Research In To Viral Adverts

Research In To Viral Adverts

A viral advert uses existing social networks to try and increase brand awearness or to achieve other marketing objectives such as advertising a new product, in our case a short film. Viral adverts have to catch the audiences attention through using emotionals to creat a viral coefficient. This will increase your viwing status as more and more people will view your advert and therefore buy/watch your new product. The idea is to inspire people to spread your message for you.

What is a viral coefficient:
This is the total number of viewers that is generated due to one existing viewer. A viral coefficient above one, means that the number of people viewing the content is growing and a number below one means that sharing growth is diminishing.
So how do you create a viral coefficient?

• Your title is the first impression the audience will get. So a creative and interesting title will attract viewers and help to increase your audience. The more people that connect with the title the better the chances of getting people to share the content.

• Use strong emotional drivers to make people care and share. It is important to create emotional excitement quickly. Get straight in there with the emotions, contrast between high levels of emotion and areas of less emotional activation to prevent boredom or overwhelming your audience.

• Use content to strike the correct emotions. One investigation showed that negative emotions were less commonly found in high viral contentthan positive emotionsthough using negative emotions is still a successfull met hod of viral advertising when it evoked anticipation and suprise. The investigation found that some specific emotions were extremely common in viral advertising, curiosity, amazement, interest, astonishment and uncertainty.

• They found that the emotion of admiration was very commonly found in popular shared content which was an unex   pected result. They believed that adverts that pull on peoples heart string would be the most poular.

Tie your brand to an emotional message. 
One investigation found that the best viral adverts had strong emotional activation, so it was decided that the best way to viral success is through emotional messages. Firstly, think carefully about how what you are advertising is related to a topic that taps in to human emotions with your target audience. The aim is to find a link to an issue that relates to your target audience, though you must make sure that the topic you choose positivley reflects the position of your brand/company. If an advert connects with the human emotions it is more likely to be shared and create a larger coefficient. This is because it plays on the heart strings persuading people to buy/watch/invest in your product.

Consider the public good.
Considering that one of the best ways to create an emotionally commplelling viral advert is to tie your content to a public good. Look at how you can create something that does a public good or creates awareness and activates emotional drivers. Engaging with the audience means creating emotional attachments and contributing to their world. Through connecting your product to a public good people are more likely to watch and react to your advert e.g. donating money to a good cause. This also puts your company into a good light as it is seen to be helping the greater good.