WestJet Christmas: Is the desire for virality killing creativity?
Going viral is the holy grail of media. Attention is hard to come by. Technology makes it easier and easier to tune out anything we don’t want to hear, or even anything that might be new.
As a result, media that can rise above the noise, and pierce through our respective filter bubbles, has a kind of power and appeal unto itself. Where advertising was once about providing information about a product or attempting to persuade you to purchase, it is now increasingly focused on shareability, and the goal of going viral.
When it comes to viral holiday media campaigns, one of the best examples is WestJet’s Christmas Miracle. First started in 2012 with a flash mob, the campaign achieved stunning viral success in 2013 with their real-time giving exercise. It was a massive viral hit, generating tons of positive social media sentiment, and a host of earned media. The YouTube video for that campaign currently has over 47 million views.
The key question becomes, how do you top that? How do you follow up such a hit?
The danger, and the mistake that WestJet has made, is to get stuck in the success of a viral hit, rather than put in the effort to create new ones. Ever since that 2013 campaign, they’ve tried to repeat that magic, without anywhere near the same success.
Granted it is difficult to follow up a blockbuster hit. In the entertainment business this is known as the sophomore jinx. The problem with going viral, is that there’s an easy temptation to become formulaic, to milk the meme for all the hits you can get, rather than put in the creative energy to come up with something new.
Imagine if the Beatles kept putting out records exactly like Sgt Peppers. Would David Bowie have been the brilliant artist he was if he had not constantly reinvented himself? Or what if Banksy just did the same stencil graffiti over and over.
When a great artist has a breakthrough hit, they almost always pivot to something new, in search of a new outlet for their creativity, and a new canvas upon which to showcase their skills.
Brands and advertisers should embrace this spirit of creativity, as the flip side of our viral age is the ease by which people can criticize, dissent, and turn a potential viral moment, into a chorus of complaints and reputational damage.
Certainly this is what I’ve found when looking at the legacy of WestJet’s Christmas Miracle.
Two trends worthy of noting: overall volume of comments seems to be down, and the quality of the response indicates either a lesser level of engagement or the potential for a negative engagement.
Responses on FB, Twitter, Instagram & YouTube were mostly positive, but blandly so, of the “omg, I’m crying” variety. Commentary was either institutional (originating from organizations or their representatives who were connected to the campaign) or generic — particularly on Twitter, where the offered option to share the video resulted in hundreds of retweets without any personal commentary — or personal only if the commentator was personally involved/witnessed one of the #12flights events.
More interesting were the negative responses, which took two forms. One group clustered the pointed use of #WestjetChristmas in tweets commenting on “erroneous information” given out in connection with cancellations (often linking to the Dec 17th CBC story).
Others more were directly critical of the #12FlightsOfChristmas campaign as a misplaced publicity stunt; this was particularly true of the Reddit commentary on the topic:
A particular note of bitterness entered at least two FB posts on the topic. In contrast to previous campaigns focused on helping people in need (in particularly last year’s Fort McMurray relief), the return to Oprah style giveaways to lucky Westjet customers who happened to be in the right place at the right time as opened the door to questions about who really “deserves” to be so generously rewarded. One especially aggrieved commentator wrote a long post that opened with mock praise and then got straight to the point:
The whole promise of going viral is to go beyond your existing supporters and not create an echo chamber, let alone the opportunity for your critics to air their grievances.
Yet by trying to force the campaign, by trying to revive the glories of a now aging viral moment, WestJet not only misses the opportunity to do something new, even worse, they are undermining the success of their past campaign, actually losing the momentum and reputational capital that it achieved.
Of course none of this is necessary. WestJet has the resources and their respective agencies have the talent, to create new and exciting initiatives.
Perhaps the desire in building of the success of that initial viral moment, is to build a platform, a larger stage upon which to continue that narrative.
However that would be something completely different, and is not what WestJet has done. Rather than try to use a formula to repeat their previous success, they could have expanded that success, by creating a Secret Santa program for their customers, similar to what Reddit has done. Something like that, at scale, would be a more creative follow up, albeit one that would require a lot of resources.
My fear is that in the quest to go viral, we’re losing the courage to be creative and experiment.
What I’m seeing far too often, is after a campaign achieves success, rather than open up new opportunities, it has the opposite effect, fostering a conservative reaction that tries to formulaically recreate the first success. The better strategy would be to have the confidence to build upon that victory by going somewhere new.
That’s the kind of leadership we so desperately need in the media industry. The courage to go boldly go where no one has gone before, and inspire others to be creative and innovative when it comes to getting attention in our increasingly distracted society.
Update: Corey Evans, Manager Sponsorship, Community Investment, Experiential Marketing and Promotions at WestJet replies:
I don’t think going viral has to be an explicit objective as it represents the larger culture and context. WestJet runs these campaigns to get attention, to foster good will, and most importantly to sell more tickets for flights. The desire to get (positive) attention in an environment of noise and distraction is clearly a primary objective. How you get that attention is where creativity comes in.
