# Viral Videos



## sackwear.com (Jul 2, 2005)

Here's something we're trying on our site -- little viral videos for each shirt so that people will pass them around via email. We're testing the waters with our most popular item.

So far the response has been good. And it doesn't cost too much to do these. Plus it's a lot of fun.

Anyone else tried the viral route?


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## sootedshirts (Nov 9, 2005)

sackwear.com said:


> Here's something we're trying on our site -- little viral videos for each shirt so that people will pass them around via email. We're testing the waters with our most popular item.
> 
> So far the response has been good. And it doesn't cost too much to do these. Plus it's a lot of fun.
> 
> Anyone else tried the viral route?


That sounds like a great idea. I have all the equipment to do something like that. Let me know how well it's working!


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## sarafina (Jul 27, 2005)

Thats so funny. I've been brainstorming viral marketing ideas for when I launch and that was one that popped into my head this very morning. I saw your first video. Pretty neat.


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## DickTees.net (Apr 5, 2005)

I work with After Effects, Photoshop and Final Cut Pro in my everyday "normal life" so this has started the wheels a turning.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

Nice idea! Producing them in house or hiring a designer?

Edit: just saw the video, VERY nicely done. It was a nice reminder that I've been meaning to buy that t-shirt!


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## monkeylantern (Oct 16, 2005)

Just saw it . Very nice indeed! Now try and get it into the right forums...

Or maybe a ytmnd......


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## sackwear.com (Jul 2, 2005)

Thanks for the feedback.

Like Jay at DickTees, our "normal lives" involve design, so we did this largely in-house with some help from an editor.

MonkeyLantern, what's "ytmnd"?


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

Your viral video seems to be working 



> MonkeyLantern, what's "ytmnd"?


I did a quick google search and I think he meant the website ytmnd.com (which seems to have a lot of "viral" type funny content.

Actually, now that I think about it, I have used viral flash games/videos to help promote a new t-shirt design, but I didn't really market the flash too much on the various viral content sharing sites to give it a big push.


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## sarafina (Jul 27, 2005)

Sack, for it to be a successful viral campaign you need to:

1.Give people and oppurtunity to spread your message_ easily._
2.Give me an incentive to do so.

Number 2 is subjective but I think if you give people and oppurtunity to email video or link to a friend then you wouldn't have to worry about getting your message out there all by yourself or posting on sites like ytmnd.


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## monkeylantern (Oct 16, 2005)

www.ytmnd.com is one of the best places to be found by the , ahem, "net underground" (I feel ill even just posing such a phrase). Good ones spread from forum to forum very quickly, in just your sort of demographic. Check the wikipedia entry.

It's where those damn ascii "O RLY?" "YA RLY!" owls come from, which have destroyed many a forum... 

Now, ytmnd's are all about internet meme themes...you'd have to incorporate something along those lines. You'd also have to be subtle....nothing worse that trying to turn something cultish into free capitialist marketing. 

I'd recommend, for you Comma Sutra shirt, something along the lines of "Je t'aime" for the first half, then a sudden scratch of record as it ends in, ahem, a rear entry comma situation, and the music suddenly becomes Jungle Boy by John Eddie. Classic ytmnd!

Hit the right spot, and you'll be posted across great demographic websites within hours.

Here's a "classic style" ytmnd: http://ngedidit.ytmnd.com/

Heres a jungle boy meme: http://sexmap.ytmnd.com/

Here's one summing up the heroes of 5 years of memes: http://cheerstoyourthemannowdog.ytmnd.com/

If you use the wikipedia entry to make a few themed on the various main memes (such as one which ends with a comma having its way with Padme, along with Darth Vaders "Noooooooo!"), you could have found a gold mine.


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## Vinci (Aug 22, 2005)

Hi Sam (Sackwear),

Can you tell us your experiences with viral videos so far?

Thanks.


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## honeyflip (Nov 1, 2005)

Has anyone ever seen a viral game that is emailable and links back to push a t-shirt? I've seen big entities use this sort of thing (ie., a Spongebob campaign pushing their movie site), but this sort of thing looks darn expensive to pull off.


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## sackwear.com (Jul 2, 2005)

We've posted the viral in several places and it has helped with traffic. As with anything, the content will dictate success. Our viral is definitely a commercial message. I think the most passed-around virals tend to be non-commercial, like what you see on Ebaumsworld or College Humor.

The viral keeps people on our site a little longer than before and we do see that we turn up on more blogs and the like. We hope to do more.


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## Twinge (Apr 26, 2005)

That's a good idea. Make sure you add a 'send this link to a friend' in plain site on the video page.


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

honeyflip said:


> Has anyone ever seen a viral game that is emailable and links back to push a t-shirt? I've seen big entities use this sort of thing (ie., a Spongebob campaign pushing their movie site), but this sort of thing looks darn expensive to pull off.


I've had flash games made that do this and they can cost anywhere from $0 to $1000+. If you find places like rentacoder.com, guru.com, elance.com, etc, you can get bids from different flash designers.


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## honeyflip (Nov 1, 2005)

Great. Thanks for the advice on that. I was thinking budgets for that sort of thing were a bit steeper...


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## Vinci (Aug 22, 2005)

Sam (Sackwear), thank you for your answer. I think also commercial videos will get attention, as long as they are surprising.


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## morvak (Jan 11, 2006)

I've thought of this exact idea myself, glad to see you've done it , hope it works out for ya!


Couple questions/suggestions:

Have you made the video downloadable? You might want to think about it, so people can pass it around in emails, fwd to friends, etc, instead of just the link.

Also, you might want to put that video in it's own page so google can index it. Check this out http://video.google.com/


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## hoperator (Jun 20, 2008)

my old boss has just done a viral video on youtube to drive traffic to his tshirt website. its been pretty successful...


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