In recent years there has been a decline in the effectiveness of brand advertising as a result of over-saturation, increasing consumer skepticism and hardware inventions such as TiVo that allow viewers to avoid advertisements (Leskovec 2007). As a result, companies have been forced to develop innovative strategies and find alternative delivery channels to reach customers, build brand affinity, and engage users. The Internet has played a critical role in this marketing revolution, as it has provided myriad opportunities for companies to engage with consumers and promote products. Google’s AdWords and AdSense programs harnessed the power of the Internet as an information aggregator and revolutionized the field of direct response marketing. Likewise, Nike’s recent viral marketing campaign to promote its ‘Hyperdunk’ basketball shoes was revolutionary because it harnessed the social power of the Internet to increase brand awareness and affinity.
Nike’s guerilla online advertisement for the ‘Hyperdunks’ was an early example of a large corporation utilizing the power of viral videos to target key demographics, increase user engagement and build awareness. The video purposefully mimics an amateur YouTube production in order to maximize its authenticity–shot with a low-quality camera on a nondescript rooftop garage, it depicts Kobe Bryant talking about his new shoes before jumping clear over an Aston Martin speeding underneath him as his teammate stares on in horror. The video was released online without any related mainstream media campaign nor an explicit connection to either Nike or Weiden + Kennedy, the advertising company responsible for the content. The video’s dangerous subject matter and the inevitable debate that arose over whether the footage had been doctored only added to its mysterious allure. Nike hoped that the unique content and release would help the advertisement become a successful ‘viral video’, a video that gains mass internet popularity through peer-to-peer connections, sharing on social media sites and embedding on popular blogs. Viral video ads can be intrinsically more compelling than traditional ads because they are passed from friend to friend rather than pushed by the company, thus increasing their authenticity and more thoroughly engaging the viewer. As a result of significant word-of-mouth activity the video garnered over six million views on YouTube and was shown and discussed on ESPN and TNT broadcasts without payment from Nike. This advertising spot illustrated the potential for viral marketing in three major ways. First, it amassed a huge number of impressions with minimal capital expenditure; Nike didn’t have to pay for its distribution across any medium. Second, it represented a significant shift in the way consumers typically engage with marketing content. Nike managed to create interactive online material by stylistically mimicking the typical amateur YouTube video, thus pushing viewers to become both detectives and ‘product evangelists’ (Kawasaki). Third, Nike expanded its traditional marketing reach using viral video to tap into viewer’s social networks—the video had a ‘cool’ or ‘wow’ factor that transcended the market of shoe enthusiasts and reached a wider online entertainment audience.
While this campaign was not the first to tap into the power of online social connections, Nike’s ‘Hyperdunk’ campaign altered the online advertising landscape because of its informal style and ‘viral’ release. Previous popular online videos such as Burger King’s ‘subservient chicken’ or Nike’s ‘Ronaldinho: Touch of Gold’ were explicitly connected to the company and coincided with a traditional mainstream media rollout. Since the Nike ‘Hyperdunk’ advertisement, there have been multiple campaigns that mimic Nike’s guerilla approach, such as Levi’s “Backflipping into Jeans” and Gatorade’s “Ballgirl Catch”. Companies like XLNTAds and Zadby create a market between large companies and niche content producers to profit from this growing demand. Although advertising spending is likely to decline in aggregate in the coming year or two, viral marketing spending will increase. A survey of executives at the top 40 creative agencies firms indicated that 72% of clients, representing all industries, expressed interest in using viral video as a critical part of their marketing strategy next year (FeedCompany). Advertising executives are intrigued by the potential for exponential views and brand development.
Despite enthusiasm for the medium, there are still significant stumbling blocks in this nascent field. While the ‘Hyperdunk’ campaign was revolutionary, it was by no means perfect. Online brand lift advertising lacks immediate metrics to gauge impact or return on investment, critical components of any successful strategy. Impressions, click-through rates and YouTube views are insufficient to measure the bottom-line impact of the video’s exposure. Additionally, there are ethical and long-run consumer trust concerns that result from blurring the line between entertainment and advertising, appropriately dubbed ‘viral murketing’ by some. However, pushing the bounds with bold content is nothing new. Around twenty years ago Weiden + Kennedy created a series of iconic advertisements for Nike such as “Bo knows best”, “Mars Blackmon” and Charles Barkley’s “I am not a role model” that similarly pushed the envelope and blurred the line between entertainment and marketing. Finally, it is risky to allow customers to participate in the branding process as the openness could lead to brand mismanagement if the video is embedded somewhere inappropriate or user-generated feedback includes troublesome behavior.
Despite consumers’ rising desensitivity towards traditional advertisements, this campaign managed to engage viewers, create brand affinity and instigate public discussion by harnessing the social power of this new medium. Weiden + Kennedy didn’t simply apply the concepts of broadcast or print advertising to online video, they built a campaign to exploit the unique characteristics inherent to the new media space. The minimal distribution costs gave them the opportunity to take larger production and distribution risk, and helped them define a new genre instead of working at the margins of the previous one. In the future, this type of campaign could easily be integrated with the formation of a social networking community such as the Nike+ community for runners. A nearly identical social network created for pick-up basketball players to organize games or connect off the court could accompany this viral marketing campaign. This social network would extend forward-thinking brand development, increase user engagement, and create a loyal community of customers.
