• Brand Pot Noodle
• Project Tipping Pot
• Services video seeding
• Date 10 March 2008
• Headline overtook Guinness's original Tipping Point ad in less than a week

Background: St. Patrick's Day Guinness spoof

On St Patrick's Day in March 2008, Pot Noodle released an affectionate pastiche of what was reportedly the most expensive ad ever made: Guinness's Tipping Point, a £10m, high-octane riff on the domino meme.

Shot by Mustard for AKQA on a shoe-string on a North London housing estate, Pot Noodle's Tipping Pot replaced Guinness's grandfather clocks and burning bales of hay with fag packets, traffic cones and wheelie bins, swapping south American scenic splendour for a gritty, oh-so-English urban detritus.

"Our aim was to send a clear brand message - that Pot Noodles are easy to make - while also doing something that would get talked about."

Cheryl Calverley, Brand Manager, Pot Noodle.

The punchline is an inflating sex doll, which tilts a boiling kettle to send hot water down a piece of guttering to - cue pack shot - moisten the awaiting noodles.

Challenge: beat Guinness, fast

St Patrick's Day fell on Saturday 15 March 2008. Unruly was tasked by Cake to drive as many views as possible through YouTube between Monday 10th March and Friday 14 March. The aim was to get the video onto YouTube's most viewed videos page and, crucially, get more views than Guinness's Tipping Point. And to do all this before the end of the week, so that Pot Noodle could press release the fact they'd beaten Guinness on the Friday before St Patrick's Day.

Solution: viral seeding and digital outreach

Unruly kicked off seeding first thing on Monday morning, 10th March, with all activity conducted simultaneously to maximize impact. Bought media was planned in to deliver at the rate of 25,000 plays per day. Placements on classic viral hubs like Viral Video Chart and Popbitch were complemented by posts on satirical news blogs like The Daily Mash and Newsbiscuit and higher volume placements on media and entertainment sites.  At the same time, Unruly reached out to influential bloggers who had posted the original Guinness ad, with a view to earning coverage that would echo further in the blogosphere, generating a substantial amount of free media.

Result: more views than Guinness in 5 days

Media activity delivered over 50,000 YouTube views on the first day. By Friday, Unruly's activity had driven Tipping Pot to 200,000 views, taking it past the 190,000 views enjoyed by the Guinness ad and getting it into the top 40 most viewed videos on YouTube globally. This played perfectly into the PR strategy. The combination of blogger buzz and PR machinery generated significant coverage of Pot Noodle's coup in national and international press, including Sky News, The Telegraph, The Times, The Independent, CBTV and Sydney’s The Age.

The graph below, from YouTube, clearly shows the impact of the seeding activity over the first week of the clip's life cycle. The 213,567 embedded views pegged to 11 March are from blogs and sites embedding the YouTube player distributed by Unruly. On top of which, an additional 31,160 viral views are also pegged to 11 March, the result of links circulating on email, IM and other channels driving traffic back to YouTube.

Aside: (un-)branding content

Ad agencies often ask how heavily they ought to brand their videos if they want to maximize pass-on. Won't overt branding turn off would-be advocates? Surely nobody wants to feel like a corporate stooge? Now Tipping Pot is far from heavily branded. But with it's witty, crystal-clear pack shot at the close of the film, it's as heavily-branded and product-infused as many classic TV spots. Certainly, it's a far cry from the enigmatic, unbranded viral exemplified by Herbal Essences' Bride Hair Wig Out.

The bottom line is that people are totally happy to share and talk about ads...if the ads are worth sharing and talking about. Think Budweiser's Wassup. Think Heineken's Walk-in Fridge. And some of the very best virals, like Blendtec's Will It Blend?, draw their power from a product truth and so promote the goods to a starring role. Conversely, deprecating the brand, just like shooting the film on a shaky hand-held camera or using expletives or C-list celebs, may make you feel that you're 'making a viral' but does nothing by itself to intensify the emotional power of the film, which is the electricity you need to spark pass-on.

Agency credits

• Creative: AKQA
• Production : Mustard
• Post Production: Smoke & Mirrors
• Planning: Cake
• Seeding: Unruly Media