Top 5 Viral Video Marketing Campaigns of 2008

Olivia Hayes of Ignite Social Media has put together her thoughts on the Top 5 most viral (or would it be virulent?) campaigns of 2008. Here's the summary (#6 I noticed in the comments section of her article and thought it also deserved mention):

1. "Will it blend?" campaign - Blendtec
2. Elf Yourself - Office Max
3. Yes We Can - Will.i.am & Barack Obama
4. Guys backflilpping into Jeans - Levi's
5. Ball Girl Catch - Gatorade
6. "The Ramp" campaign - BMW

I've seen all of them before and what you'll notice about each of them is they involve one (or a combination) of the following elements:

1. music
2. unique skill/talent
3. quirkiness
4. personalization

Here's one additional comment on item 3 "quirkiness". Many marketers fail at this one, as they simply try to think of something strange or different without actually achieving quirky. The main thing to remember about trying to make a campaign quirky is that it should elicit an eye-brow raising response; if the user simply notes that it's strange but not any more than say noticing your pee smells like funny after eating asparagus (read more), then it's not quirky. Worse yet, it may come off as "trying to be quirky" which is the kiss of death for viral campaigns which are supposed to inherently be inventions of inspiration (not intention). For my money, you've achieved quirky if you can show it to a few test users (age should be 16 - 38, but obviously depends on your intended demo) and get them to have one of the following responses:

• laughing (the more the better)
• forwarding (the more the better)
• WTF/disgust (without being offensive)

Good luck to all those viral marketers out there in 2009!