet and its users. Best push out our current jobs — we have a live one here! “Give me a viral campaign”. Genius. It’s this kind of “out-of-the-box” thinking that we need from clients such as yourselves. There is a general view in the ad industry of “the fewer views, the better”.
Back in the 2000s, we used to have an absolute blast poking fun at requests such as these. We went off on lengthy tangents attempting to explain the unruly nature of this beast, using industry buzzphrases such as “digital strategy” and “what you put in is what you get out”. I found this excerpt from an old email I sent to a client who had a similar request a few years back — and I just had to share it with you:
Unfortunately, we cannot commit to the line item “Viral Video”. It is damn near impossible to predict what goes viral nowadays, especially when it comes to promoting brands over causes and ‘caught-in-the-moments’.
Consumers are wise to branded content — and are reluctant to promote or share something (in a personal capacity) that could be construed as unrelatable, forced, or worse, disingenuous. In short, there are just too many variables. Current affairs, meme culture, available technology, even time of day have a huge impact on the success of a digital campaign.
Naturally, we will do our best to create something that is relevant and likely to be shared among your intended target audience — but cannot provide any assurance on the deliverable.
You know when you look back on yourself, and it’s like, OMG, what was I thinking? How embarrassing. How wrong I was. I never imagined that, nearly a decade later, you’d be asking such as similar request to what we all so fondly ridiculed back then. Me, I love a good surprise. We are even more pleased that you have opted to use ROI-based metrics to determine the level of payment from your already shrivelled budget. If you don’t break a leg, you don’t go to the doctor. If we don’t achieve your reasonable target of 2m views, we don’t get paid. It just makes sense.
By the way, we completely understand your confusion around the line item titled “Digital Media Spend”. It was rather cheeky of us to expect you to pay for our time, as well as the hard costs, associated with digital media space. To let you in on a little secret: it’s not even real space. The same goes for “PR Push”. What is that even? In all honesty, we should be creating something so spectacular that every viewer shares it with their contacts immediately — regardless of their age, gender or other insignificant general characteristics. We’re in advertising. We call ourselves creative. This is our responsibility alone, and things such as ‘budget’ or ‘resource’ shouldn’t make a difference to us. I try to get this across to my team every day. Sometimes I even shout out “Dance Monkey” and we all laugh! The weak ones cry — what fun!
And your statement is 100% correct. “It only takes a photo! Kim Kardashian did it. How much can a photo possibly cost?” You see, it’s revelations such as these that bring us so much closer to #BTI. I hope you don’t mind; we’ve opted to vinyl this powerful thinking on our wall. Naturally, we’ll pay you for this. Revelations don’t come cheap — like little taglines and silly positioning statements. I still can’t believe that some agencies look to charge more for a line that’s shorter. “Succinct” and “all encompassing”, they say. More like “Three words = three minutes”. Haha. Thieving plebs.
As an aside, please thank whoever dug up one of our previous pro-bono campaigns which went viral with little-to-no hard spend. What a good detective. Referencing this campaign along with the comment “You’ve done it before on no money” says infinites about your respect for our industry and, indeed, our agency. Naturally, we never charged out agency hours for this good cause, but I can totally understand why you feel that you deserve the same. Sure, it would have cost them the related amount, should they have paid — but the point is that they didn’t — and that’s just not fair on you. Oh, and your reference videos on “what success looks like” are amazing; thank you. A blend between “Volvo Trucks” and “Baby Panda Sneeze” is exactly the sweet spot you should be aiming for. Good call.
That all being said, we are thrilled to share with you some new information on your request. With recent developments in digital marketing, specifically in the social media space, we are finally at the point where we can confidently say that your [Insert Product Here] campaign is GUARANTEED to go viral and, get this, it doesn’t even need to be that good.
It’s rather complex, so I won’t use any of that ad-jargon agencies use to steal more money from you. In a nutshell, all you need do it put truck-loads of cash behind sponsored social media posts, influencer strategies, retargeted banners, pre-rolls and programmatic.
I’m not kidding; it’s literally that easy.
It’s as simple as paying Justin Bieber to tweet the campaign a couple dozen times and, Bob’s your mother’s brother, you’re viral! Make sure it appears on everyone’s feed, and they’re immediately exposed. Genius, I say! And you’ll be glad to know that this method of virability is truly tried and tested. Ask any of the big-spending brands how they got their 30bn organic impressions and they’ll tell you how easy it was. The best part? It’s 100% scalable! Add a couple million here and there, and the reach rises like a cake in the dessert! Talk about leaving an impression (haha — remember when we tried to sell you those?).
Alternatively, should you not have an appetite to pay for something you want, please use the following formula and apply it to your brand.
[PEN + PINEAPPLE] x [APPLE + PEN] (to the power of UH!) = VIRAL
This way, you won’t have to pay us at all — and, when you really think about it, that’s a win for everyone (considering the invaluable exposure we will undoubtedly receive for working on your illustrious brand). #whatatimetobealive
Yours Always,
[insert name here]
Carl Cardinelli (@CarlCardinelli) began his career in branding and communications in 2003, spending the better part of six years establishing himself in London. Upon his return to South Africa in 2012, he was selected to lead Utopia, the “screw-the-line” agency based in Cape Town. When not heading up a team of unruly young admen, he can be found brewing his own beer, picking out a new pair of sneakers or travelling the globe in search of live music. Carl contributes the monthly “The Adtagonist” column, in which he challenges perceptions of the advertising industry and its practices for the next generation of marketers, to MarkLives.com
— Sign up now for the MarkLives email newsletter every Monday and Thursday, now including headlines from the Ramify.biz company newsroom service!