7 Viral Marketing Lessons from the Craziest Campaigns You’ll Ever See

Looking to jolt some life into your marketing? Take a cue from some of the most bold, ingenious, and jaw-dropping campaigns in recent memory, and discover what you can accomplish by thinking (way) outside the box.

Regardless of industry or market, every brand would love, at some point, to produce marketing content that goes viral. A video that gets a million views, an infographic that receives thousands of social media shares, a blog post that draws in endless pageviews — whatever the campaign might be, the brand awareness and exposure that virality can provide is almost always beneficial.

Unfortunately, pulling off those types of guerilla marketing stunts isn’t easy, and many growing expansion-stage technology companies don’t always have the time and resources to invest into viral marketing.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from those that do.

Companies like Samsung, TNT, and LG have created some of the most creative marketing promotions you’ll ever see, and by studying them you might come away with insight that can be incorporated into your own campaigns.

Viral Marketing Lessons from 7 Successful (and Truly Unique) Campaigns

1) TNT: The Drama Button

What happens when TNT places a big red button in the middle of a quiet square in Belgium? At first, nothing. Then, finally, an unsuspecting passerby pushes that button. What happens next is the kind of drama that you would see in a typical TNT show — only this time with real-life people involved.

Key Takeaway

Even though your B2B software company doesn’t sell a physical product, you can still show customers how it directly impacts their lives. TNT brought the visual experience of watching one of their dramas into the public sphere. You can put your own spin on this by getting the public to interact with your product and putting them at the center of the action. Find a way to do that, and you just might have a break-out marketing campaign on your hands.

2) Samsung LED TV: Extreme Sheep Art

In order to promote their new LED television, Samsung decided to do something artistic — it made giant pictures out of a completely unconventional material: Sheep. Check it out for yourself:

Key Takeaway

Take a conventional idea and turn it completely on its head. Anyone can use traditional marketing channels the way they’re supposed to be used. If you want to go viral, it can only help to think outside the box, get creative, and find a new or unexpected way to deliver your marketing content that goes beyond the standard formats and channels.

3) True Blood: Revelation

This campaign is unique because of how it utilized a number of different tactics to deliver the same message. For starters, the show sent vials of blood in an unknown language to goth and horror bloggers — some of the show’s most ardent fans. Those vials led the people who received them to a website named BloodCopy.com that was labeled “only for vampires.”

Next, videos featuring vampire confessionals were “accidentally” leaked to the web, and posters for True Blood’s fictitious blood substitute, TruBlood, were plastered in cities around the country. All the while, the TV show True Blood’s name was never actually mentioned. Here’s a short video examining the marketing tactic in further detail:

Key Takeaway

Identify the influencers (in True Blood’s case, the goth bloggers) who are most likely to be interested in what you offer. If you manage to send them something interesting, there’s a good chance they may become actively involved in sharing and amplifying your message. Make them feel like they’re getting the inside scoop or privileged information and they just become invested in its success.

Also, remember that it’s not always necessary to trumpet your brand when it comes to viral content. In many cases, if you make your campaigns feel more like an interactive game than an advertisement, not only will you achieve higher engagement, you’ll also net more prospects than if you had gone with a more traditional approach.

4) Blendtec: Will It Blend Campaign

Have you ever wondered exactly how far your blender can go? The good news is that there’s no need to grind up your cell phone to find out —BlendTec has already done it for you. Oh, and in case you were curious, not even a well-constructed iPhone can withstand the power of spinning metal blades…

Key Takeaway

Prove your product’s efficiency by taking it to the extremes. Better yet, have customers participate in the challenge, themselves. Doing that will ensure they’re fully engaged, and your campaign will get more attention as a result. It worked for Blendtec, and it just might work for you.

5) Lipton Ice Tea: TEA-mometer

With Lipton’s TEA-mometer campaign, the company managed to create advertising that promotes its product and healthy habits at the same time. To do that, Lipton placed a thermometer-shaped, heat-detecting vending machine on a beach. People who had a high body temperature and heart rate — as a result of exercising, not drinking a case of energy drinks and sitting in a sauna — were rewarded with a free can of Lipton Tea.

http://youtu.be/3ANWiePt7WQ

Key Takeaway

The more you involve your prospects in your marketing campaigns, the more likely they are to take notice and spread the word. For example, giving participants a challenge is an easy, entertaining, and more effective way to provide information about your company than simply pummeling your prospects with features and stats. In other words, engage people in a fun task, and meaningful brand awareness and engagement is more likely to follow.

6) Grasshopper: Chocolate Bugs

Who doesn’t like getting free candy? In 2009, Grasshopper sent out 5,000 chocolate covered grasshoppers to promote the company’s rebranding. Yes, you read that right — candy-coated insects. Nothing gets people talking like Survivor-style food in their mailbox!

Key Takeaway

Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb with something unusual (and have a sense of humor) — often it’s the only way to be truly memorable and stick out from the crowd.

7) Instructure: Walking Dead MOOC

What’s a MOOC? It’s a Massive Open Online Course. In collaboration with AMC and the University of California, Irvine, open source learning management company Instructure (disclosure: an OpenView portfolio company) created a free online course inspired by the hit show “The Walking Dead” that explored the academic side of a zombie apocalypse. Want to know how to manage stress in disaster situations, or if eating a squirrel will really provide the sustenance you need?

Not only was the MOOC innovative, it also cashed in on the hype around all things zombie and one of TV’s most popular shows. As a result, the campaign generated thousands of social shares and coverage from over 600 news outlets in one day, alone.

Here’s a teaser for the wildly popular MOOC:

Key Takeaway

Try working with companies that might not seem like obvious partners to create something that’s out of the ordinary, valuable, and highly engaging. If you partner with the right organizations or people, anything is possible. With this promotion, Instructure teamed up with AMC and UC Irvine to create an experience far beyond what it could have accomplished alone.

What crazy marketing stunts did we miss? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

Photo by: Misspixels