Gangnam Style – A Perfect Example of Viral Marketing?

Do you know which video is the most famous video on YouTube? In only three months, “Gangnam Style” by Psy is already one of the most viewed videos on YouTube. The release of this song was in July 2012 and it currently has over 500,000,000 clicks and has recently become the number one download on iTunes. This song is characterized by its strong beats and lyrics with only three English words.

How has this video achieved this wave of success?

The answer is viral marketing. I talked about this phenomenon a few weeks ago in one of my previous posts. A lot of companies benefit from this efficient tool, and rapid multiplication is the engine for fast propagation. The operative word is “rapid”. Companies use viral marketing to increase the awareness of their products, while individuals use this strategy to increase their name recognition. 

Mostly, a lot of celebrities are involved in this process. “Gangnam Style” has been shared on the Internet by many celebrities like Tom Cruise, Britney Spears and Kate Perry. For example, Britney Spears wrote on Twitter that she is interested in learning the dance. After that Ellen DeGeneres honored this request and invited Britney Spears and Psy to her show so that he could teach her how to dance to this song.

Additionally, there are a lot of flash mob videos of this song on YouTube from all around the world.

I saw the funniest imitation of this song at the volleyball match of the MSU team. A guy performed the dance during halftime. The whole audience applauded, and a few people even danced. This guy was dressed exactly like the same as Psy and knew the dance perfectly.

But what is so special about this song?

The answer to this question is easy. This song has a ridiculous looking horse dance, but is simple to imitate by anyone. Besides, the song has an appealing beat, is a well produced video which makes you happy, and there are a lot of parodies of this song/dance on YouTube. Especially the parody videos help to make the original all the more viral.