OOH can help you generate a lot of positive attention online. By pairing a campaign with a strong social sharing factor and implementing innovative design in your creative, you can make a campaign go viral with a small budget.
What it Means to Go Viral
Before discussing the nitty gritty elements of going viral online, let’s first dissect what “going viral” means in order to better understand what we’re trying to accomplish.
A piece of content that goes viral is rapidly circulated and widely used on the internet. Already, this definition gives us a few stipulations. In order to be quickly circulated, the content has to be short and concise. Images are the easiest type of media to share, but short videos can also be effective. When there’s a longer piece (like a long-awaited government report, for instance), it can still go viral if someone takes the initiative to go through it and create a summary that can easily be spread.
Another element that surges from our definition is that since the content is being circulated online, it needs to appeal to internet audiences. These audiences tend to be younger and have access to a smartphone or another device throughout the day.
It’s not easy to determine if something will go viral because it’s not a cookie-cutter method. It’s often unpredictable to know which pieces of content will end up causing a stir online. Although large companies have a lot of resources on their toolbelt in order to create and disseminate content, they tend to have a difficult time creating content that will resonate with audiences without feeling like an overused or cliché piece.
Here are three general rules for viral content:
Make it short (easier to share)
Make it appeal to younger audiences (most likely to share it online)
Make it fresh (and timely)
Moreover, how do we determine if a piece of content has gone viral? Trending hashtags on Twitter are often good indications of what people are talking about online. Also, when something goes viral, more reputable news sources begin to pick up the news story and you will begin to get attention from other media companies. Finally, as a company, you can measure any changes in followers, website visits, or foot traffic. If your social media followers increased by three thousand in the last week, you’ll know your marketing campaign went viral.
It’s important too to determine what you want out of your marketing campaign. Going viral is no good if it doesn’t mesh with your broader advertising goals. For instance, if you have a lot of positive brand awareness and you desperately want to increase sales, going viral may not be the right path. Your company might benefit more from conversion (taking your viewers and turning them into paying clients), so spending a lot of time and resources to create a viral campaign might not be what’s best for your company. However, if you are looking to dramatically increase your brand awareness, then a viral campaign may be just what you need.
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How Can a Traditional Media Go Viral?
Many outdoor advertising skeptics will say that going viral is only possible with digital advertising channels. The truth is quite different.
These days, everyone carries a smartphone with them. They have the ability to take a photograph (the easiest type of media to circulate, remember?) and share it with friends immediately. Whether a person sees something online or in real life, sharing it and making it go viral are just as easy with traditional media like billboards.
There are two main ways to create viral outdoor advertising campaigns:
Pair your billboard with a strong social sharing factor
Innovative design
When both are accomplished, that’s the recipe to have your campaign go viral!
Pair your billboard with a strong social sharing factor
Once again—in order to go viral, your content has to be disseminated online. For this reason, one of your main goals should be to direct people online.
Give your audience a website to visit, a hashtag to use, or an “@” to mention. People like participating in social events, and sharing photos is almost like being a part of a virtual game of telephone. If you can get people to take photos of your artwork and share them online, then you’re halfway there.
Innovative Design
The second (and perhaps most important) aspect of going viral is creative. It’s tough for a boring image to go viral—nobody will think it’s exciting enough to share. On the other hand, innovative designs are treasure troves for social media, especially platforms like Instagram that are made for sharing images.
Below are two case studies relying on the elements discussed above.
Case Study: Adidas
In 2019, we launched a campaign for Adidas that relied partially on a list of influencers they were interested in working with.
For the first part of the campaign, we put up HotSpots and Wallscapes designed to capture the attention of Adidas-related influencers. We mentioned their Instagram handle and asked them to go into their Wicker Park store to pick up a gift from Adidas—a new pair of shoes.
The response was overwhelming. Some influencers were already at the ad spot before the installers were finished setting up the billboard. In just a few hours, these influencers, who have hundreds of thousands of followers, had posted images of themselves in front of their billboards. It was a great way to engage both the influencers and their followers around the launch of a new product, and it proves that young people can easily get excited over outdoor advertising.
Those billboards were only up for a week. After that, they were switched with the “normal” ad copy featuring the new shoe Adidas was launching, so the campaign as a whole still targeted the general audience.
Case Study: #FauciArt
A more recent case study is one created by a Sausalito-based ad agency, Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners (BSSP). #FauciArt was designed to bring a spotlight to Dr. Anthony Fauci. It was a call to action to turn his image into a work of art, promoting the qualified expert and his guidelines throughout the COVID crisis.
At first, the initiative was an inside project. Each department at the agency created their own art pieces. The idea spiraled from there and soon, people from all over the country were joining in, creating their own #FauciArt and tagging it on social media. So far, more than fifty well-known artists have participated in the challenge.
The endeavor is only growing. After a series of billboard spots were donated in LA and New York City, the hashtag exploded into the scene and became viral, so while the billboards themselves aren’t necessarily innovative, they cause a sense of mystery and they send the audience searching for its meaning. Once they find what it’s all about, they can create their own art—whether it’s a pencil drawing or a food arrangement that resembles the now-famous epidemiologist—and share it with the hashtag.
The Future of Viral Outdoor Advertising
Although COVID-19 has recently put a barrier on many industries, now is not the time to become complacent with billboard design or marketing campaigns more generally. “Stay Home” posters are getting old.
However, OOH is so easy to photograph and share that it’s a huge opportunity for brands to create fame with a relatively small media investment. Brands that are willing to be engaging and provocative can make big moves with small expenses.
Spending time out in public is not what it used to be, but it’s slowly returning to “normal”. OOH is a public medium, and that’s what makes it so easy to become viral. One thing remains clear: outdoor advertising isn’t going anywhere, and with proper pairing of online shareability, it’s true potential remains to be seen.