Create Your Viral Moment

Last month I visited the offices of Rebel Virals in Bristol where the team were putting the finishing touches to a video for their e-Christmas card. It featured some scenes from the series '24' very cleverly cut with shots of Santa Claus they’d created themselves. The resulting video 'Jack Bauer interrogates Santa Claus' was uploaded a few days later and by January had got 500,000 views and been featured on MSNBC and the Huffington Post.


It came from nowhere into the video viral charts in a flash. The result of a carefully plotted strategy? The return from an ad campaign? Of course not. It was a success because it was original, it was funny and most that saw it decided to spread it to their friends. And of course, randomness, serendipity and luck played as much a part as the creativity of the idea.


The simplicity of a great viral reminds me that's what we all aspire to: whether we are an artist, writer, politician, designer, a CEO, whoever. We want to create the viral effect with our brand, product or talent.

So that’s the question. How can you create your viral moment for your start-up idea, blog, video, iphone app or book? You may only need 5 people to see your work, not 500,000 but make it original and get it talked about. Go viral!