Sic transit gloria mundi.
Social media platforms, digital devices and ubiquitous connectivity have sparked a renaissance in storytelling, not just because of consumption but rather the ability to share. Seemingly minor stories can explode and often take on a life of their own, spread through digital virality that transcends borders and cultures.
That creates a huge opportunity for people who want to get their messages out. Viral memes remind us of the power and strength of the digital platform. In fact, marketing teams salivate over the prospect of getting a fraction of the response as the average viral meme, and spend a lot of time and money trying to create virality for a campaign.
You Can’t Plan or Control Virality
But that’s not a particularly effective strategy. For one thing, virality isn’t something that can be controlled. Viruses, in nature, spread organically. Controlling them is difficult, and, often, the best viral media never started out as something intentionally meant to spread. You simply can’t plan virality, because viral ideas are carried aloft by authenticity, which is anathema to all of planning.
Virality Often Doesn’t Provide Lasting Effects
Worse, though, a strategy built around creating something viral ignores the fatal drawback of viral meme-craft: Like a supernova, the power of virality is powerful and blinding and, in an instant, it’s gone. The greatest irony of trying to catch virality in a bottle is that the payoff is often disappointing. Even memes that seem to dominate our collective consciousness get flushed into obscurity quickly.
Virality Fades Quickly
Don’t believe me? The following three themes dominated social media for a time:
Harambe
The 17-year-old silverback gorilla was a hit with visitors at the Cincinnati Zoo. Then a three-year-old boy fell into his enclosure, prompting a zoo employee to shoot and kill the gorilla. The killing of Harambe sparked a national conversation about animal rights, parenting and even gun control. It even made the campaign trail during the presidential election with President-elect Donald J. Trump saying he “wished there weren’t another way” to have stopped Harambe.
But those real issues were quickly eclipsed by a range of internet memes built around Harambe. Harambe jokes were everywhere. Harambe became so popular, in the midst of an already bizarre election, Public Policy Polling even added him to presidential candidate mix and, depending on the month, he either outpolled or tied with real candidate Jill Stein.
And just when you thought it would be all Harambe, all the time, he disappeared from web. Why? The internet had moved on to someone new…
Ken Bone
Put a Caspar Milquetoast face on the tomato from VeggieTales and you would have Ken Bone, the power-plant worker who asked an otherwise (and, predictably) bland question about energy policy to Hillary Clinton and Trump during a CNN town hall debate in October. In a rancorous election, Bone was seen as a kind of doughy folk hero, as if the Ghostbusters had conjured the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man to save the world, not destroy it. Ken Bone was everywhere. He got a contract with Izod because of his red sweater. There was even a sexy Ken Bone costume (naturally).
Then came the inevitable backlash. Bone had a history, you see. He had posted controversial comments about Trayvon Martin on Reddit. He had a penchant for downloading of naked celebrity photos. The world loved his simple humanity at first, but as he became more human, the internet moved on.
Chewbacca Mom
Of course, Chewbacca Mom could have told Ken Bone of the short lifespan the internet viral celebrity meme. After all, Chewbacca Mom (Candace Payne, if you even care to know) was the bee’s knees for much of the summer after she donned a Wookie mask and cracked up laughing in a viral video. How viral? It was the most-viewed Facebook Live video, earning Payne a trip to Facebook headquarters, among a number of other accolades, like a guest appearance on The Late Show with James Corden and thousands of dollars in gift cards from Kohl’s.
Where is she now? Hard to say. Chances are, you couldn’t pick Chewbacca Mom out of a lineup. After all, no one really knew her. They knew her mask and her laugh. Watch the video once, even twice, and it’s a riot. But after a nap and a sandwich, you can find better entertainment elsewhere, and the internet public did just that.
Virality is Often Not Brand-Driven
None of those major internet memes was brand-driven. No brand could have created anything close to the rage that Harambe, Ken Bone and Chewbacca Mom did. Yes, brands like Izod and Kohl’s capitalized, but they were riding the waves, not driving the wind to stir the viral ocean. But no doubt many marketers tried to capture and even understand the appeal to craft their own campaigns.
Virality Generally Loses the Message
There’s a common thread, though, to all three meme-fads, and it is the one lesson marketers should remember before they chase the viral internet rainbow. No one actually wanted to hear the story behind any of these characters. Harambe was a tragedy, but the nature of his memes was divorced from the reality of his death, a sort of simian Zelig appearing everywhere. The more we knew of Ken Bone, the less he fit in with the memes he represented. And warm milk has a longer shelf life than a mom who donned a mask and laughed. All of that was unfortunate, since there was a depth and complexity to their stories that was actually compelling. Yet, in the world of internet memes, scratching the surface and seeing the real story is the web equivalent of coughing uncomfortably and asking the waiter for the check.
True success in messaging – really connecting with the right audiences – takes a deeper message than digital virality can deliver. You want staying power, and a lifetime relationship with your audiences. You don’t want fame. All glory is fleeting, as the Romans knew, and it moves faster in the mobile age. Just ask Ken Bone.
If you can find him.
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