#WorldRecordEgg: One-time Viral Fad or One of a kind Marketing Campaign?
A week ago a friend of mine shared a link to an Instagram post and asked me to like it.
Out of curiosity, I clicked on the bait. I was amazed by what I saw,
It was a picture of a brown egg posted on Instagram which currently holds the record for the most liked post on Instagram (51.4 million likes as of Jan 27, 2019, 11:13 PM PST)
Chances are you’d have already seen this post and even liked it. Even most of the people I follow on Instagram including many celebrities have contributed their likes to the ‘World Record Egg’
Each time you refresh the feed, the number of likes keep increasing.
But then I thought to myself, how can something so pointless go viral overnight?
Then I decided to dig deeper and decipher the bigger picture behind this viral phenomenon.
That’s when I realised that it is actually a marketing campaign that was planned well and is now being executed to perfection.
Just connecting the dots, It seemed like the person or party behind the world record egg is deeply influenced by the idea of Easter Egg Marketing. The whole thing seems to be a huge marketing ploy to promote something else.
What is Easter Egg Marketing
Easter Egg Marketing is a form of creative marketing hack where messages, secret features or jokes are intentionally hidden within a program or a website.
The intention of marketing easter eggs is to make the user find the hidden feature or message in an impromptu manner.
This way the user will feel as if they have discovered some secret and share it with their community. And through word of mouth, the easter egg might become viral, eventually!
To understand what easter eggs are, quickly do a Google search on “askew” or “do a barrel roll” You’ll see what I’m talking about.
You can find more examples of internet easter eggs here: https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/best-internet-easter-eggs-and-marketing-benefits
So what does it have to do with the World Record Egg?
The nature of easter eggs is to go against users’ expectations and in turn serve as a dominant form of marketing.
Easter eggs work well for 3 reasons:
- It Gets Everyone Talking.
- Drives more user engagement.
- Encourages users with a reward.
How the “World Record Egg” got the world to talk about it?
We live in an age, where the internet is filled with memes, challenges and YouTubers.
We have already seen “#NuggsforCarter”, getting the 2nd most number of retweets on Twitter.
In that order, the egg gang’s mission was to get the most likes on Instagram, a record which was previously held by Kylie Jenner, founder of Kylie Cosmetics.
Even though Kylie, had the most number of people following her on Instagram, the egg gang was able to easily dethrone her in less than a week and a half.
So how did the egg gang manage to do that? Especially in an era where organic reach has almost become null!
Egg gang being creative marketers knew that communities are just as powerful as brands. They knew that the only way to accomplish the goal was by building a community to support their goal.
They tagged many influencers and repost Instagram pages (Instagram pages where you can post anything you want as long as you pay the page owner) and asked them to rally for their cause.
The egg’s humour was enough to generate likes and comments from influencers and repost pages alike. Quickly followers of these influencers and repost pages joined the party as well.
Even Ellen couldn’t resist but add more fuel to the fire.
By having a strong network of influencers & followers rallying behind its cause, the egg gang was able to utilize shoutouts and shares to get their page viewed and liked by millions very quickly.
How the “World Record Egg” uses gamification to drive more engagement
Gamification is an effective tactic to engage the internet, which is exactly what a good Easter egg accomplishes.
As you can see in the above image, the egg gang has so far shared 3 photos in their account. The most recent photo they shared has visible cracks on its surface.
The internet is eager to know what is inside the egg and who is behind this phenomenon. This hidden content is naturally promoting excitement and urges the people to support the egg gang’s cause.
The reward?
The egg has began to hatch now. Everyone is eager to know what is really inside the egg.
What started as a challenge asking Instagram for likes is now slowly progressing into a marketing campaign to promote something else.
Any guesses to what is inside the egg?
Is it gonna be a new product? Or a company?
Does the egg gang have a message to convey? Or do they support a non-profit cause?
Or the egg gang didn’t expect this kind of response and are just going with the flow?
Let’s see what the egg has in store for us. I for one am really eager to find out!
I can only imagine how many brands are gonna send sponsorship emails to worldrecordegg@gmail.com. The future looks bright for the egg gang.🤩
So what are your thoughts on this World Record Egg? Let me know in the comments section below!
