We're all feeling sufficiently fed up with Gangnam Style,
be it the original or the enormous number of spoofs, but how did Psy
hit the big time? This is about more than one Korean pop star becoming a
global phenomenon it’s about our obsession with the word viral. How
does something go from a YouTube video to a viral video? This week has
seen the release of a hilarious spoof video by
agency St John’s, based in Toronto, that mocks the growing trend in
buying views to make your brands video at least appear to be a viral
hit.
There was no gaming when it came to the
spreading of Gangnam Style, this was the real deal; a video that people
wanted their friends, family and distance acquaintances to share in the
enjoyment of.
The label
behind Gangnam, YG Entertainment, had a plan long before the video went
live. They knew they wanted to break into new markets and started
building a platform they would be able to push content out on. Looking
at their various YouTube channels they had 2.5 million subscribers
pre-Gangnam and had achieved in the region of 1.6 billion views of
musicians’ videos across those channels. Having these subscribers is key
and meant they could get a high number of views in a short space of
time helping them quickly gain shares and get featured in YouTube’s
daily chart.
Having an
audience is a good start but you need them all to share it and watch it,
again and again. YG Entertainment did their research when it came to
casting the video and by featuring popular celebrities from South Korea
they knew this would get the media’s attention. They had a famous
entertainer who is the chap thrusting in the lift, the guy in the yellow
suit is a renowned comedian and the kid is popular from Korea’s Got
Talent. All helping it debut at number one in the Korean Pop Chart and
gain 500k views on its launch day of 15th July.
Over
the next month the video started to build global momentum, but the
volume of tweets and searches rose at a far slower rate than later on in
the campaign, and predominantly featured traffic and search emerging
from South Korea.
In mid-July
there were then a few further tweets from @AllKPop, relating to the
video's general profile, sales of the song as a ringtone doing well etc,
but nothing out of the ordinary. Although much has been made of the
impact of various celebrity supportive tweets, my interpretation is that
mainstream media coverage initially brought it to many people's,
including celebrities attention.
On
30th July Gawker wrote it up leading to 19k in Facebook likes/shares. I
believe this lead to Billboard writing it up and the barrage of well
followed celebrity tweets that followed, all pushing lots of traffic to
YouTube.
There was no stopping
Psy after this, with coverage in Time Magazine and Mashable followed.
The next big announcement came on September 3rd when a YouTube video
showing Psy drinking a shot with Scooter Braun, who is best known for
managing Justin Bieber. This shot wasn’t just some friends catching up
over a drink it was the start of them working together and marked
Gangnam for big things in the states.
Activity
over the next two weeks triggered the biggest spike in the entire
campaign, as Scooter Braun made some inspired media bookings. Alongside
these bookings, Scooter also has a contact book to die for and his own
artists have some of the largest marketing databases in the world, all
of whom Psy now had access to.
Thanks
to Scooter Braun, Psy appeared at the MTV Awards as a last minute guest
and alongside another of Scooter's clients, before going on to make his
first appearance on the TV Show Ellen alongside Britney Spears. Britney (of course) tweeted this, creating a huge 1.3m tweets containing the term "Gangnam Style" over those few days alone.
Just as growth started to slow again, Scooter got Psy a spot on NBC Today show, and a second appearance on Ellen, that triggered a final but forceful spike in searches, tweets and video likes.
The very final peak, the icing on the cake so to speak, was when the Guinness World Records team
issued a release relating to Psy breaking all known records for the
number of views that the video has had. At this point, everything slows
and a slow decline begins.
A host of "hilarious"
copycat videos then began flooding YouTube and Twitter and the media is
seemingly giving all of them air time, but this cannot buck the overall
downward trend in terms of consumer interest, searches and tweets.
How Many Views Will Psy's New Single Gentleman get?
