Julian Ferreira knew something was up when a bunch of his employees carried a few car loads of equipment out of his Calgary camera store the other weekend. But it wasn't until the following Monday, when they asked him to sit down and watch a video they'd made, that he had any idea of what was going on.
"They plunked some headphones on me and said: 'Now watch and don't say anything until it's over,'" said Mr. Ferreira, the operations manager of The Camera Store. "I just laughed and laughed, I had tears coming down my face by the time I'd finished." So, apparently, did many others. Because within a day of the video's appearance on YouTube, tens of thousands had shared it with their friends. A little over one week later, it's racked up more than one million views.
And while every marketer seems to want a viral video to add to their list of achievements (if only to impress the CEO), the success of F-Stop alongside a number of other recent Canadian-born projects suggests that only clients who give their agencies more creative freedom are likely to reach their target audiences with viral videos.
"I'm 50-something-years-old, from a different generation than these guys," noted Mr. Ferreira. "They see it as fun and cutting-edge and I think to a degree you have to say, 'You know what? It is their generation's product, if they think that's what they should be doing and that's what's going to catch their attention, maybe we should listen to it and go - okay.' In this case, they obviously hit the right buttons."
So has a five-minute video about - of all things - malignant melanoma.
But is it truly viral? Like many other online success stories, its growth has come in part from coverage by mainstream media. Calling something viral, meanwhile, originated in the literature of epidemiology as a way of characterizing the qualities that allow it, like a contagious disease, to be spread by one-to-one contact. It's an important distinction, because person-to-person sharing reflects a tight web of social connections, and is believed to speak to the intensity of the passion that people feel for the video or its message.
One new video which seems to clearly qualify was designed as a riff on the phenomenon of viral videos.
It plays on the popularity of
"I'm a little perplexed at the phenomena of video which is - let's call it minimal," acknowledged Doug Robinson, the chief creative officer of Doug & Serge. "There's something that's endearing about two little boys, one biting the finger of the other, there's an insight in there we can't ignore. And at the same time, it was so thin in production."
Mr. Robinson credits the Canadian Film Centre - which, after all, has creativity in its DNA - for allowing his agency to push the boundaries far beyond what would be permitted on broadcast television.
At least for the moment. There is a sense among some agency creatives that the success of some offbeat online commercials may help to expand conventional norms on TV. In a twist that may illustrate the way online material is changing TV, one Canadian video which went viral last year was helped by a hefty amount of mainstream coverage, including some broadcasts.
They certainly did that: The video not only got Fortnight's name out to the world, with more than 12 million views, it also won Red Urban a raft of acclaim, including a Bessie award last week.
Ms. Yu says the video's success changed the way Red Urban approaches all of its projects. "It had specific talk value," she says, referring to the quality that propelled people to pass it around to friends.
"I think everything we do now, we make sure there's some sort of story," she adds. "Whether it's beautifully executed, or a beautiful idea, or it's exciting or hilarious or whatever, it's really key for us to be able to go, 'Hey, would you send this to your friends? Would your grandmother recommend it?'"
Because truly viral videos aren't just ads, they're cultural artifacts that people want to pass around, the way they do books or recipes or pieces of gossip.
And they can bridge cultural and generational divides like nothing else. Earlier this week, ad man Doug Robinson's daughter said she wanted to show him a video that one of her Facebook friends had posted: Dear 16-Year-Old Me. "It was unbelievable, the impact it had on her," said Mr. Robinson. "She's 17. She never comes to me, to her dad, and shares video. And we sat down and looked at it, and I went, Wow, this is one of those moments, this piece of film is very impactful on her life, and will make her more aware - of her skin, of the sun, the effects, all that sort of stuff.
"Fantastic," he added. "That to me is incredibly powerful communication, when you see it work like that."
Simon Houpt