Social Media Campaigns Can Be Successful, But Not Always...!

I know much more successful social media campaigns than failed ones.

The best viral marketing campaign that I know and that have been watched all over the world is “The Best Job in The World”. The video explains it all but in brief; the Queensland tourism office posted a job offer on the internet for the Best Job in The World. It consisted to spend 6 months in the Great Barrier Reef to clean the pool, feed the fish, explore the island and make reports for $US150000… 

This job offer is I guess the most famous in the world. If you watch the video, I am sure that you are saying to yourself “I would love doing this job”! I totally agree with you because that is what I am thinking when I am watching it!

This video became well-known because it came out during the economic crisis when the majority of the world had problems of money and were laid off. This job was a way to get a job, to get money, also to run away from the problems we all had and to spend six months in a paradisiacal island. So they chose the right moment to publish the video. Then, there were not an audience profile for this advertisement because EVERYBODY would dream to spend a semester in the Great Barrier Reef! The video is good quality and the pictures they chose would make everybody dream. This video is just yelling to us: Come to Visit Us!

So the Queensland tourism wanted thanks to this video to become famous all over the world (watched in over 200 countries, so that worked), find the best employee ever (they received impressive number of applications and 2.3 million of visits in their web site during the application period, so that worked) and finally get a lot of international tourists to come (I am positive: that worked!)

Then, I know one viral marketing campaign that did not work as the company expected.

In 2006, General Motor let its customers create their own advertisements about the Chevy Tahoe SUV. The company thought it was a good idea to make the internet users speak about its brand. They actually spoke about the Chevy Tahoe SUV but in a very negative way for most of them… This video can show you how this user promoted the car!

The biggest error GM made is not keeping in mind that we all are becoming more and more aware of the ecological problems. That is why let the users make marketing about a big car was not the best idea. They actually all focused on the pollution and the gas that this car uses. It was everything but “green”. 

So in a way, I could say that this campaign got viral and famous but not for the good reasons. General Motor got hurt for this campaign. As we all know, a negative advertisement hurts a lot and is very difficult to get rid of it.

I had another idea for a bad viral marketing campaign but I do not know if the campaign was perceived in the same way in Europe and in the US.

I think you all remember the viral marketing campaign of Budweiser when everybody was yelling “wazza”… Here is the link if you do not remember… In Europe, this campaign got very famous but nobody remembered who it came from. They all kept in mind a funny campaign with people having fun screaming WAZZZAAAA but they did not keep in mind that it was for Budweiser… So, for what I know in Europe this campaign did not work as Budweiser expected.