For Immediate Release:

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Image source: Chris Coven on DeviantArt
From Grumpy Cat to ?Charlie Bit My Finger,? online trends have taken over and are being shared over more than just the internet.
Do brands ruin these trends by adopting them for their own commercial purposes? Through an examination of corporate piggybacking, it appears that ads have the potential to kill trends. However, if handled delicately, brands can use their influence to spur trends into even bigger phenomena.

Tactics akin to the 34th remake of the Harlem Shake:

Let?s be honest, some ads that try to incorporate the newest trends can be uncomfortable to watch. It?s the equivalent of your mother texting you the letter ?u? instead of ?you? and ?4? instead of ?for;? you pity her efforts and just wish she would stop. These are the marketing tactics that kill trends. Here are the three tactics to avoid:

1. Bringing up the trend over and over again in the same advertisement

• We get it, you are using the trend. No need to use it in every frame and work it into the script. Play it cool. Taking the trend too far can put viewers off the trend all together.
• Example: Planking was just about driven into the ground. The trend was taken too far when the infectious randomness of planking was usurped by the commonality of people lying flat on top of objects.

Image source: Wikipedia.org

2. Using the trend even if it doesn?t fit the brand

• Do not use the trend just to appeal to internet-crazed millennials; the trend must somewhat align with the product. In other words: be authentic! Otherwise, the trend loses the genuine spirit that it originated with and can be seen as a desperate attempt to appeal to an age group that does not fit the company?s normal target.
• Example: The classic British slogan ?Keep calm and carry on? has been appropriated for just about everything and for the most part, the campaigns using it have very little to do with keeping calm or with strengthening British morale. In the case of this meme, generally neither the image nor the text relates to the company and causes the campaign to be seen as unrelated and frankly, random.

Image source: John C Bullas on Flickr

3. Creating a corporate replica of the trend

• Viewers do not want advertisers to take something that is organic and genuine and make it stand for nothing more than the corporate brand. The original grassroots impression needs to be felt.
• Example: When a company attempted to trademark the Doge meme, fans let their disapproval be known. The Doge meme used for solely corporate motives challenges the very nature of a meme, that anyone can use it and turn it into something relatable. Fans disliked their meme being manipulated into a solely corporate setting.

Image source: BuRaiYen4880 from DeviantArt

Tactics on par with goats screaming in the middle of Taylor Swift songs:

Brands have the potential to make a trend even cooler and display it to a larger audience thus enhancing its popularity. Below are four strategic methods that help advertisements not only keep the trend alive, but help it thrive:

1. The advertisement is released a matter of days after the trend became popular

• Although this is tricky to achieve, the early stage of a trend is the prime time for a brand to claim it. The trend is still being shared and is currently viral, causing the advertisement to jump to the top of the trending list. If an advertisement is being made while the topic is trending, by the time the advertisement is completed, the trend has already been shared a million times and people are beginning to grow wary of it.
• Example: Wieden and Kennedy London is one of the masters of this tactic. They planted an unbranded video of a cat with thumbs on YouTube a week before their commercial for Cravendale milk (featuring cats with thumbs) was to be televised. The video went viral almost immediately, causing people to have just started talking about cats with thumbs when the commercial aired. Perfect. The commercial was a huge hit, in part because of the pre-existing buzz of a supposedly unrelated cat-thumb video.

2. The advertisement helps the trend to evolve

• Internet trends are spontaneous and genuine. They are not perfect and manipulated to look the best they can with sophisticated effects and editing. Advertisements should keep this spirit alive. They should not, however, exactly copy the trend. The ad needs to evolve the trend so as not to be compared directly to the original.
• Example: Ellen?s Oscar selfie is arguably the most famous selfie of all time. Samsung engineered the photo tactfully, making it appear as if it was an unplanned, spontaneous idea. The unexpected grouping of celebrities only adds to the random nature of the photo thus augmenting its allure. Furthermore, the selfie does not feature just one or two celebrities but of a large group. It was not exactly like the selfies of everyday teenagers; it features our favorite megawatt celebrities doing something that millennials are doing all over the world. It helped create something unique and different: the group selfie.

3. The advertisement spurs its own trend

• If an ad goes viral, people will be manipulating it for months, maybe even years, to come. But the intention for it to become a trend cannot be overt, it must be subtle. The marketing aspect should not be shoved in people?s faces. Let the internet make it into a meme; the advertisement should simply provide the funny, quirky content.
• Example: Mediacom?s Snickers campaign, ?You?re not you when you?re hungry? was picked up and turned into a popular meme. The simple phrase allows it to be easily shared and its transposable nature made it perfect for the meme format. This was not Snickers? intention, but I doubt they are complaining. Their witty, simple, and interchangeable campaign allowed it to be supported and strengthened by the internet community.

4. The advertisement lightheartedly pokes fun at the trend

• Poking fun at a trend makes people feel part of a community; it unites viewers. This must be done tactfully, however, because poking fun can come across as pretentious.
• Example: Sprint does a great job of this in their commercial featuring their Nexus S 4G phone. They begin by saying just how powerful the phone is, how it can do anything in the world, and yet, we choose to look at cat videos. It does not say that this is ridiculous or that we could be doing something better with the power of the phone and as a result, it does not come across as pretentious.

The post Ermahgerd! That?s Not Cool Anymore appeared first on AdLibbing.org.