How to Create a Publicity Stunt That Goes Viral – Part One
By leadership author and keynote speaker Ross Shafer
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This week I want to talk about how you can create a publicity stunt that goes viral. You’ve seen other companies get a huge boost from “going viral” and I’m sure you’ve wondered how you could pull that off. I’ve been wanting to talk about this for a long time because so many “new media” companies will try to convince you that THEY have the answer. Well, I’ll give you the answer for free. There is NO guarantee a video or newsworthy idea will go viral. It’s nearly impossible to predict! But there are some steps in the strategy that will make going viral more likely.
I was involved in a publicity campaign that ended up going viral but we didn’t see it coming. The strategy was revealed afterward. The campaign was changing the state song of Washington State to Louie, Louie. How did we come up with the idea and why did it work? First, the idea was born out of desperation. In the late 1980’s I was hosting a local comedy talk TV show in Seattle, Washington called ALMOST LIVE!
After the first season we were pretty sure we would be cancelled because our ratings were so low. Our TV station wouldn’t give us any publicity money, so the four of us who wrote and produced the show, had to figure out a way to put ourselves on the map. We tried about two-dozen goofy ideas but every one of them turned out to be more embarrassing than the last. Then, our head writer Jim Sharp hit on an idea to change the Washington State song to Louie, Louie. At that time, Washington State already had a state song but nobody knew it. It was titled Washington My Home and even though I’d grown up there I had never heard the song. So we thought, “I’ll bet a lot of people don’t know that song…so why not give the people a song they knew. From the moment I mentioned it on TV, the public loved it. They wanted to wear Louie, Louie buttons and the news media wanted to do stories about the campaign. Remember, in the late 80’s there was no Internet so the idea went viral because people were talking about it with neighbors and coworkers.
Soon, Jim McKenna (on our team) suggested I go to the state capital in Olympia to convince the State legislature to make it a law. Our head writer Jim Sharp somehow knew a legislator who greased the wheels to get me in. I thought about 50 people might follow me. But shockingly, over 5,000 people showed up on the Capital Steps for a huge “change the song” rally. Paul Revere and the Raiders showed up. The Kingsmen (who had the biggest hit from the song) The Wailers and others joined in. I went on Dick Clark’s national bloopers and practical jokes show to talk about it. Louie, Louie for state song became a national phenomenon! We won the Dubious Achievement Award in Esquire Magazine that year. Our ratings exploded and demand for advertising on our show was so high that we had to expand the show from half an hour to an hour. But why did the idea go viral? Because, at the core, changing the state song wasn’t about US getting famous. We became the vehicle for something our audience wanted. It was an idea that made our citizens feel as if they had some power in political decisions; even if the decisions were harmless.
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The topic of creating viral publicity campaigns is so popular that in next week’s blog, I’ll explain why the ALS ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE went viral and raised over 200 million dollars…through social media. It’s a great story.
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