"Make us go viral"

Have you ever heard this phrase coming from your boss? What exactly means "Make us virals"? It means make everyone talk about us. But just talking about us is enough? Even if the phrase "It doesn't matter if people talk good or bad about you, just that they talk about you” is really popular, is it right in this case? Does it worth using “cute animals” or “embarrassing videos” that could make everyone laugh at your product and company but not with you? Or even worst, making campaigns that nobody sees?

So, which is the solution? How can we get viral without having these problems? The simple answer is SCIENCE. Nowadays, a lot of marketing strategies around the world are being based on neuromarketing research. In the case of videos, is not very different.

Neurologists have been studying the impact of videos on people’s brain. Their research leads us to two main conclusions.

The first one is about how different are the reactions between men and women. On one hand, women respond more positively to visually pleasant sequences, especially ones that also involve words and other verbalizations. Some examples of this are very clear in advertisement like shampoo, yogurt or perfume.

On the other hand, men tend to be more action rich visuals. The evidence is those advertisements about shaving or cars.

 The other conclusion, Scientifics arrived to is that the brain is at its most active when it’s frightened. Why is this relevant? Neuroscientists have found that a spike in brain activity means you are more likely to remember the event that generated that fear. One example of playing the fear game straight is the ‘Take This Lollipop’ campaign, which accessed users’ Facebook details temporarily, and made them the star of a short online horror film. Designed to raise awareness of online privacy issues, it spooked everyone and was a huge hit (with over 14,000,000 people ‘taking the lollipop’ at last glance).

These are just two neurological insights that can help us tailor our campaigns to our audiences, and as science advances neuromarketing looks set to become a key feature. The more we can understand the people we’re marketing to, the better. Even if findings seem self-evident, the ability to confirm what we’ve already been intuitively doing and push it to a more subconscious level will be invaluable in creating the successful online campaigns of the future.

Soon I’ll post other insights which will help you to understand for the consumer mind.