My jaw dropped while reading a post by Jeff Bullas on the 4 Key Elements for a Viral Video tonight.

As some of my readers know, I have a section on measuring Viral Videos in chapter 2 of Social Media Analytics, and some of that information came from a 4 year old TechCrunch post by Dan Ackerman Greenberg on The Secret Strategies Behind Many “Viral” Videos along with a follow up post the next day (November 24, 2007!) that did damage control created by the original post, which was quite provocative and controversial.

And, as it has now fallen in my lap to teach a course at Rutgers School of the Arts on “Social Media and The Arts” (don’t have a link yet to the course), which a session on “viral videos” it naturally peaked my interest when I read the Jeff Bullas article on the work of Dr. Brent Coker, a marketing professor at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

“… According to an algorithm, the four ingredients required are congruency, emotive strength, network involvement and something called “paired meme synergy“

Perhaps, this diagram, above, got the strongest response from me, and the most interest from the internet public; these are termed “memes” and, when combined together in certain combinations, along with three other aspects of video creation, explain why some videos go viral, but most don’t.

However, the “memes” as described here also remind me of another example in Art, something from 400 years or more in the past, the painter Nicolas Poussin (who I have studied quite a bit, several years back) who had a theory of his own related to the various “modes” of a painting.

Nicolas Poussin – Massacre of the Innocents – 1629 – Musée Condé de Chantilly

An essential part of Poussin’s style is the artist’s ”theory of the modes,” which held that each and every element of a painting (line, color, form) had a significant psychological impact on the viewer.

According to art historian Yona Pinson, in Massacre of the Innocents, even the architecture is intended to have an emotional effect. The heavy, dark, foreboding column which dominates the left-hand side of the picture plane is intended to express the obdurate forces of evil, as represented by the grimacing soldier who is about to chop off the head of the wailing baby he crushes beneath his foot.

The Greek temple in the background of the picture, on the other hand, represents the opposite. This temple is decorated with the Corinthian order which, according to ancient Greek architect Vitruvius, represented the feminine principle. In this painting, Poussin intends this Corinthian temple to represent the feminine frailty and helplessness of the bereaved mothers.

According to Dr. Coker, there will be a book published next year explaining much more about how this all works and I’ll be buying one of the first copies (though I wish I could get my hands on the manuscript beforehand).

Example of a Viral Video =

Example of a successful combination of three memes:

• Voyeur – which is when a video appears to be someone’s mobile phone footage
• Eyes Surprise — unexpectedness
• Simulation Trigger – which is when the viewer imagines themselves being friends [with the people in the video] and sharing the same ideals

One viral video that used all three of those memes was a 2007 ad by Quiksilver which is a global surf and beach apparel brand.

Obviously, there is a lot to understand here, and I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but what Dr. Coker came up with, is what I call, interesting and original thinking, whereas, what I read so often these days are recycled ideas, recycled content, people hyping themselves, hyping companies and services they have invested in, and so on.

Glad some people “out there” and “down under” actually have interesting ideas and original content.