A chilling tale of online viral success.
The latest online viral craze to hit the world by storm has seen people douse themselves in a bucket of iced water having been nominated to do so within 24 hours by their friends to raise awareness of ALS (Motor Neurone Disease).
What does this mean for a local dental practice? Probably not much. But if you’re interested in marketing and its complexities, read on for my take on what happened and what can be learnt from the last month’s viral craze.
It all started in the States on the 30th July when recently diagnosed Pete Frates’ Facebook posted a support plea and video of Peter Quinn, a motor neurone suffer, doing the challenge.
It took off across the East Coast of America and Worldwide. Facebook confirms it has reached nearly every country in the world. Reporting that as of Monday 18th August 2014;
- 28 million + users joined the conversation about ice bucket challenge
- An estimated 2.4 million videos relating the ice bucket challenges had been created
- Hundreds of celebrities and notable people had joined in
Google has seen a big spike in trending data for the terms ‘ice bucket’ and ‘ALS’.
The ALS association quickly responded by utilising its twitter page to support the ‘campaign’
The likes of Mark Zuckerberg, George W Bush, Simon Cowell, Britney Spears, Anna Wintour, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Oprah continues to grow as celebrities, sports stars, and notable heads of industry have all taken to the bench and received a cold soaking.
Financial Success
Marketers know that viral success is great, but achieving financial results is what really matters. The campaign has been ‘criticised’ from people asking what pouring ice cold water over your head has got to do with helping ALS and those with the disease.
In this case, this criticism is silenced since the ALS has reported that it has (as of Monday 18th August) increased donations tenfold.
Why it works.
1) Influencers. It began with a fairly well-connected former Boston College sport figure, Pete Frates, who was already raising m money form ALS and was prominent enough to garner news coverage upon his diagnosis.
2) Geographical Desirability. Frates and Quinn are both located in the Northwest US, in large populated centres. Their demographic as twenty something males, means they have plenty of connections all around this population. People feel more inclined to support people closer to home.
3) The availability of media creative tools. The potential for the average consumer to create media , especially video, is at an all-time high, given the penetration of smartphones.
4) Non-controversial. Many of the viral phenomena, or would be viral phenomena, have some element of controversy, perhaps a political or commercial point of view. This campaign, however, didn’t spark offense.
5) A limited time frame Component. The meme gives those challenged 24 hours to complete it, so there’s some sense of urgency and there no putting it off until later.
6) Good, clean, summer fun. Would the viral have been so wide spread in the depths of winter? Though the fact that its spread so much in Australia and New Zealand goes against this theory.
Can we learn anything from it?
Of course we marketers would love to have the secret formula to reverse engineer this type of PR. Can it be done? Is there a secret? I’m not sure. Like a ‘virus’ it’s erratic and un-predictable in nature, however there are certain conditions that lend itself to these campaign succeeding.
Simply put, the secret is to take what we know is working and improve on it. Many a marketing book has been written and plenty of money made from divulging the secrets to why things catch on in this way.
This brilliant article arguing the above point uses the anecdote of a McDonalds Managers Handbook written in 1969 being found and the reveal of the that ‘sauce’. The secret? Thousand island with more sugar and mayo. The chefs had just taken an already winning formula and improved it.
I’m not sure how I can turn this blog around and make it relevant to local dentists looking for online marketing advice, but enjoy some #IceBucketChallenge fails here and a rather profound and moving video here illustrating the chilling reality of the cause.
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