5successMillward Brown, on behalf of Google, recently analyzed what factors make video advertising a viral success, revealing that originality and suggesting strong emotions mainly make the world of difference.

  1. Viral video ads are unique and charged with emotions: For instance, 88% of the best Youtube video ads in 2014 were rated as higher-than-average by the users in terms of uniqueness and the emotions they triggered. Hence, do not rely on models, but create your own ideas. Find out how your target audience ticks and what they respond to emotionally. Virtually all spots include a strong human touch and music, which promotes the commitment.
  2. Make your spot to a piece of entertainment: Statements such as "It's fun to watch the spot", or it is "interesting" or "engaging" got much better results than the usual ones. Surprising elements in Youtube spots promote success. Despite possible polarization by shocking elements, it is more likely that such ads stand out and stick.
  3. Virality requires the will of users to share content: Please take the criteria that bring users to like and share a spot to heart. According to analysis, content will not be shared due to brands, but because of relevance. Therefore, rely on relevance rather than pushing with your brand to the forefront.
  4. Strong branding is not the central key to success on Youtube: In half of the successful spots, branding is even often developed below average. Users share content especially when the content is relevant to them and the brand plays a minor role.
  5. Say goodbye to 30-second spot that you use for TV: Rather, take more time to tell your story, especially since the average length of the most successful spots is over two minutes.

For the study, Millward Brown analyzed 24 successful commercials of the year 2014 in regards to the key drivers for their viral success. In each case, at least 100 Youtube users were asked via an online panel: They should evaluate the spots according to various criteria such as uniqueness, originality, joy of seeing, interest, willingness to share, humor or emotions. The values were compared with the average of a video benchmark file of the institute, which is based on the same standardized survey.

By MediaBUZZ