The inspiration for my blog today is something that was mentioned in class and I reallly wanted to build on the idea. Jamie McDougall found an article about a guy who sent a short video to a girl he met in Starbucks in an attempt to seduce her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdS9pdiYF4o

Instead he became a social media sensation that adopted the hashtag #starbucksdrakehands. This simple video created a fire storm on social media with people quickly creating parodies of the video and using the #starbucksdrakehands tag. After seeing the video a question was posed to the class. Should Starbucks leverage this social media sensation and if so, how should they leverage it? This question about how the company should leverage this viral social media trend is what leads me to where I want to expand. I am curious as to how companies decide to leverage viral videos and social media trends in order to increase their own brand awareness. The one company that sticks out most in my mind as being a prime example of how to do this well is Wonderful Pistachios. This company took viral youtube videos and created their Get Crackin campaign which went “viral” in itself.

The first one launched leveraged the YouTube sensation Keyboard Cat who has over 32 million views. After its success they went on to create more and basically made their get cracking campaign a success.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhdvmEYCQgA

And launched the Gagnam style ad during the superbowl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE6iiiDdTNY

This campaign must have seemed farfetched when first presented as an idea but I think that it is an excellent example of how social media and viral videos were leveraged to help a brand. I wonder how they decided to use the campaign it would be interesting to hear their process. Visit their Get Crackin Website to see more of their ads starring The Harlem Globe Trotters, Snoop, and others.

All in all, I am interested to see what Starbucks does with this trend, but as agreed upon in class, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them do nothing.

Any other examples you guys can think of?

Thanks for reading!