My daughter, who is studying business management at UBC’s Okanagan campus, sent me the link this week to WestJet’s latest YouTube Video:
That was Monday at noon. At that point it had had about 200,000 views. When I googled it, it came up first on Global News, CTV News, Huffington Post, and THEN YouTube. Last night it had had 2 million views. Just now, Wednesday afternoon? Over 10 million views and 72,000 likes. Wow! Talk about going viral!
What I love the most about this video is the emotional response it invoked in me. I cried. Actually, I bawled, I admit it. My daughter was tearing up in the library at school. I emailed it to several close friends, and most of them were brought to tears. If this video doesn`t warm your heart, you must be made of stone.
But so what, I cried. That`s not what`s important. What is key is that I shared it. Shamelessly. I forwarded the link repeatedly. I also tweeted it, and I didn`t even realize I could win free airfare by doing so! And I want to share it more. My compulsion to spread the love on this one is what impresses me the most. I`m not one to forward, tweet and share links often, but with this one, I just can`t stop myself.
So I have to give kudos to WestJet (and participants BestBuy, CrossIron Mills, Calgary Airport Authority, plus others) for a social media marketing campaign job well done. Excellent execution. The only reason I don`t give them an A+ instead of an A is because I`m not in a position to truly measure results. And as we know, nothing matters in marketing if we can`t measure the results. But I`m guessing WestJet is on top of that one.