Learn From the Best Viral Marketing Campaigns to Boost Your Brand Awareness

Viral marketing campaigns aim to spread brand awareness and messages through online "word-of-mouth." When done right, these campaigns can reach millions of viewers quickly and cost-effectively.

In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll dive into what makes viral campaigns so powerful, break down real-world examples, and provide actionable strategies to create your own viral sensations.

What is Viral Marketing?

Viral marketing leverages the power of social sharing. The goal is to create content that viewers voluntarily pass along to their own networks. This creates exponential growth as each new viewer spreads it further.

While TV, radio and print ads must be purchased, viral content gets shared for free. A successful viral campaign can massively boost brand visibility and awareness at a fraction of the cost of traditional ads.

Some key advantages of viral marketing include:

Organic reach: Viewers seek out and share your content voluntarily if it resonates with them. This reaches audiences that may not see traditional ads.
Cost-effective: User shares distribute your message vs. paid media placements. A viral hit can reach millions without big ad spends.
Engagement: Viral content entertains and engages viewers, making them more likely to interact with your brand and share with others.
Brand lift: Viral success can significantly boost brand awareness, visibility and affinity almost overnight.

Of course, creating a viral sensation is easier said than done. It requires creative, entertaining and shareable content tailored to your audience. When executed well, the payoff can be tremendous.

How Does Viral Marketing Work?

Viral marketing success depends on creating "buzz." This means getting a core group of users to share your content within their own networks.

With each cycle of sharing, your message spreads further. Done right, this creates a viral effect reaching a massive scale in a short time.

Viral marketing illustration

The key steps typically include:

Identifying your goal: What message do you want to spread? Boost brand awareness? Promote a product? This guides your content creation.
Creating shareable content: Develop unique, entertaining, helpful or emotional content tailored to your goal and audience. Video, images, quizzes and challenges tend to get high engagement.
Seeding to influencers: Identify key influencers to share your content first to their large followings. Their credibility helps spark the viral effect.
Pushing through owned channels: Share your content through your own website, social media, email lists etc. to start momentum with current followers.
Monitoring and optimizing: Analyze performance in real-time. Double down on content resonating best. Tweak underperforming content to improve sharing rates.

Viral content that takes off will spread rapidly through shares, driving huge growth in brand impressions, site traffic, leads and sales.

Examples of Viral Marketing Campaigns

Let‘s look at real viral marketing examples that spread like wildfire to inspire your own ideas:

Old Spice: "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like"

This series of video ads for Old Spice men‘s body wash created an Internet sensation back in 2010. The first video garnered over 13 million views within a week.

The spots featured a muscular Old Spice spokesman speaking directly to female viewers, promising they could enjoy the same manliness of their partners if they bought Old Spice for them.

The unique format and humor made these ads instantly go viral. Over 150 million total views made this one of the earliest and best examples of viral video marketing.

Takeaway: Humor and novelty can make your content stand out from the crowded marketing space. Get creative!

Blendtec: "Will It Blend?"

Blendtec created a wildly popular YouTube series that reached over 200 million views to promote their blenders.

Their "Will It Blend?" videos featured their founder Tom Dickson attempting to blend various unexpected objects – from iPhones to glow sticks to military rations. Each video built anticipation whether the blender could handle the challenge.

The visual entertainment and surprise factor made these demos spread uncontrollably. Blendtec‘s online sales spiked over 700% after the viral launch of "Will It Blend?"

Takeaway: Videos that surprise and entertain are prime for sharing. Find unique ways to showcase your product in action.

Dollar Shave Club

Dollar Shave Club stormed onto the scene with a 2012 YouTube video that exploded with over 25 million views in just six months.

The spot delivered their brand message – a subscription razor service delivering high quality razors affordably – with outrageous humor. The offbeat style captured attention and spread rapidly.

Their business took off exponentially thanks to the viral video, with sales jumping from $1M to over $150M in just five years.

Takeaway: Funny, unexpected videos can tell your brand story in a highly shareable format.

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

While not tied to a specific brand, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge became a global viral phenomenon in 2014.

To raise awareness for ALS, participants dumped buckets of ice water over their heads then challenged others to do the same or donate to ALS research.

Hundreds of celebrities helped it go massively viral through their large social networks. Over 17 million videos were uploaded and $220M was raised for ALS.

Takeaway: Tying your message to a social challenge, cause or movement can increase emotional sharing.

Red Bull Stratos

Red Bull‘s Stratos campaign exemplified their "gives you wings" slogan by sponsoring Felix Baumgartner‘s record-breaking space jump in 2012.

The nail-biting live stream of the jump from 24 miles above Earth shattered records with 8 million concurrent views on YouTube.

The extreme stunt strengthened Red Bull‘s brand association with adventure and extreme sports. Sales spiked after the viral spectacle, which reached over 50 million views across platforms.

Takeaway: Plan unique events or stunts to generate viral attention and reinforce your brand identity.

As you can see from these wildly successful examples, creativity, entertainment value, and novelty are key ingredients for viral success.

Next let‘s break down specific strategies to ignite viral sharing for your brand.

Viral Marketing Strategies

How can you craft viral content that takes off through shares? Here are key strategies used by leading brands:

1. Identify Your Audience and Goals

Who is your core audience, and what message do you want to spread? Be laser-focused in your goal – are you driving brand awareness? Promoting a new product? Be sure your content aligns.

Understand what makes your audience tick through analytics and social listening. What emotions and values resonate most? Tailor content accordingly.

2. Get Creative with Formats

Leverage formats built to be shared – like short videos, GIFs, memes, quizzes and challenges. Video marketing in particular converts well thanks to high engagement.

Entertaining, funny, inspirational or informational content also spreads further. Leverage emotion and utility to motivate sharing.

Blend trending themes like viral challenges or news events to ride existing buzz. But give it your unique spin to stand out.

Tools like Google Trends, Buzzsumo and Twitter analytics provide data on hot trending topics and influencers to incorporate.

Make sharing frictionless by incorporating social share buttons and clickable hashtags.

Write compelling meta descriptions so your message comes through when shared on social media. Include your campaign hashtag and handle in the content itself as well.

5. Get Influencers on Board

Work with influencers aligned with your brand to share your content with their following. Even micro-influencers with under 10K followers can get the ball rolling.

Prioritize influencers with high engagement and proven viral success. Compensate them fairly for their value.

6. Promote Through Owned Channels

Share new content yourself on all your owned channels – website, social media, email newsletter, etc.

Notify your current followers of new viral content so they can help kickstart organic growth through their own networks.

7. Make It Interactive

Promote social interaction through hashtags, tagging friends, comments, voting and more.

Contests and user-generated content campaigns also engage audiences and earn shares.

8. Monitor Performance

Use analytics to monitor engagement and sharing in real-time across channels. Find out what is resonating best.

Double down on high performing content with added promotion and similar content. Refine or eliminate underperforming pieces.

Be ready to ride the momentum when you identify viral takeoff. Have a plan to scale campaigns achieving exponential growth.

How to Create Viral Content

Let‘s explore tactics to produce viral content that earns shares:

Infographics

Infographics that cleverly visualize data in new ways naturally get passed around social media. Use surprising facts, trends and comparisons tailored to your audience.

List Posts

Articles structured as lists on interesting or funny topics encourage sharing. Use numbers in headlines and subtitles to hook readers as they skim.

Memes

Funny memes spread widely when designed around trending jokes or topics. Just ensure they align with your brand voice. Consider meme generators to jumpstart ideas.

Quizzes

Interactive quizzes tempt viewers‘ curiosity and get socialized. Tailor themes like "Which [Brand] Product Are You?"

Reaction Videos

Videos capturing funny or surprising reactions engage viewers when they identify with the responses.

Parody Videos

Spoof popular shows, movies or ads related to your industry for humorous effect. But keep it tasteful.

Challenges

Make challenges visual – like ALS‘s ice buckets – and tie them to good causes for emotional sharing.

Contests

Sweepstakes, giveaways and contests incentivize social sharing and participation. Require users to tag friends or share to unlock entries.

Behind-the-Scenes

Give viewers insider access of what goes on "behind the curtain." Leverage their curiosity to earn social engagement.

Video Series

Series keep viewers anticipating the next video through cliffhangers and teasers.

User-Generated Content

Campaigns featuring user content like reviews, unboxings and user images provide fresh engagement.

Get creative with formats and themes that get your audience excited to share!

Keys for Viral Marketing Success

While viral sensations may seem random, certain best practices increase your odds:

Timeliness: Leverage trending themes and news hook-ins to increase relevance.
Emotion: Appealing to positive emotions like happiness, inspiration and humor promotes sharing. Avoid controversy though.
Quality production: Invest in killer creative, writing, design and filming/editing. Don‘t be cheap here.
Mobile optimization: Ensure your content displays well on smartphones where social media usage is high.
Influencer seeding: Early shares by credible influencers gives content initial momentum.
Owned promotion: Share new content proactively through your owned website and social channels.
Prominent branding: Include logos, branding and campaign hashtags tastefully so branding remains intact as content spreads.
Multichannel distribution: Disperse through multiple channels – YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, email etc. – for omnichannel reach.
Real-time analytics: Monitor performance continuously. Spot viral takeoff moments to double down on.
Continual optimization: Improve underperforming content based on analytics. Pour gas on what‘s working best.

With deliberate strategies and optimization, you can engineer viral magic for your brand.

Risks to Avoid

While viral success offers big upside, there are also risks to be aware of:

Missing the mark: Content that seems clever internally may flop with audiences. Extensively test creative concepts before launching full campaigns.
Brand misalignment: Funny or entertaining content that doesn‘t fit your brand image can backfire. Avoid diluting your brand identity.
Controversy: Viral content that causes offense or outrage can damage your brand severely. Tread carefully with provocative content.
Competitor backlash: Negative or derogatory content aimed at rivals may spread further but hurts your brand image. Take the high road.
Breaking platforms‘ rules: Ensure content complies fully with each platform‘s policies and terms to avoid flags or blockage.

Go viral, but avoid landmines that could hurt your brand in the process. Keep content on-strategy.

Measuring Viral Impact

When campaigns take off, proper metrics help quantify viral impact:

Reach – Total number of unique viewers
Impressions – Total views including repeats
Engagement rate – % of viewers interacting (liking, commenting, sharing)
Sharing rate – % of viewers actively resharing
Virality – Average shares per viewer
Watch time – Total and average duration viewed (for video)
Conversions – Desired actions like sales, leads, sign-ups
Sentiment – % Positive/negative comments

Isolate key metrics early that align with your campaign goals. Track viral content performance in real-time to spot winning ideas and opportunities.

Viral Marketing vs. Paid Advertising

How should viral marketing fit into your overall promotional mix?

Viral and paid advertising offer complementary strengths:

Viral Marketing

Free exposure through sharing
Broad reach across untapped audiences
Highly engaging through entertainment/utility
Significant brand lift potential

Paid Advertising

Total control over targeting and messaging
Consistent exposure based on ad budget
Easy to measure using clear attribution
Drives conversions through direct response

Generally viral campaigns are best fit to raise awareness, engagement and affinity. Paid ads then convert interest into sales.

A balanced mix maximizes your reach, branding and conversions across both organic and paid channels.

Final Tips to Go Viral

Here are final suggestions to ignite viral success:

Obsess over creating the most creative, novel, useful content possible. Average content never goes viral.
Study analytics to make content hyper-relevant to your audience. Target their pain points and passions.
Monitor engagement continuously and be ready to scale up content taking off. Tweak or pause lower performing content.
Promote viral content through all owned channels – website, social, email etc. Double down where engagement is highest.
Work with influencers and micro-influencers to expand your starting reach. Offer creative compensation structure like rev shares.
Follow trending topics, challenges and pop culture moments. But give them your unique brand spin to stand out from copycats.
Have a rapid response workflow to jump on opportunities in real-time. Assign team members to monitor trends and activate instantly.

Launch your viral initiatives informed by learnings from the most successful brands. With smart strategies and innovation, your next campaign could break through the clutter.