The Power of a Double Rainbow, All the Way

A couple of days ago, I came across this video of a man who was, shall we say, emotional about a double rainbow he finds in his front yard—a complete double rainbow, all the way.

The first time I watched, I thought it was pretty funny, but upon watching a second and third time, I found myself wiping away tears of laughter. So naturally I shared the video with my peeps here at Digett, and soon we were all enjoying that same double rainbow.

Double Rainbow Video

The Story

The ensuing office chatter made me curious about how many other people had seen it, so I set out to learn more about the clip.

The story goes that YouTube user Hungrybear9562 (a.k.a Paul Vasquez) uploaded his video back in January, and up until a few days ago, it had just a smattering of views. But when late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel tweeted that it could be the "funniest video in the world," Mr. Vasquez became an overnight Internet superstar. To date, the double rainbow video has more two million views and counting! One viewer wrote, "I wish I loved anything as much as this guy loves rainbows." Agreed.

I'm fascinated by the sheer number of people who've watched this clip, because it makes me appreciate the potential power behind a branded viral video.

A Scenario

Let's assume, naturally, that Hungrybear has countless pots of gold stashed away, from which he hand-crafts and sells jewelry. Imagine the increase in sales he might enjoy had those two million eyeballs seen a Pots of Gold logo in the corner of the frame. Intriguing, don't you think?

I know what you're thinking. If Hungrybear has so many pots of gold, why would he need to sell jewelry? That's beside the point. The point here is if you could brand a viral video, you could potentially double, even triple your business overnight!

Two Hurdles

1) Does a viral video lose its authenticity if it's branded? The beauty of some of these videos is their unscripted, unedited nature. It would be difficult to fake it.

2) How could we know a video would go viral? How was Hungrybear to know that millions of people would share in his love of rainbows? I think you might try 100 times before you could produce a clip with a quarter as many views.

It is an interesting argument. Is trying to brand a viral video a waste of time, or perhaps a key to unlocking crazy business success?