Creative going viral is a unicorn all copywriters chase. We all dream of being the person behind the Wendy's chicken nuggets tweet or Kaepernick poster, but there is no silver bullet as to what goes viral.
It's true what they said in Mean Girls, you can't make fetch happen. What was the campaign of the century for one company is the world's biggest flop for another.
Going viral is normally the domain of the social media team, but sometimes what they post is down to the copywriter or creative.
We think we've caught the crest of the wave or got there just as the ripples were showing. We may think we've got the killer line or nailed what we think goes viral.
Memes relating to life's everyday annoyances must be a sure-fire way to get those likes and shares.
Man, when it's posted, everyone from the BBC and the New York Times will write about it.
It'll get so much traction, it'll be stupid not to talk about it.
What if this becomes a cultural phenomenon, like the white/blue dress or Trump's Covfefe.
They'll make a statue of me and creatives everywhere will worship at my altar.
Except there is no way to ensure that your creative becomes engrained in culture. The ones that happened were completely off-the-cuff and unprecedented.
Brands already have the following, but they don't have the connection to real life that the social media manager who looks after the account does. They may try to relate, but it just seems like a vicar in trainers is trying to do a funny on the internet.
That's why Wendy's social media account is always in the industry press, because they know a human is posting, so we should just let them be human.
The tweet that went viral for me (on a personal account) was when I joked about Ed Miliband eating a bacon sandwich. His response to it garnered, collectively, 3K likes and over 200 retweets.
This wasn't because of my well-timed, excellently written and razor-sharp observational tweet, it was because he responded. Suddenly it was seen by his near 800,000 followers and it amused them.
What it is that grabs someone's attention, from the funny, ironic or offensive and empowers them to publicly interact with it is anyone's guess. But starting a conversation around every bank of desk and pub table is the dream.
And if brands were braver; allowing their social media team to flex their personality muscles and relax their governance so creative can be reactive, fetch may happen.
