The advert has only been out a week and already a lot of UK social media users will have heard of the dancing pony or have been raving about it themselves.
Mobile provider Three’s latest advert, created by advertising agency, Wieden and Kennedy, appears to have gone viral on social since hitting our screens on 28 Feburary. Currently standing at 2,711,870 views on Youtube, some users of the platform have described it as “the best advert of 2013”.
At a first glance, some may easily mistake it as an advert for The Shetland Islands (me included!):
However with clever, innovative content, often by using a simple concept like a dancing pony, as well as including that all-important hashtag, in this case #danceponydance, brands can use adverts to drive social media engagement. Don’t be scared to venture in pastures new!
Three may well have taken a leaf out of TechCrunch’s book when attempting to create an engaging advert for it’s potential and current customers as TechCrunch previously advised “Create something they will want to pass around.” It is thought that Three chose to produce a comical advert to show that the network understands the “silly stuff” its customers like, with the brand themselves saying they wanted “to celebrate the kind of stuff that people like to share with their friends.”
Another element of producing any viral marketing campaign is its uniqueness. Your campaign must have an aspect of it which makes it memorable. Three has definitely succeeded in that department!
We took a look at the social buzz surrounding the campaign on social over the past seven days to gauge the initial reaction.
So far, Three’s new ‘baby’ has generated 11,854 mentions in total, with a peak at 2,666 on Sunday. Of these mentions an impressive 95.1% were positive. Wieden and Kennedy account director, Nick Owen, is surprised at its success: “It’s rare that a campaign generates this much positive conversation in such a short space of time, so we’re delighted with how people are responding to it so far.”
So what have the 95.1% of positive mentions been about?
Many on social discussed the hilarity of advert:
As well as it brightening up people’s days:
While others took a more professional approach and looked at it from a marketing perspective:
Some well-known names were also among those sharing their opinions with Dame Kelly Holmes saying:
But, as always, the good sometimes comes with the bad!
From the sentiment chart you can see that negative mentions only accounted for 4.85% of the overall mentions. Some used the advert as an opportunity to stir things up between different mobile providers:
While others didn’t see the humour in the ad:
Is the initial success of Three’s #danceponydance campaign a sign that, in the right context, silly humour is the way forward for a brand to engage with its audience on social media to have maximum effect? If your brand has a new advertising campaign waiting in the wings, consider injecting some humour to make it a performance to remember!