Successful Viral Video Ad Components: Millward Brown Study
Monday, November 12, 2007 at 2:54PM 
// posted Nov 12 by L. Thorell
(No- strictly speaking this isn't PR. However, as Millward Brown point out in the study we reference, the PR and distribution strategy for a viral video certainly play into its success...)
The onslaught of viral advertising hasn't really abated since Ed Robinson created the first $10,000 video six years ago. As the legend goes, after sending the video (with web site link) in an email to six friends, it so multiplied in viral distribution that some 60,000 people had viewed it by the end of the week and 500,000 at end of three months.
For those thinking of now entering the viral video ad fold, Millward Brown's 2007 study of 3000 people and 32 viral ads (summarized in this Point of View) provides a great introduction to how people choose to route video to friends as well as identifying the winning (as well as failing) qualities of video ads.
Viral Video Marketing's Useful Acronym: L.E.G.S.
According to Millward Brown, successful viral video advertisements contain at least one of four qualities all tied together by the handy acronym, LEGS:
- Laugh out Loud (LOL) by design
- Edgey Content.
- Grips Your Attention
- Some sexual content
Reviewing Some Classic Video Examples
Honda's 'Hondamentalism' ad (shown above) totally succeeds in the domains of edginess and gripping (literally!). A 2007 ad produced by Wieden+Kennedy London
Budweiser's MagicFridge. In Millward Brown's study, the highest user marks for LOL creative content went to Budweiser's MagicFridge.
Dove's Evolution. 
Cited as best example of "attention gripping' is Dove's Evolution video. MB points out that this video was so memorable that 15% of American women of ages 15-62 years old recognize portions or stills from the ad. Created by Ogilvy and Mather, the 75 second spot drew over 1.7 million views, a great number of which were fueled by, not just the YouTube posting, but through 'viral passes" by the blogger community. (During the Oct 2006 launch timeframe, this video was among the Top 15 in the blogger community, according to Technorati.)
Marketing & PR Takeaway
Review of these viral video "classics" alongside MB's LEGS components is a helpful exercise to do before specing out your own company's goals in creating a video. Bear also in mind that one of the more important observations made in the MB study relates not just to the content creative but also to the marketing execution of the campaign, i.e. placement and distribution.
Viral campaigns rarely reach significant numbers of people unless prominently featured in traditional media, packaging and promotional materials.
In other words, a successful video ad is best incorporated into your overall marketing plan to fully leverage all potential channels and their associated audiences. On the PR end, bloggers played a key part inf the popularity of the Dove Evolution video. It also turns out facilitating email spreading of the campaign is key: some 35% of respondents in hte MB study say they sent or received viral ads via email.
In the end, advertising may do the initial heavy creative lifting for viral video success-- but involving all marketing teams in the process is the best way to gain massively mass distribution.
Reader Comments (2)
i see that they removed many video on youtube
Right.Sometimes its the likes of Viacom forcing a take-down of videos, sometimes its just the marketers revising their ad campaigns. And sometimes its just a directory change.