For consumer brands, the appeal of viral marketing is obvious: millions of views, thousands of shares and impactful moments that get everyone talking.
Everyone wants to go viral, but going viral isn’t the same as building a brand.
A campaign can rack up impressive numbers and still leave people asking, “Who was that actually for?” If audiences remember the content but forget the brand, has it really worked?
In today’s marketing landscape, brands should be thinking beyond the viral moment and towards something harder to manufacture, but potentially much more valuable: cultural relevance.
Virality isn’t a strategy
Virality can be a fantastic outcome of a great campaign. But it shouldn’t be the starting point.
When brands make “going viral” the objective, it’s easy to force the brand into trends or conversations where it doesn’t naturally belong, chasing views, likes and shares at the expense of genuine brand building.
With every campaign, we should be asking:
Did it reach the right people?
Did they remember the brand?
Did it strengthen brand perception?
Did it generate conversation beyond social media?
A million views might look impressive, but if the brand isn’t part of the conversation, the opportunity has been missed.
From viral marketing to cultural relevance
The strongest consumer campaigns don’t just follow whatever happens to be trending. They understand why people are interested in something in the first place. That’s where cultural relevance comes in.
Cultural relevance means identifying the conversations, behaviours and moments that matter to your audience, and finding an authentic role for your brand within them.
Instead of asking: “How can we make this go viral?”
We should ask: “What does our audience care about, and what can we add to the conversation?”
That shift can lead to much stronger ideas.
This might look like a creator partnership that feels completely natural, a piece of research that reveals something surprising about consumers or simply a clever observation that gives people a reason to stop scrolling.
Three things brands should focus on
1. Start with people, not platforms
Don’t begin with, “What will work on TikTok?” Start with your audience.
While it’s important to consider platform trends and nuances, content will always resonate more when it’s rooted in a genuine understanding of the people you’re trying to reach.
What are they talking about? What are they frustrated by? What are they excited about? What behaviours are changing?
Once you understand your audience and the insight behind it, you can decide where the idea should live.
2. Give people a reason to share
People don’t share content simply because a brand wants them to. They share things that are entertaining, useful, relatable, surprising or give them something to say.
So rather than asking, “How can we get people to share this?”, brands should ask, “Is this actually worth sharing?”
The strongest viral marketing happens when sharing is a natural response to a good idea, not the objective behind it.
3. Make the brand part of the idea
One of the biggest risks with viral content is that people remember the thing but not the brand behind it.
The idea shouldn’t feel like a viral trend with a logo added afterwards, the brand should have a natural reason to be there.
That’s where good consumer PR can make a real difference: finding the story that connects the brand, the audience and the wider cultural conversation.
What should brands measure?
This doesn’t mean views and reach don’t matter, they absolutely do, but they shouldn’t be the only measures of success.
Alongside reach, brands should consider:
- Quality of engagement: Are people commenting, sharing and participating?
- Earned media: Has the idea travelled beyond the brand’s own channels?
- Brand association: Do people remember who created it?
- Sentiment: Is the conversation positive and relevant?
- Longevity: Did the idea create a moment, or sustain a conversation?
Ultimately, the right metric depends on the objective.
The point is: attention is valuable, but attention without relevance is easily forgotten.
The case for long-term cultural relevance
Rather than chasing virality, aim to create something worth remembering.
Viral marketing isn’t going anywhere. But the smartest brands will stop treating virality as the end goal.
Instead, they’ll focus on understanding their audiences, spotting the moments that matter and consistently creating ideas people genuinely want to engage with.
At Escapade, we help consumer brands turn insight and cultural moments into PR and marketing ideas that earn attention.
Want to create something people actually want to talk about? Visit our Contact page, we’d love to chat!
Want to read more about social trends? Read our take on Why Community Led Marketing is the Future of Brand Engagement.
Sources
Blog Cover Image: TorstenAsmus/istockphoto.com
