Viral videos are content that is widely shared across a variety of platforms, thereby creating millions of views and a lot of marketplace exposure for the person or business that created it.

One of the most iconic examples of a viral marketing campaign done well is the Dollar Shave Club. The video which the Dollar Shave Club produced, in just 1 video, grew the company to a 1 billion dollar evaluation business.

The video has been viewed over 2.2 million times. This is what you would call a viral video, a video that is shared across the internet like a virus.

How does this phenomenon happen? There are a ton of elements in a video that create virality, however we will be analyzing one of the most common videos that go viral: the music video.

Music Videos As A Case Study

Music videos contain some of the most viral videos out there in the world. They spread like wildfire, offers rabid growth but most of all they are amazing avenues for promotion – take a look at the amount of sponsors a typical music video receives.

You may be asking at this point. So what? What does this have to do with marketing and business?

Well lets take a look at some stats. The music video industry has generated over 15 billion dollars of revenue in the United States alone in 2021. As most music videos are hosted on YouTube which is a platform created for entertainment, and also the most widely used content sharing platform – the same platform that likely your company will be hosting your videos on.

What music videos capture are eyeballs and in this day and age, eyeballs equals cash.

Music videos also contain elements of how things go viral and you will be learning about this through two very nicely made examples and how you can apply them to your business to skyrocket your results immediately.

Case Study 1 – YOASOBI

Japan, one of the strangest countries in this world. Also home to the famous anime industry that has produced millions of fans from all across the world. There has never been a rabid fanbase than the anime industry which has helped boost Japan’s reputation globally.

There is something we can take away from this country which will be the country our first video is from.

There was a music video called: “Racing into the Night” from Japan, and it has been breaking records left and right. It won the MTV Video Music Award, the Billboard Japan Music Award and has hit Japan’s spot for most watched music video of the year. This video was also been viewed over 256m+ times on YouTube.

It also comes no surprise that it was released through Sony Entertainment, the billion dollar music behemoth of Japan. So there are things that we can learn from this. If you haven’t already, watch the music video and we can discuss how you can apply what made this video a success to your business.

Did you like it?

So what is the one elements that made this music video so good?

The Bread And Butter: Storytelling

Its virality came from its story. Every viral product, content and copy has a good story behind it. You do not need to understand Japanese to see the story, there was a mystery to it.

Why was the guy cutting out his eyes? Who was this girl. Why was the girl and the guy jumping off the building? Was it a suicide? These are some of the questions that bring up deep emotions which contribute to the narrative being shown.

This story by the way was based on an original short story title “Seduction of Thanatos” that depicts a fleeting romance between a young man and the woman he loves who is trying to commit suicide.

As you can see here, a good story consists of three parts. A beginning, a conflict, and a resolution. You can see those three elements present in this video.

The beginning establishes the context and introduces the characters.

The conflict sets the scene of what is happening.

The resolution (or lack of) brings the audiences to the final conclusion.

Let’ see how this music video fairs in that sense.

The beginning of the video shows an unknown women approaching a man and suddenly falling off a building. Usually good openings of a story has a good hook. Something that is dramatic, something that grabs the viewer’s attention. This video does it.

The conflict part shows a romantic story being formed by the protagonist and the unknown women with her eyes bleeding. The conflict part of the stage is usually one that creates intrigue. Why is the women’s eyes bleeding. Why is the man’s eyes bleeding as well as he kept on dating this girl?

Why, why why. That is the part of the conflict stage of a story, it’s about creating intrigue & most importantly, curiosity.

Have you ever watched a very good series? There is usually an element of curiosity in what is being shown. All of your favorite TV series you have watched up to this point, has curiosity in it.

Finally, the video ends with the man dying and falling off the building. A good ending is done not by exactly having a resolution, though it may include one but more importantly is a transition towards a resolution. The journey, and showing of the journey.

Overall, YOASOBI’s Racing into the night was a viral hit and as you can see, it did not come by accident.

Case Study 2 – “Aow Pakar Ma Wong”

A change of scenery here and lets fly all the way to the country of Thailand. There is a video that is circulating around the internet here in Thailand as of 2022 and it’s this video, called: “Aow Pakar Ma Wong” which translates literally into “take a pen to draw a circle”.

So what is the significance of this? 32m+ views on YouTube may seem unimpressive compared to the previous example of YOASOBI.

However, this song has been distributed on TikTok with a total number of 229 million+ views in a span of few months. That’s what we would call viral and what stands out about this is that all of this came from a previously unknown agency: “Home Run Music”. Catchy name as well because indeed the video was a home run.

Let’s explore the traits of virality in this video.

Shareability and Ownership

As you can see, the story of the video is just simply a girl drawing a circle, with a lot of catchy dance moves that you can copy. It allows the audience to partake in it. Something like that makes the song shareable and also allows audiences to partake in it.

You can see this with many people doing this specific dance on TikTok. Anyone can copy it and make this dance your own. Shareablity of something like this is all about ownership, when you share content, you are giving someone something that they can make their own. That was what led to the viral success of this song.

Image: Thai influencers on TikTok doing mini-copies of the dance.

Focus on one big idea

To those that do not know, a big idea in marketing is basically a central theme to make your content on. When you formulate a big idea, you base everything on it and sell your message on that big idea. In this video, the “big idea” was basically a girl drawing a circle with a pen.

That was it, but they ran with it.

It’s not sexy, it’s not exciting but it is an idea, ONE idea that you could run with. This video does that and it gives you one big idea that you can view and enjoy.

Virality Is Never An Accident

Viral videos do not happen overnight. If you take a look at the history of these two songs, there has been many ideas that were tested before their viral videos took off. But those ideas they tested gave them valuable practice and deep insight into the marketplace.

From my experience working in the marketing field, the videos that you least expect to go viral are the ones that do go viral. The ones that you think are really good are the ones are bomb.

This is because what goes viral is determined on what people like, and not what you like. It’s sometimes difficult to ascertain what people like at any given time because people’s behaviors are complicated, if that is not the case, you will be seeing a lot more viral videos out there. That’s why conducting your research and doing your due diligence is essential in preparing for viral success.

Follow the market and give what the market wants and not what you want. Use the data from the tests you do to guide your decisions and very soon, you will have a massive payday hit coming. I hope this article helped you out in any way and if you did like it and would like to see me work on viral marketing projects for your company, do contact me via my contact page to discuss your project.

>> Return to blog listing here

>> Download my FREE e-book: “Cash Emails” here