The more disrespectful to the generally accepted order a brand shows when creating advertising, the higher the chances that it will go to the people. We tell how companies create really resonant campaigns
About the expert: Nikita Petrusev, creative director of the Action agency, participant of the Perspectum Awards.
The main secret of creating viral advertising is disrespect for anything, breaking the generally accepted rules of the game. Ads and any other communications that claim to be viral compete not with ads from other brands, but with Netflix or social media posts from iconic celebrities. And irreverence is the only way to beat the competition.
When I talk about irreverence, I do not mean defiant, rude, or even offensive behavior against generally accepted values. There are also such examples in marketing, but rather as an exception. It means challenging any status quo.
With irony to himself and the rules of the game
For example, irreverence can be expressed through self-irony. We are used to the fact that car manufacturers put the beauty and power of their products at the forefront. However, the Volkswagen brand looks at itself soberly and declares – yes, children will never dream of our cars, they dream of supercars. But the impeccable Volkswagen braking system will work perfectly if the child, staring at the dream car, enters the roadway.
Irreverence can also be shown to the ossified rules of our society: for example, many are surprised at what astronomical amounts of sponsorship contracts for football clubs reach – all for the sake of the logo on the jersey of the star. The fast food chain Burger King decided to hack this system. Literally for three kopecks, the company became a sponsor of the tiny Stevenage football club from the bottom of the fourth division of England. The thing is that even this club is represented in the mega-popular football simulator FIFA, in which you can virtually buy any world football star in any club. Guess what happened next?
Burger King sent out a call on their social networks, which are followed by millions of people and tens of thousands of fans of this game, and called to play for this small club, buying football stars into it. For Twitter screenshots and videos of Messi, Ronaldo and other top players with the Burger King logo on the jersey, the brand handed out coupons to its eateries. The result was a huge influx of Burger King content on social media, and the tiny real-life team became the coolest and most quoted team in VR, as everyone appreciated the wit and endearing irreverence with which the brand approached the foundations of football sponsorship.
Politics games
Another example is Coca-Cola’s disrespect for years of political conflict between India and Pakistan over the disputed region of Kashmir.
According to Coca-Cola, the inhabitants of these countries themselves are tired of the conflict and are looking for common ground. So the company installed vending machines (one in a mall in India and one in Pakistan) that broadcast images in real time. When people simultaneously touched the screens of these machines with their palms, each of them received a can of cola.
Ability to react in time
Irreverence is an essential element of creating viral advertising, but situationalness can become an additional impetus to virality – that is, the ability to react very quickly to some events or create a link to a significant date.
Thus, in our Action agency, together with Novaya Gazeta, we implemented the N23 social project, the purpose of which was to stop the opening of a glamorous perfume boutique in the so-called Execution House on Nikolskaya, 23 in Moscow. During the years of Stalinist terror, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR sat in it – according to some reports, more than 15 thousand people were shot in the basements of this house in 30 years.
We learned about the plans to open a perfume boutique in this house just a week before the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repressions – and it was then that our answer could have sounded the loudest. This week we created a symbol of the madness that is happening – a perfume with the smell of a damp cellar, gunpowder and ashes. The premium packaging contrasted sharply with the contents: on a pillow made of earth from the Kommunarsky firing range lay a bottle made from a vintage Soviet cartridge case.
By the memorable date, we have produced and sent to the media 30 packages of perfume, as a result of which we received an enormous response in the media – more than 200 publications in our country and around the world, including in the BBC, Times and Le Monde. More than 50 thousand people signed a petition against the opening of the boutique, a number of caring businessmen became active in order to buy this house and turn it into a museum. As a result, the result of the project exceeded our expectations: according to the decision of the Moscow Mayor’s Office, a memorial exposition will be opened at 23 Nikolskaya Street. In addition, the project received gold and bronze at the Cannes Lions international festival. Separately, the Cannes jury also noted the speed of execution of the idea.