Viral Video Production & Marketing

The Internet Phenomena

In 2010, internet user interaction as measured in hours finally superseded television watching. With 2 billion views daily ( YouTube ) and more time spent by citizens of western nations in Facebook than TV, we have reached a turnover point in the history of advertising.

The major TV advertising budgets had already started to shift to the internet 3 years prior but the stunning speed with which users shifted their activities from passive couch potatoes to active participants online surprised nearly everyone.

While TV production and its distribution are generally well understood in terms of their positive impacts, what is not as well understood is the distribution of TV like ads online.

Traditionally, TV ads are created for a captive audience that will generally see the same ad 6–8 times during a 30 minute sitting.

This is usually not the case online, so a video needs to have a much higher virability(TM) factor since an interactive user can simply switch to another URL or opt to watch their material on an ad-free channel.

Virability: Is it Viral or NOT?

Creating commercial 30 second ads that are funny, extremely thoughtful or insightfully thought provoking have caused script writers to really dig deep into their bag of tools.

It might be a mistake in believing that the script writers who wrote your first TV commercial can also create viral material for a finicky audience that can, and will, switch off in seconds.

In some cases, your initial script writers may have the experience, talent and prior product knowledge to do a great job in an attempt to create a viral video.

When you are not sure however, talk with us. We can not only create viral videos with your product and services at the centre, but more importantly we can make them go viral which requires a certain amount of very heavy exposure within a very limited timeframe.

What we can't do, is to make an average video go massively viral. The act of making something go truly viral intimates that the material itself was viral worthy—which far too often simply is not the case.

Hand in hand with this, ironically is our ability to use the internet, particularly Facebook and YouTube, to test a TV ad or commercial for positive user response that results in users giving the video to other users as part of the viral response.

The usefulness of this type of user acceptance testing should not be underestimated. Why spend hundreds of thousands or possibly millions on TV campaigns without first testing in a short 72 hour period to see whether people like your material well enough to give it to their friends?

We have video production facilities in both New York and Manchester (close to the new BBC MediaCity) and access to a wide variety of accomplished actors and models who can read scripts for our clients within 24 hours.

Special effects and post-production are available from our New York Office on Broad Street.

Further reading

If you'd like to know more, why not check out our magazine which contains articles about all aspects of digital media. Plus there's always our Twitter and Facebook pages.