The advertising and media press love to talk about “viral videos,” but what they don’t generally mention is that marketing videos that “go viral” do so because the marketing spending on those videos pays for itself. Those “viral videos” often have a positive ROI either based directly on sales or based on the LTV of customers acquired through that video and the platform the video runs on.
Therefore, the viral marketing videos make the brand money, just like the infomercials before them did. The infomercials (long form and short form) you saw dozens of times were paying for themselves.
I’m a big believer that humor can tell a story and break through the clutter simultaneously, sometimes that means a funny sales video can deliver the ROI to go viral. That’s why I was excited to discuss humorous marketing videos with Joseph Wilkins, founder of FunnySalesVideos.com host of the How to Make a Video Go Viral podcast. Joseph has produced thousands of videos for clients including Google, LinkedIn, McDonalds, Goldman Sachs, Chevrolet & Home Depot. In this segment, Joseph and discuss the reasons that videos go viral on today’s social media platforms and how, as a marketer you can increase the odds of having a viral success as well.
In the full length interview, Joseph discusses his agency’s system for creating and testing humor videos, how humorous ads can cut through the clutter, how videos go viral, how CMOs can be persuaded to experiment with humor ads, and other issues relevant to advertising and digital marketing. We discuss how copywriters and strategists apply humor, not to make fun of a product or service but to tell stories that elicit an emotional response.
