The laugh heard around the world.
This week, a single branded video put every other marketing, advertising, and overall media effort to shame. The players? A woman named Candace Payne, a parking lot, and a Chewbacca mask from Kohl’s. And so “Happy Chewbacca” was born.
The cost for Payne’s influence, which drove over 140 million views on Facebook Live to become the most-viewed Facebook Live video ever, and led the mask to sell out across the country? Nothing.
The quick efforts by the Kohl’s social team in responding to the video (in a similar medium) certainly helped boost the virality of the video, turning a one-time video into a longer form narrative:
But a video doesn’t have to go viral on this scale in order to drive results for a brand’s objective.
Your customers are already posting about your brand in thousands of ways on social media that often go unnoticed by a brand. Are their posts going as viral as this one? Definitely not. But are the posts of your influential customers affecting the decisions of their followers? Absolutely.
It shouldn’t take someone going viral for brands to notice that their customers are creating branded content on social, exclaiming ‘this is worth every penny.” But this video should serve as the ultimate proof that the best, most organic and ultimately effective form of influence isn’t coming from a paid mega-influencer. Watch the video, and try to come up with a person who seems more full of joy than that woman. Even harder, try to think of a single celebrity endorsement that embodies that same love of product.
The best endorsement isn’t coming from a social figure- it’s coming from your own customers, who love your product and want to tell someone about it.
It’s the gift that keeps giving.
Ready to harness your brand’s most influential customers? Check out our white paper, “Rise of the Micro-Influencers,” for all the information you need to kickstart your influencer strategy:
