Examples of Successful Commercial Viral Videos

The greatest television event in The U.S. is the Superbowl. Year after year, 40 percent of America citizens, or roughly 80-90 million Americans, are tuned into the Superbowl at some time. The 30 second Superbowl commercial, the most popular place in American air time, sold for a reported $2.5 million in the 2006 Superbowl.

With viral marketing, the same level audience can be obtained, but at a fraction of the price. The best viral marketing is not blasted at once to a large audience, but once seeded to a few individuals, will increase until several millions of people will have heard of it. Significantly, these individuals are not merely getting a TV broadcast, but they are telling their friends about it, discussing it, joking about it, and making a mental reaction of it. One person who informs others about a video he looked at is more important than 10 who see your video and forget about it.

One accomplished viral video shows 2 males dressed in lab coats demonstrating the mixing of Diet Coke and Mentos chemical reaction. Evidently, if you put Mentos breath mints into Diet Coke, it creates a reaction similar to mixing baking soda and vinegar. Many videos were produced, but this particular video was probably the best produced, together with a musically choreographed demonstration of over 100 Diet Coke and Mentos fountains. As soon as being featured on CNN, it was revealed that the video's creators had at that moment made several tens of thousands of dollars selling the advertisements at the beginning and end of the video.

The Diet Coke video is an example of how viral videos can make money. However a company that wishes to get acknowledgment needs a different approach. One method is for the organization to sponsor the creation of a new video (or the follow-up of a previously admired video), and then intersperse the company's logo and website within the video. A great example of this is Stride gum's commission of "Where the Hell is Matt" - a video that reveals Matt dancing for a few seconds at dozens of locations all over the country, all set to entertaining music. The video is original and ridiculous at the same time - just how many airports, customs, and taxis did Matt and his crew have to go through just to shoot a couple of seconds of Matt's dancing? Nevertheless, the video took off, and Stride can't be dissatisified with their return on investment.

Although, the Matt video still merely straddles the line of balancing commercialism and content. The most ideal video would both integrate the company's product with content so compelling that the commercial part is no longer a concern. To take away the commercial aspect would eliminate the very frame of the commercial. These advertisements are classics of viral marketing because of their power, their persuasiveness, and elegance in weaving together commercialism and content.