Go viral while youâre young - what we learnt

The DMA’s ‘Go viral while you’re young’ event last week revealed some interesting truths about virality. My top takeaways were as follows:

1. Know your audience.
2. Hope, but don’t plan to go viral
3. Do stuff to make stuff happen

In her book, The Science of Sharing, Karen Nelson-Field describes viral advertising as “personal and, while coming from an identified sponsor, it does not mean businesses pay for its distribution."

Last year’s #nomakeupselfie was an excellent example of this definition as Declan Leavy, Social Media Manager at Cancer Research UK, demonstrated in the first talk of the morning.

Cancer Research didn’t come up with the no makeup selfie idea. However, since the trend was started in support of cancer sufferers, it made sense for them to back it. What started out as a handful of women sharing no make-up selfies, within a week had generated 181,697 mentions online and raised just over £8 million for charity. Knowing your audience is particularly pertinent here, jumping on the Ice Bucket Challenge, for example, would clearly not have worked.

Declan is the first to admit that it’s very hard not to compare successive campaigns to no makeup selfie. Naturally it’s very tempting to try and reach the dizzying heights of its success, but in reality these things have to happen organically – for the most part. Cancer Research’s #wewillunite and #mymumandme, though both successful campaigns in their own right, did not match the mania of the no makeup selfie.

It just goes to show that even with a big name brand behind a campaign, achieving viral status is in no way guaranteed.

Having said this, Cadbury’s Crème Eggs made an impressive go at it, as Caroline Davison and David Yates of Elvis demonstrate.

The Cadbury’s Crème Egg ‘have a fling’ campaign based on the tagline ‘here for a good time, not a long time’ is a very good example of how good use of social media can not only hugely increase brand engagement, but actually compete in terms of ROI with traditional media channels, like TV.

Though not a viral campaign in the strictest sense, it certainly got a lot of coverage. The three-month campaign was all over Facebook and the TV ads were ubiquitous. By the end of the campaign, TV and Facebook were pretty much on equal par in terms of prompting consideration to buy. Though Facebook used considerably less budget.

Despite the success of the Crème Egg campaign, Elvis didn’t plan or even aim to create a viral campaign. David argues that it makes no sense to base forecasts on or benchmark against ‘going viral’, rather it’s about the potential to go viral, which you can only hope to do.

The final talk was given by Nick, the man behind One Minute Briefs, Bank of Creativity and Rapid Response Unit (among many other projects), and more than anything, Nick preached the importance of just getting up and doing stuff.

Modelled on himself – a self-starter from a young age, Nick’s presentation was a stripped back showcase of what creativity can look like. As with his one-minute briefs, Nick reminds us of what can be achieved in just a short space of time. More importantly, that the idea of ‘going viral’, though not always achievable, is much more attainable with a 'just do it' attitude.

Bonnie is the Marketing Executive at adconnection and part of the DMA Brand Activation Council.