This document summarizes a viral marketing campaign by Nike featuring NBA star Kobe Bryant. The campaign involved seeding a video of Bryant attempting a massive stunt dunk from an exotic car on video platforms like YouTube. The objectives were to increase brand and product awareness for Nike and its Hyperdunk shoes. Over 16 million views were generated, with 60% coming from viral placements beyond the initial seeded videos. The viral success was attributed to factors like featuring a celebrity athlete, intriguing viewers about whether the stunt was real, and leveraging social networks.

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Campaign Management
Prof. David Gracia Fabre
IE Business School - MDMK2010
Nike Video Viral Campaign
By Leonardo Bittan
June 1st, 2009

2. +
What is Viral Marketing?
Definition Types
 Marketing techniques that use  Video clips
pre-existing social networks to
 Interactive Flash games
achieve certain objectives such as
increases brand awareness or  advergames
product sales through self-
replicating viral processes, very  Ebooks
similar to the spread of
 Brandable software
pathological and computer
viruses.  Images
 text messages.
 Applications

3. + Nike Viral Video Campaign: 'Laker
Kobe Bryant Attempts Massive
Stunt'

4. +
Objectives
Brand awareness – Nike
Product awareness - Hyperdunks
Brand engagement
High and intense viewership
Quality comments

5. Strategy
•Over a dozen
of seeded placements in video platforms like
YouTube.com and MySpace TV
•Free to share
•Easy to share
•Major sport celebrity – Kobe Bryant
•Exotic car
•Home video look-and-feel makes the stunt look more real
•The viewer is likely to wonder whether it was a true or a
fake jump
•Launch the campaign during end of NBA season - Playoffs
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6. + Results
Viral Placements in %
Placement in Units
Copies
Seeded
Viral Derivatives
20
40%
60%
260
Total Views
Seeded
Seeded 5,920,000 , 37%
Viral 10,080,000
Total Views 16,000,000
Viral, 6
3%

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More Results
Comments Engagement Curve
 35,000 Comments
 Based on a term frequently
analysis, we can conclude that the
audience was strongly engaged
 Admiration: ‘best’, ‘must-see’
High Captivation
 Skepticism: ‘fake’, ‘stunt’, ‘real’
As Kobe takes the jump, there is a
 Product placement: curve spike indicating the amount of
‘Nike’, ‘shoe’, ‘Aston’ people who wanted to re-watch the
video to see if it was real or not.

8. +  Provides effortless transfer to others
 The selected medium (Internet) has characteristic
to ease the replication and transfer of messages
 It is free to share
 Scales easily from small to very large
 The platforms selected to seed the videos were
Reasons of Success appropriate to sustain high volumes of spread
 Exploits common motivations and objectives
 The featured person (Kobe Bryant) is highly known
and followed
 Home video look-and-feel intrigues viewers. Is it
true?
 Takes advantages of others’ resources
 Social networks carry with them a huge database
of possible viewers
 Emotion appeal
 Risk of death experience factor was crucial

9. +
Viral Videos - Derivatives

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Leonardo Bittan
leonardobittan@gmail.com
Skype: leobittan
MSN: leobittan@hotmail.com