• March 6th, 2012 - Dollar Shave Club released on youtube their video "Our Blades Are F***ing Great"

• First hour - huge traffic crashed Dollar Shave Club website servers

• Within the first 2 weeks Dollar Shave Club got 25 000 new clients, 3M video views, 32k video likes

• First, they were launching some shorter, lower-budget hero videos and then they moved to the ones that gained the most views for promotion on a larger scale.
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• They also test intros and outros – about five or six of them – to choose which gets skipped the least as a YouTube pre-roll.

• Some videos are contextual to what’s trending. For example, they created a Super Bowl-related ad on crying to sleep in a comfortable bed.

• What makes their vids go viral is that Purple invests a lot into advertising their videos. They do it on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and on external adtech platforms, such as AdRoll.

• Their videos go viral because they are not only funny, but they also have some informative value (e.g. about the importance of healthy sleeping habits).

Purple has made $75 million in sales during the first year of its operations.

• Dr Squatch is a handmade natural soap for men that stormed the internet with viral video ads.

• The company hadn't been so successful until they signed partnership with the Raindrop marketing agency.

• Raindrop hired James Schrader, a famous comedian.

• Schrader starred in Dr Squatch's new YouTube video ads, and they quickly went viral because:
  
  - Schrader was a really talented comedian, so he did make people laugh,
  
  - they were “edutaining” - which means that they conveyed some valuable information (health-related issues) next to the funny part,
  
  - they had strong hooks during the first 5 seconds (it was hard to skip and encouraged to share).
  
  
• There were two viral video ads by Raindrop that hit the jackpot - the first got 90 million views in only 3 months since publishing.

Dr Squatch boosted their revenue from $4-$6 million to $100 million in 2020.

• Squatty Potty is a toilet stool commercial video showing an ice cream pooping unicorn.

• The ad went viral thanks to its humor and bizarreness.

• Squatty Potty makes toilet stools that help fighting constipation (position your body in a natural squat while doing your “thing”).

• The video touched upon a difficult to discuss, yet important health problem.

• They picked a format that is known to be working – it’s quite similar to the ads of Old Spice (bad smell vs constipation: two shameful issues).

• It worked as it was fun and entertaining while describing a topic most people would like to avoid.

• Because of the humor factor, people also buy Squatty Potty for friends as a gag gift (additional revenue).
  Squatty Potty's campaign went viral in media like YouTube, but also Twitter and Facebook.

Thanks to the pooping unicorn ad, Squatty Potty scored a 600% boost in online sales and 400% boost in retail sales.

• Harmon Brothers is an American advertising agency, specializing in social media marketing with a focus on viral video ads.

• Humor and puns are crucial factors in attracting the viewer. When faced with controversial concepts such as defecating, Harmon Brothers utilize funny and positive substitutes for them.

• Harmon Brothers’ commercials are fun to watch, but their core value lies in the information they manage to convey. The infomercial style is possible thanks to the graphs, charts, website screenshots, etc.

• Most popular ads: Poo-Pourri (17 million views within a month; 44 M in 7 years, as of 2022), Squatty Potty ad with a pooping unicorn (40 million views in 7 years, as of 2022), Purple mattress ad with Goldilocks (almost 190 million views in 7 years, as of 2022).

• Allegro – the biggest ecommerce platform in Poland. They often publish Christmas commercials that are highly successful.

• Allegro carried their own research on what truly matters to people. The answers were: happiness, love, intimacy, health, the meaning of life.

• Their ads tell emotional, everyday stories that position Allegro as an ecommerce store to help you out. They do that in a non-intrusive, engaging way.

• The ads were designed to be launched at Christmastime, and the Christmas season is one of the most expensive times for advertising.

• Allegro's Christmas ads have broken through because of mixing the creative with the season and making it heartwarming.

• Those ads were seen by millions thanks to the company’s ad budget. This is one of the biggest companies in Poland and as such, it could spend more on production.

The best of the Allegro Christmas ads have gotten almost 20M views on YouTube alone.

• Sandy Hook Promise is a non-profit organization formed by family members who lost their children in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

• The organization has made a series of PSA videos that have quickly got viral.

• They taught youth and adults how to prevent school violence and shootings.

• The campaign was in print, digital, radio, and outdoor placements, thanks to a decent budget.

• Sandy Hook’s Promise has been more active as another tragedy happened, which helped them stay on the wave.

• Their “Back-to-School Essentials” video became a part of the US election conversation (11 candidates shared it on Twitter).

• Celebrities got involved, too, which has resulted in over 5 billion media impressions of that video ad.

Sandy Hook Promise PSAs have raised $48 million in total.

• Dec 2018 - Aviation Gin “The Process” video is published and gets 4M views - that’s a parody of similar, “How it’s made” ads. Ends with the words “An American Original. Now owned by a Canadian.”

• Aviation Gin fitted the “Bottle Cap Challenge” perfectly with the stylish, sarcastic humor of Ryan Reynolds

• Another one was countering a widely criticized Peleton disaster ad that brought their valuation down by $1.5B! Reynolds hired the actress who played in the original ad to drink ‘for the new beginnings’ with her friends. It was watched 7.5M times.

• Air New Zealand made a series of airline safety videos that quickly went viral on YouTube. The trick? Lord of the Rings theme.

• The release of the new “Hobbit” was almost there, so Air New Zealand has decided to ride the trend of the Lord of the Rings franchise.

• They released a series of adds with characters from “Hobbit” and the LotR universe, and they made it in a comedy-like style.

• The endorsement is further supported by the cast of the ads. Big names from the LOTR and Hobbit franchises star along with some less-known, clearly native to New Zealand actors. The 2012 ad features Dean O'Gorman (known as Fili from the Hobbit series) and a cameo from Peter Jackson himself.

Their airline safety videos that went viral resulted in over 35 million views on YouTube alone.

• Dumb Ways to Die is a short, animated video on YouTube which makes for an educational material about how to stay safe, among others, near trains and metros.

• It was a Public Service Announcement ad to raise people’s safety around the trains. It used a grotesque-like atmosphere to convey its meaning.

• Funny, cartoon characters were singing while falling victims to various fatal accidents (being hit by a car or train, getting electrocuted by a thunder etc.) – decapitation and dismemberment included.

• The song was very simple, and each verse described a different way to die. The tune was catchy.

• The video probably became the most popular PSA material ever published. As the authors state on their website, millions of people have pledged they would stay safe around trains thanks to their materials.

• It was also crucial to keep the YouTube channel alive by uploading more and more videos. This way, the channel kept its high position on the search results as it continued to generate new content.

• The platforms (YouTube, Google, Facebook) the authors of the video used are the most popular on the market. They have tons of visitors on a daily basis, and they keep growing.

The original Dumb Ways to Die video has reached more than 230 million views.