Chasing marketing virality? Beware, it could backfire

But why would congratulations from a faceless, nameless X account bother brands running such campaigns? Because the wishes are sarcastic.

It all started with a simple, sarcastic phrase that 35-year-old Bengaluru founder and former marketer Phalgun Guduthur couldn’t resist replying with to a Twitter/X post going viral sometime last year. That post was a candid moment from the life of an influencer, but, Guduthur says, was anything but candid.

“I could clearly see that it was staged, rather than a real tweet,” he says. “It used to annoy me because it was a mixture of feeling deceived and being annoyed at the rage bait and noise around such tweets.”

Guduthur didn’t want to pick up an online fight, so instead, he picked the mildest, nicest, most sarcastic way of calling out what he argued was an undisclosed ad. In the comments, he wrote: “congratulations to the marketing team” along with the handshake emoji. “People don’t want to promote negativity, so this phrase couldn’t be caustic or hating. This one was very subtle,” he says.

Soon enough, more people caught on to the trend. Social media feeds are awash with memes, videos, screenshots, and other seemingly “organic” content that hides brand integrations and advertising in subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle ways. With more marketing budgets moving to influencer marketing and its newer cousin—meme marketing—it’s sometimes hard to tell what is an ad and what isn’t.

In fact, the Advertising Standards Council of India has long had guidelines instructing brands and marketers to use prominent labels for ads of this nature. But, many don’t use them, saying that tags like “Sponsored” and ‘Paid Partnership” reduce the reach and engagement of such posts. Besides, brands targeting younger, chronically online audiences want to go viral and remain as ‘authentic’ as possible; and ads rarely do.

Soon enough, Guduthur began getting flooded with notifications from other Twitter users, tagging him on posts that they suspected were actually undisclosed ads. “In June this year, it got really too much, there were so many things. I didn’t want to constantly post about this on my main account. I use Twitter for work, and I have startup circles and VCs [venture capitalists] following me.” Instead, he started a new account dedicated to his now popular line: “Congratulations To The Marketing Team”. “I started a handle in June and I started posting in July, and I got 7.8k followers in just 50 days,” he says.

Since we spoke, this number has crossed 8,000.

Performing Authenticity

Call-outs like these are not meant to start an online feud, let alone draw the attention of any advertising policy makers. But they indicate that audiences are getting smarter about being shown ads in a sneaky way, and their reaction ranges from amusement to thrill of “catching” an ad masquerading as a meme, to sometimes downright annoyance at the constant deluge of ads.

Yet, having a stunt, a pre-buzz campaign, a meme marketing agency, or some other route to “authentic virality” has increasingly become indispensable for brands. Is it worth it, if the savviest among your intended audience will call you out?

“Honestly, it all comes down to craft and research. Start by asking: can the stunt actually be pulled off by this creator?” says Abhilasha Chhabra, head of social media at international creative agency Toaster INSEA. “Your brand already has its own tone and tenor, but in collaborations you’re borrowing the creator’s voice—and that requires thorough research.”

Social media stunts attempting to make a brand viral can sometimes have absolutely nothing to do with a brand. Consider a recent viral Reel on Instagram by social media celebs Sakshi Shivdasani and Naina Bhan. The video, called “Caught on Cam: Sakshi and Naina’s cryptic clash at Mumbai’s cafe!” shows the two having a heated argument, much like paparazzi videos of celebs in candid moments. Turns out, it was part of an elaborate ad campaign for Crocs, the shoe brand. The video racked up nearly 700,000 views on Instagram but the comments are full of people wondering if it was a PR stunt.

Yet, brands keep chasing virality and so-called ‘authenticity’ in their social media campaigns. One reason is that measuring the impact of such campaigns —run via influencers—is extremely hard. In the absence of clear numbers such as return on ad spends, agencies and marketers do their best to simply maximize the reach of their stunts and campaigns, ensuring they at least go viral. That way, they can be sure that they managed to build some brand recall.

But, this can backfire. In some cases, for example, Guduthur says his followers piled on the ‘congratulations’ on a post masquerading as an ad so efficiently that it received a Community Note—a platform-vetted message calling out the post as an undisclosed ad. Community Notes are a bad look for a brand campaign, and they also get demonetized, meaning a blue tick account posting them don’t earn from the views.

However, agencies say the trick to making such campaigns work is not to attempt to fool the audience by trying to hide your ad as a real, authentic, viral moment. “The audience has gotten much smarter since 2017, when meme marketing and social media stunts first started. Now, even if a small mention of a brand comes in, people understand this is a campaign,” says Sankalp Samant, co-founder and chief growth officer of creative marketing agency Idiotic Media.

But does it matter if the audience realizes it’s just a marketing stunt? Perhaps.

“Sometimes, even a cheeky nod to the fact that this is sponsored content can work brilliantly—audiences appreciate honesty when it’s delivered with wit,” Toaster’s Chhabra says. “And if transparency isn’t the route, then your stealth needs to be so seamless that the brand slips in almost invisibly, surprising the audience when they notice it later. Done well, that surprise feels less like a trick and more like a clever reveal.”

In fact, sometimes there’s no better way to get your brand shared authentically than to be as transparent about it as possible. Brands that have become famous with social media virality (or even notoriety) understand this well, and they say their aim is almost never to fool audiences who are too savvy for phony looking attempts at ‘virality’.

Consider Bold Care, the sexual wellness direct-to-consumer brand best known for a viral ad featuring actor Ranveer Singh and adult film star Johnny Sins. This month, they released another advertisement for condoms featuring the Hindi film director Anurag Kashyap and stand-up comedian Samay Raina. The ad was posted by several influencers who urged their followers to watch it for the tongue-in-cheek comedy.

“Virality has never been our goal, it has been relatability,” Rajat Jadhav, co-founder and chief executive officer of Bold Care, told Mint. “ I think our consumers are incredibly smart and can know the difference between smart advertising and sneaky placement. At Bold Care, marketing stays close to the user and is made to feel as relatable as possible. We focus on being intentional by tapping into the right emotions and staying culturally relevant.”