Doritos Viralocity – what does it mean to go VIRAL ?!

Because of the whole Doritos Viralocity contest, it got me thinking – what does it take for a video to go truly viral.   A viral video is a video that becomes popular through the process of internet sharing, typically though internet media sharing websites.  Viral videos often contain humourous content and include televised comedy sketches such as Saturday Night Live’s Dick in a Box; amateur video clips like Star Wars Kid, the Numa Numa videos, The Dancing Cadet, The Evolution of Dance, the “Benny Lava” video, Chocolate Rain on youtube; and web-only productions such as I Got a Crush… on Obama.

HUMOR is sometimes considered to be a vital component and characteristic of a viral video. But humor is not, in fact, the defining characteristic; a viral video is any video that is passed electronically from person to person, regardless of its content.  That is why the entries so far for the Doritos Viralocity contest has been mediocre to say the least.  The highest viewed video for the contest has gotten close to 20,000 Youtube views,. and features a teenager with a camera sneaking up on his room-mate, who has barricaded himself in his room, and is eating dorito chips … where is the creativity in that ?!  There is none, rather this is just a video that has gained views simply through peer-to-peer social networking, and that too for the sake for this contest.  It will never even come close to the 42,000,000 views that real viral videos like Chocolate Rain has amassed on YouTube.

Here is my entry for the Doritos Viralocity Contest:

Now I’m not saying mine is the best, but atleast it has got some thinking behind it.  I’m trying to create Zesto into a brand of it’s own.  I’d like to think of him as “Fido Dido WITH BALLS!”.  He is bold (just like the flavor), risk-taking, adventurous, and not afraid to say what’s on his mind.  You may have noticed, that I’ve included the link http://www.zesto.tv in my video.  That’s because when I was making the video, I was thinking of the big picture.  On the website, I’ve created a bunch of follow up videos elaborating on Zesto’s bold, heroic, and bad-ass behavior:

I hope Zesto will gain in popularity.  If not for the Doritos Viralocity contest, at least fro another brand.  Yesterday I got an e-mail from Richardo Fonseca (from Wooshii), and this is what he had to say:
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Hi!

Ive been checking out your profile and the videos you’ve been creating, and they’re great!

I am helping Wooshii.com to help them produce their Top 200 Unsung Creatives Report. This report is being commissioned for some of the worlds largest advertising agencies including Ogilvy, Saatchi and TBWA to name but a few, and will be submitted during 2010.

I would love to see you on it. Ultimately it would mean exposing you and your work to some of the worlds largest brands and some of the most influential people in advertising. The goal ultimately is to let them know who they should be looking to for commissioned work.

Details of the report can be found here http://wooshii.com/about/what/unsung including the registration form.

Any doubts, just write!

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Well, glad to see my efforts are not going un-noticed.  Thanks for reading.

Cheers,
Denny
http://www.doritos-viralocity.ca