Last week we saw two successful brand videos achieve viral-dom.
You know it when you scroll through your Facebook newsfeed and everyone seems to be posting the same, random video out of nowhere. You know, the one with the seductive title that is prefaced by your friends’ saying: “@friend @friend this one’s for you!” or “This is amazing!!” or simply “:).”
One of the laws that make it possible for these videos to be striking to so many is the fact that they don’t appear too often. It’s been a while since a brand video has captivated the Interwebs. The last big viral hit was Mateo’s plea to have cupcakes for dinner (over 11.5 million views)- and that was a regular homemade clip. Last week, however, two brands struck gold.
The first was Diesel, with its ‘A-Z of Dance.’ The other, American Greetings, with ‘World’s Toughest Job.’
Diesel’s video (1,316,339 views,) in a true-to-brand collaboration with i-D Magazine, featured top dancers performing 26 iconic dance moves, outfitted in Diesel attire, of course.
Vastly different, American Greetings’ clip (14,628,457 views) was a series of fake job interviews for an inconceivably demanding job- that of a mom. Just in time for Mother’s Day.
Here we have two ways of getting views- 1) being captivating and 1) being emotionally touching.
Having seen both equally as ubiquitous on my social channels, I was surprised to see the drastically lower view numbers for Diesel’s. I realized that in my specific demographic of millennial creative types, that it that made sense that I was seeing it more than someone else may. According to a study on viral-promoting factors, inciting emotion and arousal top the list in winning traction. Videos that inspire are more likely to be shared on Facebook and rack up views. As ‘World’s Toughest Job’ was the more heartstring-tugging of the two, the findings validate its better performance.
The bottom-line result? No numbers for us to see, but American Greetings reported “differences in traffic seen at CardStore.com thus far.” This begs the question: do viral videos lead to sales? Given American Greetings is a publically-traded company, we should be able to see those results later to help us answer our question. Regardless, given the number of views, American Greetings (and Diesel) has gotten a return in value on another vital front: brand recognition.
We look forward to seeing what Father’s Day brings!