If you’re into cars at all, (or maybe if you’re not) you have probably heard of Ken Block. Ken is known world wide as the creator and yearly Youtube sensation of the highly popular Gymkhana videos. What you probably don’t know is that that’s not his real job, during the day he’s a professional rally cross driver. In fact, he’s one of the best.
But, how many really good rally cross drivers do you know the names of? Even if you know what rally cross is, you likely can’t name any “famous” drivers, despite their incredible skill and driving. Despite this fact, with simply messing around and doing some flashy stunts, he is now easily the most famous and viral name in motorsports racing.
This is the essence of viral. The videos aren’t just about racing, or cars, or really good driving. They’re about humor, awe, and fancy, tacky effects mixed with blatant and humorous product placement. And guess what, it works. Really, really works. His yearly gymkhana videos fly around the web as fast as virtually any other viral campaigns and are extremely effective with the target market.
Ken Block makes lots of money, receives extreme name recognition, and hooks large sponsors.
His sponsors get blatant product placement, and the kind of recall only viral can get you.
Fans get to see something novel, fun, and amazing.
Everyone gets value out of the deal. In the end, that’s what viral is about.