Going Ape Over Viral Vids
A while back a posted a blog called “How to Make Your Viral Videos Contagious”. Almost a year later, I find myself compelled to blog again about this topic. The reason for this is because of an 800 pound gorilla. No. I don’t mean Google. I’m referring to the chap that plays drums. You know the British sensation that has been sweeping the nation’s top internet video sites for the past year? It’s the advertisement that just picked up a Grand Prix award at The Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. If you missed this ad, it’s because the campaign was released in the U.K. by Cadbury Schweppes. But you can see it here.
Gorilla is the first campaign produced by Cadbury Schweppes' in-house production studio, A Glass and a Half Full Productions. The 90-second ad promotes the Cadbury Dairy Milk-brand chocolate. It first appeared in August 2007, and was praised by the British public. A version uploaded to YouTube received 500,000 page views in the first week after the launch. It has since received 2.4 million views. Public perception of the brand was reported to have been noticeably improved in the period following the launch, which reversed the decline prior.
This is such a great example of creative obscurity. Take milk, chocolate, a drum set, a man in a gorilla costume playing Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” and you have a viral video sensation. To take a line from an SNL sketch with Adam Sandler, “Who are the ad wizards who thought of that one!” The truth is, they are ad wizards. It’s hard to find a direct correlation with the gorilla and Cadbury, but who cares. It’s fun to watch.
So what’s the lessoned learned? Viral videos don’t have to align to your brand position. I’m sure somewhere in a creative brief the concept of this ad has been justified, but the truth is that it doesn’t have to. The strategy behind Gorilla was to create "entertainment pieces" that would appeal to a broader range of consumers and spread virally.
I think this just shows that with the saturation of media today, you need to open up other avenues to change brand perception and gain awareness. In this case, you take away that Cadbury is cool, which I’m sure they perceives as a bonus to the 2.4 million views the ad received.
