Viral Marketing: How Viral Videos Work in Branding

Viral Marketing: How Viral Videos Work in Branding

Latest news in retail market – on July 16, 2015, a smartphone video of a Chinese couple having sex in a fitting room of the Uniqlo store located in one of the biggest shopping malls in Beijing, China, went viral immediately. Being a Japan-based company, Uniqlo quickly grew into one of the largest international clothing chains, particularly expanding in China. The company denies any involvement with the scandalous video, referring to their dedication in “providing consumes with safe, comfortable and quality shopping experience” and encouraging them to follow moral standards and use fitting rooms appropriately (Jiang, Dong & Watson, 2015).

Thus, there is no direct evidence of the video clip being initiated or produced by Uniqlo. However, besides numerous complains and police investigation, deliberately or not, the video naturally attracted attention of potential consumers to the brand, even those who never heard of Uniqlo before. As a result, it increased sales in the store, perfectly serving the purpose of Uniqlo to become number one in the market. In turn, the whole story became a vivid example of how viral videos work in branding.

As the subject was researched, it turned out that the Uniqlo story is not the only case when viral advertising was used for brand promotion in the market. Among others, there are the shots and videos of Richard Branson, the owner of Virgin, kitesurfing with a naked model on his back, which went viral two years ago and turned into a great marketing tool (Goodman, 2013). Another example is a Trojan Condoms viral video where a young man gives his girlfriend gonorrhea as a birthday present, which achieved 35 million views in 3 month.

Therefore, using such videos is quite a common practice in viral marketing, one of the “hottest” branding instruments nowadays; the most amazing thing is that a well developed video can make the audience to do all marketing for the company (Goldsmith, 2002). According to Bruce Blevennec (2007), an owner of a successful web-agency, such marketing messages are quickly spread among consumers as emails, pictures or videos; they should be easy to forward or share with your friends. Often, they are shocking or appeal to sex. All these characteristic apply to the Uniqlo video. Now, the question is how often we, as the users of Internet and social media platforms, in our desire to be aware of viral news and to share it with our friends become instruments in somebody’s marketing campaign by promoting their content? Are we really turning into marketing tools, being manipulated and helping someone making money for free?

References:

Blevennec, B.L. (2007). Viral Strategies and Buzz Marketing. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/emakina/viral-marketing-theory#14372056470821&fbinitialized

Goldsmith, R. (2002). Viral Marketing: Get Your Audience to Do Your Marketing For You. Prentice Hall Business.

Goodman, K. (2013, October, 28). The story behind Richard Branson’s naked kitesurfing shot. The Virgin. Retrieved from http://www.virgin.com/news/naked-kitesurfing-heres-how-it-happened

Jiang, S., Dong, S. & Watson, I. (2015, July 16). China: Clothes come off in viral Uniqlo sex video. CNN. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/15/asia/china-beijing-uniqlo-sex-video/index.html