Word of mouth. Viral video. Buzz. Marketing colloquialisms today sound like a chronic illness. Fact is, average marketers don’t seem to get the art of online marketing. Most seem to think that good e-marketing is putting an ad online for people to print, or texting a coupon to someone’s smart phone. By extension, an online video is just a 10 second snippet of a TV commercial. The problem with this perspective is it’s audience-negligent. No one wants to watch a TV commercial online, especially if they’re just going to TIVO right past it…no matter how funny it might be. No, online videos are a creation unto themselves. They’re somewhere between TV show and advertisement. In fact, a good online video differentiates itself from an advertisement based on 4 key features:
1. It’s narrative. This isn’t rocket science: People like stories. People who like stories like to forward stories. People who receive forwarded stories in turn forward the stories. And so on.
2. It’s different and edgy. A viral video is a unique media creation, something that you wouldn’t see on TV. It’s humor, presentation, and delivery are unexpected and even edgy. Unfortunately, many marketers translate this into a liberal presentation of questionable content that can’t be shown on television. This perspective misses the mark, and, frankly, it’s overdone. A viral video is uniquely interesting, in the same way The Office was uniquely funny when it first aired on NBC. It redefines what entertainment is and can be.
3. It’s time-sensitive. Many people say that a viral video should be 30 seconds to a minute. But I say, “It depends”. Generally, if you can get a good entertaining story in 30 seconds or less, then do it. The point: be concise. Don’t go over, don’t go under.
4. It’s cultural. I don’t mean that a viral video should be a Discovery-channel exposition of the mores of a society. No, a viral video is culturally relevant, pointing out or even poking fun at the underlying standard operating procedures that often go unnoticed or under-recognized in society. In this way, viral videos may even be irreverent. To this point, one may say that a viral video is satirical, and I completely agree. Think David Letterman and Rupert Jee. Heck, think Mark Twain. He would be the virtual Bull in a China Shop if he lived a century and a half later.
Here’s a video that hits all 4 principles of a good viral video:
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