All Good Virals Are ‘Made to Entertain’
Yesterday, I was checking out one on my favourite blogs, Digital Buzz, when I came across a brilliant piece of work done for Heineken. It was inspiring and it has been amazing to see how positively people are reacting to it online. But first off, please take five minutes to view the masterpiece that is Heineken’s guerrilla marketing campaign in Italy.
Agreed. It is simply brilliant. What it does for me is show the importance and endless opportunities of multi-channelled, well synergized ad campaigns. Not to mention the massive viral impact. This integrated approach saw 200 accomplices convince over 1000 unsuspecting Italian football fans to attend a fake opera and poetry event on the night of the AC Milan vs Real Madrid match. The event was also televised on SkySport. It turned out to be a private viewing of the match, but its delivery saw a shift in mood from guys on the verge of revolt, to a feeling of sheer relief and joy, making Heineken an absolute legend. That alone is masterful execution of planning, guerrilla and TV marketing efforts. But what followed is the real genius of this approach.
To sum up the video, 1136 people were coaxed into this stunt, 1.5 million viewers saw them on SkySport and 10 million people heard about it on the news the next day. That’s already a huge amount of free publicity. But the real impact came on the web, with a staggering 5 million unique visitors to the website over the next 2 weeks and an inestimable amount of coverage on blogs, forums, and social networks. Since I have come across the video, I have seen it pop up in several places. A search for Heineken Viral on Twitter will demonstrate what I mean. With each blog comment, re-Tweet, or Facebook ‘like’, Heineken is getting some great free publicity. It will be interesting to see how many views the YouTube video will receive (currently 49,508), but I’m sure this chunk of advertising gold will continue to spread.
The bottom line is that it is one giant notch on the belt for JWT/Italy and another addition to a history of great Heineken ads. This campaign hit its target perfectly and highlighted the notion that men are losing the ability to relax and watch the game with friends. With a clear respect for the ability of social media and the internet in general to gain mass exposure, it appears this campaign is actually the same as Heineken in one respect: ‘Made to Entertain’.
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