Advantages of viral videos

Video is the best media to spread and distribute a marketing message effectively to the target audience. Here are some advantages of viral marketing video.


More flexible in content

Video can offer the movie, sound and text simultaneously. As it can deliver something very similar to our real life, people can easily understand the message. In addition, as it does not require censorship like other broadcasting advertising, marketers can put whatever they want. For example, in some countries-such as China or Korea- comparison advertising is prohibited by law. So often it is not easy to demonstrate the difference between brands by advertising. Thus, companies in countries like these do comparison advertising through viral video since it is not constrained by censorship.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhb30yVn8d0


More interesting

Video can deliver a story. It can be something unexpected, creative and touching. Just like many people like to see drama, comedy or movies, people also like to see viral video. Also, as it does not look very professional, people see viral video with a more open mind. Once the video is in their favor, they forward it to their family and friends.
http://www.viralvideochart.com/youtube/lose_weight_in_photoshop_makeover?id=DZDHQ9b9fbo

Less energy for audience to understand

Just like watching TV, people can easily see and understand viral video unlike reading text through internet or printed magazine. Researchers are convinced that this concept is a viable and effective marketing tool.

More customer centric

According to statistics, recreational Internet surfing has overtaken television as the largest recreational activity. Apparently, by the end of this year it is estimated that more than six billion people will be using the Internet. Note that it took more than 50 years for television to get to this point. It’s certainly an innovative medium that has captured the interest of the person searching for answers behind a PC, and the individual hoping to score with a marketing strategy.


Example: Customer Centric Video: Shake Your Oodle
Created to announce a Second Life event.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSM7GnXyULo

Generates words of mouth marketing (WOM)

Viral video can be a topic among friends and family.

Low cost to distribute

Compared to the traditional media, viral video enables us to distribute it with a smaller budget.

“A lot of friends even send me some wonderful commercials they downloaded from Youtube, and I can't help myself sending them to others. No distribution costs, in a minute, the company win thousands of its potential customers by doing nothing. The customers distributed the commercials themselves.”

Think about the mass media budget, and how much ROI you could gained from that? How much actual purchases are generated from the commercial? You can now understand the appeal of viral videos. Although sometimes it is is enjoyable to forget about marketing and take pleasure in the funny, subtle, creative, or just moving videos. To optimize video clips, to maximize distribution across social network sites., use tags and bookmarking links to help people find, save and share your videos.

People prefer viral video to the obvious advertising

In the flood of advertising and marketing, people do not want to be bombarded by marketing messages.

“As a former copywriter, I know how people hate boring sales TV commercials. Why not, I hate them too. How could they waste our time to look at those ugly and weird guys shouting '$199, $199 only for THREE days'."

This is why people LOVE viral video. Viral marketing is a technique that avoids the annoyance of spam mail. This in turn encourages users to tell a friend of a particular product or service, which serves as highly effective word-of mouth advertising.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA2Qp5DizpE

Fast to spread

Do you remember the Taco Bell video “Mice in the Kitchen?” Do you also recall how soon the public came to know about it? Viral video is very effective media to spread a message quickly. Once people come to like the video, people are willing to spread it through e-mail, messenger, video sharing sites such as YouTube, myspace, daily motion or break.com.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MY5wO3ro10

More pull approach than push approach

Unlike traditional marketing tools and other media, Viral video starts from consumer. They start to make their own video (in most cases), they distribute and they generate WOM, not the companies or marketers. This is why IMCers and marketers have to pay attention to viral media as an effective marketing tool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzb89dyynGA