When you plan out your video marketing campaigns, one of your primary goals should be making sure that your video gets a lot of views. These views allow you to generate more brand awareness while also reaching out to more consumers. If you are able to create a viral video, you can easily achieve these goals quickly and receive even more awareness and recognition from consumers and even prominent media platforms as well. This article will talk about 7 videos that went viral and what made them successful.
7 Videos That Went Viral and Why
1. Old Spice – The Man Your Man Could Smell Like
Old Spice’s iconic video “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” should always be included in every list which showcases the best viral videos. This has become one of the best showcases of having a short and sweet viral video that relies on comedy.
For this video and campaign, they decided to place their focus towards the younger generation. This strategy resulted in a quick and funny video that addressed their new target audiences, which were women. The man in the video tells them that the men in their lives could smell like him if they used Old Spice.
By targeting a different audience through this video, Old Spice was able to approach them with a more in-your-face campaign. This gave them more freedom to create content with humour and sex appeal as these two elements were something that younger generations liked.
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE
2. Apple iPhone – Tracked
For Apple’s iOS 14.5 update, they were able to provide revolutionary privacy controls for its users. Users were now able to opt out of being tracked by apps which is a breakthrough in privacy.
To accompany these new controls, Apple created a video called “Tracked”. This video perfectly personified tracking apps as a series of intrusive people following a man wherever he goes.
It starts out with just being followed by one person and then the number of people that follow him suddenly escalate as he visits more places. Once he disables app tracking from his iPhone, all of the characters disappear.
What made this video go viral is how Apple was able to present a technological problem like having apps track your private information and visualise it in a way that consumers can easily understand how intrusive they can actually be, along with how they can solve this problem.
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjf7c-O5GyQ
3. Metro Trains Melbourne – Dumb Ways to Die
What makes “Dumb Ways to Die” so special as a viral video is that it cleverly diguises itself as a cute and bright animation while actually being a Public Service Announcement by Metro Trains Melbourne. The Melbourne Metro wanted to make sure that their campaign to promote rail safety would actually resonate and invoke a positive response from viewers.
This resulted in their agency helping them out by creating the lyrics to the video about the different dumb ways to die to emphasise the message that you need to be safe around trains because getting hit by one is a dumb way to die.
The campaign and the song became a worldwide sensation and became viral almost instantly. It became the internet’s most shared video in 2012 and the PSA was further expanded to include posters, billboards, books, and even a mobile game.
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJNR2EpS0jw
4. Nike – Winner Stays On
As part of their “Risk Everything” football campaign as well as in anticipation for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Nike launched a short film called “Winner Stays”. It is a fairly simple video concept as it starts off with a group of friends playing at a park. When they mention the name of their idols while they’re playing, they turn into them as well.
As the video goes on and the game gets more intense, the park suddenly turns into a packed arena. More boys from the game transformed into their favourite footballers and the intensity picks up even more and then eventually leads to a decisive penalty.
The video ends when one of the boys who has not transformed takes the ball off of Cristiano Ronaldo and takes the penalty himself which he scores.
This video became viral due to a number of factors which helped it reach a wide variety of audiences around the world. First, Nike was able to capitalise on all of their star athletes and showcased them all throughout the video.
Another element was the captivating and engaging story that brings us along throughout the duration of the video. Lastly, it capitalised on everyone’s anticipation for the upcoming World Cup. The World Cup is the perfect platform to display all of these popular athletes again on the international stage.
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGUor824a74
5. Dollar Shave Club – Our Blades Are F***ing Great
One of the best viral marketing videos of all time is Dollar Shave Club’s launch advertisement. While it did not have a large budget similar to Nike’s, it more than made up for it by creating a sharp, creative, concise, and entertaining advertisement that resonated with consumers and marketers alike.
Their humorous video focuses on sharing information about their product. They offer a $1 a month subscription service which sends razor blades to your home. It also provides witty commentary about how you only need low cast blades for shaving instead of the more expensive blades that other competitors may offer.
The video presenter’s deadpan delivery and how he encounters more and more absurd situations in their factory keeps viewers engaged from beginning until the end and closes with a call to action to visit their website.
The main factor which led to Dollar Shave Club’s video to go viral is humour. If you are able to tell your brand’s story in an entertaining and amusing way, you will be able to engage them on a more personal level.
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI
6. Samsung – Together With You
Samsung, along with its processor partner, Exynos, created a moving animated video entitled “Together With You”. This emotional video focuses on the struggles, challenges, and the eventual hopes that everyone is experiencing during this pandemic.
The short film tells a story of a young boy who loves playing video games and the game that he was playing at the beginning was a symbolism of the challenges we are facing during the pandemic.
The video ends with a more hopeful prediction of the future post-pandemic. This future shows everyone returning to their daily lives and being able to reunite with their loved ones as well.
This became one of the most viral videos about the pandemic because of the beautiful animation in the video which is also accompanied by a heartwarming and emotional story that keeps viewers engaged throughout the entire runtime. Uploaded on December 21, 2021, it has already received at least 22 million views on YouTube.
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3Wv_v6bcTs
7. Dove – Real Beauty Sketches
For this marketing campaign, Dove wanted to focus more on promoting body positivity and self-esteem towards women. This is seen through one of their most viral videos which is called “Real Beauty Sketches” where an artist draws two sketches of a person without actually knowing what they look like.
The first sketch had the artist relying on the person’s own description of themselves which was more critical while the second sketch had the artist relying on descriptions of the person but from someone else they met which tended to be more positive.
The difference between the two sketches show how different we perceive ourselves compared to how others perceive us and the video focuses on how we are actually more beautiful than we think.
This compelling and eye-opening video by Dove went viral because it is a reminder that people, more specifically women, should not be too hard on themselves when it comes to their looks. What makes it so shareable is that the video says something close to home that anyone cannot just simply share to everyone.
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaOjMXyJGk
If you want to create your own viral videos, then our team at fewStones can help you out. Working with fewStones for your live action video or animated video allows you to partner up with experienced video professionals who know all the important techniques, strategies, and messages that you will need to give your video a good chance at going viral.
