Before you left the office on Friday, I can pretty much guarantee that someone in the vicinity was watching this video on YouTube. And if you didn’t see it in the office, then a friend probably forwarded it to you on Facebook. And if you didn’t catch it there, then you probably read about it in one of the various tech publications you read over the weekend.
What am I talking about?
The Bodyform Facebook response video of course.
If you managed to avoid the Internet between the time it was released and now, well here it is, just for you. And no doubt if you’ve already seen it, you’re going to want to watch it again.
The video has already gained over 2 million hits, and it’s only been circulating for 1 week. This is viral marketing at its best. So how did they do it?
Timing
The video was created in response to a post on their Facebook fan page; a disgruntled Richard confronted Bodyform about their false portrayal of “that time of the month”. The post was no more interesting than any other amusing post on Facebook, and yet this one captivated the social networking community and lead to a flurry of likes and shares. Mashable covered the story, calling it a ‘comedic rant’, and it looked like Richard had experienced his brief moment of glory in the limelight.
One week later Bodyform released the video. One week. That’s timing. They could have let the story die down in its own time, but instead they decided to strike while interest was still high, and as a result brought themselves a decent amount of positive publicity.
Getting Personal
Bodyform took a risk in singling out Richard. While there are some YouTube comments that suggest “picking on” Richard was a harsh move, on the whole, their audience found it amusing. By getting personal they employed a similar tactic to Smart Car’s Bird Poo infographic and demonstrated that they do indeed read and respond to their social community.
Being Genuinely Funny
“Bodyform doesn’t have a CEO. But if it did she’d be called Caroline Williams. And she’d say this.” They took the tongue-in-cheek British sense of humour to the maximum and removed any possibility of the video being brand damaging if it backfired. Everything about the video – from the script, to the blue water, to the well-timed ring-tone – was absolutely hilarious. And all of this happened in only one short week. They created a video that couldn’t not go viral. Kudos.
