Our televisions are slowly gathering dust as more people start to drift away from their living rooms to watch their computers instead. What is this peculiarity that seems to be happening nowadays? It is known as the viral video phenomenon. People seem to be obsessed by---no, not big budget films and television shows---but low budget video clips made by unknown individuals with a lot of time. These viral videos are viewed most commonly on the popular YouTube website, where more than 70 million videos are viewed daily.
For example, the "My Box in a Box" video, which was a parody of another viral video, became famous right away, with more than 800,000 views the first day! It cost only up to $500 to shoot and edit this clip and contained unknown actors. Yet, to this day, this video has been viewed 3.7 million times! What makes these videos so popular?
Todd Defren, blogger of "PR Squared" for Ogilvy, interviewed Ben Relles, an executive of Agency.com, who helped made the "My Box in a Box" viral video so---well---viral. In the interview, Relles explains many interesting information regarding how videos can become so viral. One point Relles makes is that these videos are popular because of their originality. It doesn't have to appeal to certain interests or to "what's in", but rather be spontaneous.
Relles shares that, "...there are no hard and fast 'rules' to this. You’ll see a lot of marketing ‘experts’ out there naming the 'rules' to viral. I think you can safely ignore them...The videos that break through are often successful because they are UNLIKE anything that’s been done."
So if you're ever thinking of making a video, don't think like big corporate marketers with their fancy rules. Just think like yourself. That's original.
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