A little while ago, a Swedish agency called Peacock visited our office in Copenhagen to offer their services. They'd even made an advert, which has since been named 'suicidal orange'. It's really good, but maybe not quite us. Have a look for yourself and see what you think:
After we met them, they posted it on youtube. We posted it on our own blog too, seeing as we liked it. We wanted to see what people thought of it. Some of our readers liked it and some didn't. Then the other day I noticed that the clip had gradually started to appear on advertising blogs (some links at the bottom of this post), some of which falsely credited us with producing it, which of course is unfair on the people at Peacock (can't find a URL for them anywhere).
I guess that when it started to spread on the web, it became 'viral'. 'Viral' is my least favourite term in the pantheon of adspeak, but it did make me take five minutes to have a think about how stuff 'becomes' viral? How does it spread?
The answer is, of course, that nobody really knows. Nobody can guarantee viralness. In this case, the fact that it's a bit weird and that it's also at odds (tonally) with what people have seen from us before means that it's interesting/unusual. Sometimes weird is good. Unexpected is good. So I'm guessing that some people are more likely to want to watch it than an innocent ad that features a pile of fruit and a packshot. People like new and unusual, especially on the web.
Of course, I'm still extremely wary of those who talk about 'viral'. I believe that the people who email me every day, telling me that they can make us excellent viral clips at the drop of a hat, are missing the point. You can't make things viral to order.
But you can do something else if you want to make stuff that people will send to their friends and post on their blogs. I think it's fairly simple. The more stuff you make, the more chance there is of something turning out to be good. And then people will watch it. So in 2007 we will be making more stuff, writing more stuff, posting more stuff and filming more stuff. Some of it will be rubbish and some of it might work. And seeing as we don't know which bits will work until we've done them, I guess we'd better get cracking.
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