Treading through viral campaigns: The OK GO story

It all started with a set treadmills, killer dance moves, serious coordination and a video camera in 2006.

For the pop-rock band OK GO, creating instantly viral videos apparently comes natural to them. Ever since “Here It Goes Again” (which has over 52 million views on YouTube, to date), every music video OK GO released – whether it be with wallpaper, marching bands, stop-motion, real life dominos – has become an internet sensation.

Recently, the band uploaded a new video for their single “White Knuckles," off their album Of the Blue Colour of the Sky. With a little help from several four-legged friends, the band not only created a creative and perfectly choreographed video, but gained awareness for the ASPCA, all while remaining true to their single shot music video style. Released September 19th, the video already acquired over 6 million views. The video also gained the attention of Ellen Degeneres, who featured it on her show.

In a recent interview with CNN, lead singer Damian Kulash was asked to describe how their videos have become so successful, in which he responded:

“Well… mostly because we're awesome.” Kidding, of course.

With all joking aside, he explains:

“There's no amount of savvy or like gaming the system that is going to make people like things that are not likable. We just think they're fun. We didn't really think of our online videos as videos at first. They were just sort of these weird gifts to our fans that we knew we were connected to online.”

And a word of advice from Kulash for all those YouTubers that wish their videos can go viral:

“Make them embeddable – duh.”

OK GO goes to show that you don't need huge budgets in order to be successful. It only takes a little ingenuity and some fun.

The band plans to have a new video uploaded to their YouTube channel November 9th – which begs the question what will this innovative band come up with next?

- Kimmie Nahm

OK GO - “White Knuckles”