1. select a product that is a low consideration product (e.g. a song) whose primary missing link is awareness

2. create a funny and entertaining video that features that product or a key attribute of the product

3. [ contact us for the "secret sauce" of step 3 ]

4. continue to build the momentum and build further social amplification by real people (won’t happen if the content is not funny, entertaining, useful, or unexpected)

5. use analytics to determine how to further optimize the content itself to match what characteristics actually went viral (based on how people talked about it when they passed it along)

Examples of videos whose viral effects were successfully manufactured over time. Obama Girl; Lonelygirl15 Brea Olson; Notice the shape of the stats curve of the more recent lonelygirl15 video from 2008. It is much flatter, which is a characteristic of non-viral videos. This is after they revealed that the original lonelygirl15 was a fake; now they have to support the view count through traditional paid media and continuous PR to accumulate the views.

T-Mobile Dance viral video – 5 months

Cadbury Dancing Eyebrows Viral Video – 4 months

Geico Numa Numa Guy viral video – 3 months

McDonalds Filet-o-Fish Viral Video – 5 months

etrade baby took 4 months to reach full viral

Super cameleon viral video took 3 months to reach full viral

Durex bunnies viral video took 3 months to reach full viral

Dennys banana pancake viral video took 4 months to reach full viral

Lewist Hamilton Grand Prix took 2 months to reach viral

the shape of the views curve is different for a NON-viral video — it just accumulates views over the years.

link back to the original article showing 12 points that demonstrate why I think the JK Wedding video has a manufactured viral effect.

Viral video examples – notice the asymptotic curve towards the max on the total views chart.

Frozen Grand Central ImprovEverywhere viral video – 18 million views – added on Jan 31, 2009.  ”Other/viral” gave it its first big boost and embedded views gave it another big push.

No Pants Subway Ride ImprovEverywhere viral video – 9 million views – uploaded January 13, 2009; got onto YouTube homepage and got a major boost from it.

NON-viral video examples – notice the straight line of the total views chart.

Perfect example of NON-viral video that had help with paid media – in this case, GoDaddy supported these videos with costly Superbowl ads — which led to nice bumps-up in total views.

In the case of Smirnoff’s Tea Partay, it was not supported by paid media so it took longer to grow and the shape of the curve is a nice blend between the straight line of a non-viral video and the asymptotic line of a viral video.

Finally, blatant ads don’t go viral – Sony’s grand central product demo stunt. And even if they are discussed in dozens of blogs it is not enough to get past the first tipping point.