Tag Archives: viral

Aug 24 2015
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Marketing Strategy, Strategy

Why People Root For Deez Nuts?

 racepolldeeznuts

How far are you willing to take this practical joke?
As far as America wants to take it.
– Deez Nuts in Rolling Stone interview

If you ever doubt the power of Internet, just check the rise of Deez Nuts. This “presidential candidate” is currently the highest-polling independent since Ross Perot. What could be a viral campaign for Straight Outta Compton (Deez Nuts is originally a song from Dr. Dre´s The Chronic) was just a funny idea from an 15-year old teenager. He realized that anyone can file to run for president with Federal Elections Commission and you don´t even have to use your real name or address.

deeznutsfecfiling

The hype has just begun. Warren G (the originator of Deez Nuts) has volunteered to become vice president for Deez Nuts. The search interest for Nuts has surpassed Hillary Clinton and is almost as high as Donald Trump.

searchtrendsdeeznuts

Why Deez Nuts has become such a phenomenon?

  1. It is funny. It is hard to think about more serious decision than selecting your new president. That does not mean that people would not want take the piss out of it.
  2. People adapt to everything. Donald Trump´s candidacy shocked people at first, but now it is already old news. You need constantly some new stimulus or otherwise you get totally numb to the whole election (and we have not even entered the primary phase). There is so long time till the actual election that people will get bored to pretty much everything: eventually even to Deez Nutz.
  3. Shareability. People share things that instantly make them laugh. If newscaster pronouncing “Deez Nuts” does not make you laugh a little bit, you must be too cynical for your own good. The name and the backstory is a perfect example of digital age and what makes people tick in 2015.

It remains to be seen how long Deez Nuts will remain hot topic in US election. For non-voting fans of practical humor hopefully quite long.

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Apr 10 2014
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Advertising, Insight

Singaporean Viral Surprise

This week Singaporean social media has been buzzing about this “viral” video:

The reaction to the video caught Singapore Tourism Board (STB) by “surpise” and they removed the video. The discussion has not stopped though.

I don’t argue that the ad is quite hideous. I actually first bumped in the video in my FB newsfeed with the caption “I can´t stop vomiting”. Overall I think there is no reason to panic about, there is three lessons for every brand to learn about this “fiasco”:

1. Best way to draw attention to video is to remove it
Removing the video was total overreaction from STB. Firstly there is no such thing as removing something from Internet. Removed content is like Arnold Schwarzenegger: it will be back. Removing something just draws attention to it. Secondly it just draws more attention to it. If STB had left the video to its YouTube page, some people would maybe have found other STB content inspired by that. Even this newly upped version has gained over 60k views, which is quite good amount for advertising content in Singapore.

2.There is more horrible things in the world than doing a one horrible ad
Unfortunately the reality is that many firms do ads like this every day and no one raises an eyebrow. STB has done quite a lot of good content as well, such as this:


Singapore Board of Tourism from Yellow Box Studios on Vimeo.

3.Parody is the highest form of flattery

You can go viral from good and bad reasons, but this is quite far cry from a real full-blown social media crisis. The real problem for brands is not that people talk negative things about them. The problem is that no one is talking about them at all. When you start getting your first negative comments that just means that enough people have seen your content. If you spark any kind of emotion, it shows that people care about the brand. Snarky blog posts and parodies are an opportunity to join the conversation. STB should have taken more lighthearted attitude to the whole hoopla and turn these parodies into their own advantage.

I think overall Singapore Tourism Board should be happy that this video has raised so much emotion and conversation. It shows that people care deeply on what kind of message Singapore conveys abroad. Also it raises hope for Singaporean advertising scene. People should raise hell more often when they see a bad ad. There is still too much mediocrity around in advertising. Hopefully this gives us more opportunities to do more good and relevant advertising.

That is not only right for the brands, it is right for the audience as well.

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