When brands and agencies come up with campaigns, there are major discussions of the current trends, hot topics and what’s relevant to consumers RIGHT NOW. The challenge arises when you want to create something that is engaging yet simple enough to actually produce within a reasonable time frame relative to the trending topic.

One example we had discussed internally at Sprout was how a company like Zappos could have capitalized on the event where an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at George W. Bush.  It would have been perfect timing for Zappos to run a campaign where you could select which (Zappos) shoe to throw at our former president.  The application would create a customized video with the selected shoe edited in and then provide links to Zappos or even links to buy that specific shoe.

Mock-Up of Timely Zappos Engagement Campaign

While this is a fictitious example, the major bottleneck is the ability to create and deploy these campaigns quickly and efficiently.  Traditionally, the brand will outsource this work to an agency that specializes in branding and then that agency will outsource the work to develop the application, if it is too complicated to do “in-house”.  This layering of relationships creates cycles which can become prohibitive to creating campaigns which are highly relevant to trends and hot topics.

There is another example that I saw recently which caught my eye because it is very creative and highly relevant to a trending topic.  This campaign is called: Eternal Moonwalk.  It is a tribute to the late Michael Jackson.

Eternal Moonwalk: a tribute to Michael Jackson

It is simple enough to be for anyone to participate by uploading a video of themselves moonwalking across the screen.  This concept, while seemingly very unique and creative, has been done before.  Gmail made a video where a physical “email” in the form of their logo was passed across multiple screens.

Eternal Moonwalk took it one step further and made it “eternal” so that it will continuously cycle through all the uploaded videos.  You also have the ability to search keywords to find interesting moonwalks.  What makes this campaign so viral is the simplicity and the timing.  If this came out in a couple months or a year from now, it wouldn’t be nearly as successful.

Keep your campaigns simple, timely and relevant.