Viral Marketing Campaign Examples That Broke The Internet: What Made Them Tick?

We all share the desire to see our creation being distributed, posted, and shared around the world through social media. And with companies an integral part of social media, the internet abounds with instances of viral marketing campaign examples.

Social media has become the go-to destination for marketers looking to make a mark. It has become a powerful new tool that has given instant access to a global market, and they are way cheaper than traditional media. Innovative marketing strategies have led to viral marketing campaign examples.

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There are plenty of ways to establish a web presence, from pay-per-click advertising to blogging. Most businesses use a combination of various techniques that help them get the maximum results. But the past few years have seen the advent of viral marketing campaign examples that have brought huge success for the business promoting them.

The term, ‘it went viral’ originally referred to videos, comic or unusual memes, and social media games. But businesses have used this technique for the last several years to promote their products and services.

A Few Viral Marketing Campaigning Examples Will Show How Powerful The Tool Can Be If Successful

The shot on iPhone campaign was created to market their impressive new camera without mentioning any other feature of the device. There were photos from 77 users across the world. The users of the iPhone 6 were invited to post their best images on social media with the ‘Shot on iPhone’ hashtag. Apple selected these images and displayed them on 10,000 billboards across the world.

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The campaign went on to become one of the most successful campaigns for Apple. It remains among the innovative and viral marketing campaign examples. 

One of the biggest viral conceptual ad campaigns started from a photography exhibition in a Toronto building. The Campaign For Real Beauty became modern marketing’s greatest success story.

The story ran across multiple mediums from TV ads to billboards, and then it went viral online, even before the word ‘viral’ was a thing. The 2013 Dove ad shows women describing their appearances to a forensic sketch artist, and became one of the most-watched videos ever, with 114 million views within a month.

A social media site itself rose with the help of a viral campaign. Twitter used the SXSW conference to launch itself during a conference held in the Texan city of Austin. Then a startup, Twitter placed huge screens covering the venue. Attendees with Twitter accounts posted messages in real-time, and they were visible on the giant screens.

The impact was immense, and many subscribers became a part of the novel social media. It remains one of the most successful media campaigns to date.

Another brilliant viral marketing also took off during an SXSW festival at Austin. Uber gave delegates free rides to the conference and the festival. It became a talking point on multiple social media platforms, fuelled by the young participants at the festival. 

It was a stylish way to avail of the free ride service. The huge interest that was generated led to one social media site crashing.

Spotify is one of the best viral campaigns and helped the startup achieve success instantly. Founded in Sweden in 2008, the startup provides media service and audio streaming. Spotify has since transformed into the most popular streaming music service with 150 million premium subscribers.

But it was its partnership with a social media platform that propelled Spotify into the stratosphere. At the invitation of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sean Parker of Napster, Spotify officially integrated into Facebook. This partnership propelled Spotify to a new level when it launched in the US. This was a prime example of viral marketing campaign examples.

Dropbox is among the best viral marketing campaign examples. This shows that referral marketing can work magic as its subscription went from 100K registered users in September 2008 to 4M in December 2009 as it managed to double its user base every 3 months and achieved an incredible 3900% growth in 15 months.

Dropbox subscribed to a simple philosophy. As the product was into storage space in the cloud, they decided to reward users with more free space both for accepting an invitation and referring to their friends. In short, the compelling product rewarded both-sided for completing the desired task of registering for Dropbox.

One campaign that achieved overnight success was Mint. It remains one of the prime viral marketing campaign examples with the ‘I Want Mint’ campaign. Mint relied on its blog to raise awareness and doled out benefits to all users who displayed ‘I Want Mint’ on their social media pages and blogs. 

It was a free advertisement at its best. Without spending, they made customers feel a little special. With this badge, Mint was able to garner free ads on 600 blogs that included both influencers and normal people. They also got recognized for being concerned for their users and also providing vital information.

Campaigns With A Social Issue At Heart Have A Good Chance Of Going Viral

IHeartDogs is a company with a social purpose. Each time people purchase their products, the company contributes

 food to various dog shelters. Using this campaign, the company began with ads exhorting people to buy their products and donate to a cause.

The company launched a 0% Off crusade that in effect stated that customers will not get any discount on their products, which will instead go to finance a double donation for every weekend purchase. The 0% Off campaign ran for half a week and the company quadrupled sales despite the total lack of discount.

Instead of the initial 100,000 meals, they ended giving away 200,000 meals. Their sales went up 4 times, and 500,000 viewers reached out just from Facebook. The cause was humane and social, and people supported the campaign and made it viral.

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was initiated to help awareness of ALS or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis plus bring in donations for research into it. Many leading personalities like Oprah Winfrey, Mark Zuckerberg, Justin Bieber, and Bill Gates were part of it.

They poured a bucket of ice over their heads and encouraged others to do it and the crusade went viral, attracting people around the world and succeeding in raising over $220M. It was the 5th most viral search in Google in 2014 and donations to the cause remained 25% higher ever since.

These viral marketing campaign examples show that the power of social media marketing is one of the most powerful. It is the age of real-time marketing. Internet marketers are laying stress on using the power of the social network to create communities. The success of the above campaigns proves that merely promoting products and services never work. They went viral because they referenced their culture and could connect to the audience emotionally.