A speaker acquaintance of mine created the ultimate in viral videos with his Evolution of Dance. 123 million views later his video is the top ranked viewed video on YouTube of all time! Does that make him a marketing genius for creating the video? No, but he did capture lightning in a bottle without a marketing machine behind him.
How many wedding movies have been created? Hollywood has arguably the best writers who are coming up with the most creative ideas to get butts in seats to see a movie. Yet, one wedding party making a grand entrance dancing down the aisle captured on a home video and posted on YouTube gets over 14 million views. Within a few weeks time this viral video has a life of its own and is being commented on by magazines and new outlets all over the country. This is free publicity. Once again, without a a marketing machine making it happen.
Did the wedding party expect to have 14 million viewings of their wedding entrance? No. I imagine they, like Judson Laipply with his Dance video, posted something they thought was cool they'd like to share with friends and it simply went viral.
Even during the last Superbowl, the showplace of television ads, one of the top rated ads by viewers was the concept of an amateur marketer entering a contest.
What does all of this mean?
Everyone is capable of capturing lightning in a bottle with the right idea. And, that right idea can lead to an amazing amount of publicity.
What's the first step? It's a willingness to start the creative machine working and then working those ideas into online opportunities that can bring great publicity.
The rest of this week I will profile creative ideas that have generated great publicity without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to make it happen.
The key components of generating good publicity for your organization are:
1. Be willing to try new and different things.
2. Make sure the ideas are in line with your organization's culture and the image you want to project. (I'm guessing that wedding party was not introverts who just wanted to be left alone!)
Have fun with it.
3. Think viral because the word of mouth is king in the land of viral opportunity.
What should you expect to see the coming week? The man in a wedding gown, good ideas gone wrong, great ideas that worked, and 10 Promotional Ideas for Kick Ass Friday. Don't miss the week of publicity!
Posts
