Viral Video Redux At FutureM

Yesterday, Advertising Age featured a story about Dollar Shave Club’s One Wipe Charlies. One Wipe Charlies are flushable wet toilet paper, commonly referred to in most households as “butt wipes.” You may remember Dollar Shave Club from their viral video a few years back featuring their CEO, Mike Dubin and announcing their new product as well as a new way to get razor blades. It was a great video. Mike was regarded as a genius for such a brilliant and low-cost product launch.
But Dollar Shave Club released its second company video for One Wipe Charlies back in June, and so far it hasn’t seen the traction and isn’t quite as funny as its original famous video. So they’ve produced an in-house radio ad campaign called “Clean Snap,” and enlisted the help of some lesser-known NFL players to appear in these male-targeted spots.
If viral videos were hailed as the benchmark for brand success, then why hasn’t Dollar Shave Club achieved the same success again? Our assessment is they may have achieved virality with the first video (with a little bit of seeding- wink. wink), but as we at Pixability have known for a long time, virality isn’t conducive to sustained marketing success and doesn’t always add up to sales. It’s also incredibly difficult to repeat.
Not sure you agree? Then you may want to check out Pixability CEO, Bettina Hein’s talk at FutureM: Mythbusting: Engineering a “Viral” Video on Friday, October, 18th. Pixability has the data to back up and refute the case against striving to produce a viral video. This topic was so hot at SXSW 2013 that we’re updating it with new data and material for FutureM.
Not familiar with FutureM? You need to be. FutureM is MITX’s marketing event that brings together marketing and technology innovators interested in integrating traditional & digital marketing, and everything in between. This year’s event will be at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston on October 16—18.