FutureM 2014 Anatomy of a Viral Video Speakers: Eric Williamson (@edubble_u) SVP, Director of Digital & Content Strategy, Mullen Kazi Ahmed (@kaziahmed) VP, Group Digital Director, Mediahub/Mullen Jon Ruby VP, Creative Director, Mullen In advertising, we work tirelessly to create what we hope is incredible branded content and then pay to get it in front of as many of the right people as possible. Our success is measured by some combination of business results, brand surveys and industry awards. But what really gets our blood pumping is when our work grabs the attention of the masses and goes viral. At Mullen, we recently had the good fortune of experiencing this with a video we created for American Greetings’ Mother’s Day campaign. Naturally, when you do something great, you want to understand how you did it, so you can do it again. Our project post-mortem revealed some interesting insights about how and why something spreads among consumers and media, which is what we will share in this presentation, “Anatomy of a Viral Video.”

1. Anatomy of a Viral Video
#FUTUREM
Kazi
Ahmed
@kaziahmed
VP,
Group
Digital
Director
Mediahub/Mullen
Eric
Williamson
@edubble_u
SVP,
Director
of
Digital
&
Content
Strategy
Mullen
Jon
Ruby
VP,
Crea@ve
Director
Mullen

2. THE
ANATOMY
OF A
VIRAL VIDEO

4. www.mullen.com/worldstoughestjob

5. ADVERTISING

9. post·mor·tem
pōstˈmôrtəm
noun
A methodical fact-finding mission of learning
from previous actions that we all agree we
should definitely do after every initiative…
but never actually do.

10. SIX
LESSONS

11. YOU KNOW
WHAT THEY SAY

12. INSIGHT 1
MOMS AREN’T THE
PROBLEM, WE ARE

13. INSIGHT 2
HARD WORK, BUT
NOT A “REAL JOB”

14. THE NEW
MEDIA HACK

15. PR: MEDIA
FEEDBACK LOOP

16. BABIES OR CATS

17. MAKE IT COUNT

19. 2.7M IMPRESSIONS
800K SOCIAL SHARES
MOST SHARED ADWEEK
ARTICLE OF ALL TIME
INFLUENCED 13+
OTHER MEDIA OUTLETS

23. DON’T SCREAM
INTO THE WIND

26. CONTROVERSY:
A GOOD THING

27. HATERS

29. What a surprise, the World’s
Toughest Job video is just a
corporate pitch for greeting
cards

30. What a surprise, the World’s
Toughest Job video is just a
corporate pitch for greeting
cards

31. What a surprise, the World’s
Toughest Job video is just a
corporate pitch for greeting
cards

33. PEOPLE NEED
TO FEEL

37. 1. DON’T ASSUME ON INSIGHTS
2. PR IS A MUST
3. DAY ONE IS KEY
4. LAUNCH ALONE
6. EMOTION = SHARING
5. BE COOL UNDER PRESSURE

38. SERIOUSLY,
THERE’S NO FORMULA