A viral marketing video is a piece of brand content that spreads on its own because viewers feel compelled to share it, usually driven by a strong emotion, a simple idea, or a cultural moment. The 15 videos below are among the best examples ever made, and each one shows a repeatable reason it spread, not a lucky accident.
Virality is closer to engineering than luck. Every video on this list paired a clear emotional trigger with a built-in reason to share, and most did it without a blockbuster budget.
Key Takeaways
- Emotion drives the share, not the budget. The cheapest videos here, like Dollar Shave Club and Squatty Potty, out-performed multi-million-dollar productions by making people laugh or feel something first.
- A shareable video has a “who would I send this to?” built in. The strongest examples give viewers a reason to pass it on, whether that is humor, awe, or identity.
- Short travels furthest. Reports state that when a video runs under one minute, 65% of viewers watch to the end, which is why so many viral hits are tight.
- Subtle branding wins. The product usually sits behind the story or joke, so the video earns the view before it asks for anything.
- Recent hits are engineered, not stumbled into. Duolingo and McDonald’s turned social platforms into repeatable engagement engines rather than hoping for one breakout.
Content
Top 15 Viral Marketing Videos
Here are the 15 videos worth studying, ranked for how clearly each one teaches a lesson you can reuse. The table gives you the side-by-side first, then each entry links the actual video and explains why it spread.
| # | Video | Brand | Year | Reach | Why it went viral |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mo Like a Pro | Vidico / Movember | 2022 | ~4M views | Cause plus humor with a clear action |
| 2 | Our Blades Are Great | Dollar Shave Club | 2012 | 20M+ views | Deadpan humor that is the pitch |
| 3 | The Man Your Man Could Smell Like | Old Spice | 2010 | Tens of millions | Absurdist, fast, dual-audience |
| 4 | Reverse Selfie | Dove | 2021 | Millions of views | Emotional self-perception reveal |
| 5 | Will It Blend? (iPhone) | Blendtec | 2007 | Millions of views | Absurd product demo, endlessly repeatable |
| 6 | The Epic Split | Volvo Trucks | 2013 | 100M+ views | Jaw-dropping one-take stunt |
| 7 | Dumb Ways to Die | Metro Trains | 2012 | 100M+ views | Catchy dark-comedy PSA |
| 8 | Stratos Space Jump | Red Bull | 2012 | Record live audience | Brand-funded impossible feat |
| 9 | Fireman Saves Kitten | GoPro | 2013 | Tens of millions | First-person emotional POV |
| 10 | Goldilocks Raw Egg Test | Purple | 2016 | Tens of millions | Funny demo that proves the product |
| 11 | This Unicorn… | Squatty Potty | 2015 | Tens of millions | Gross-out humor sells function |
| 12 | Dear Kitten | Friskies / BuzzFeed | 2014 | 30M+ views | Native storytelling, soft sell |
| 13 | Grimace Birthday Shake | McDonald’s | 2023 | Viral TikTok trend | Seasonal user-generated meme |
| 14 | Duo’s Work Day | Duolingo | 2024 | 30M+ views | Brand as unhinged entertainer |
| 15 | Safe For Work | Liquid Death | 2020s | Millions of views | Deliberately absurd anti-ads |
1. Vidico and Movember: “Mo Like a Pro”
Movember’s “Mo Like a Pro” turned a men’s-health fundraiser into a fast, funny brand campaign that treated moustache-growing like a pro sport. The mix of comedy and a clear call to action gave viewers something to laugh at and a reason to act, and the campaign drew close to 4 million views and brought in over 330,000 signups. The lesson: a cause travels farther when the creative entertains first and asks second.
2. Dollar Shave Club: “Our Blades Are F***ing Great”
Dollar Shave Club’s launch video is the classic proof that budget is not the barrier. Shot on a shoestring, the deadpan one-take tour of a warehouse pulled in more than 20 million views and turned an unknown startup into a household name that Unilever later acquired. The humor was not decoration; it was the entire product argument.
3. Old Spice: “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”
Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” rebuilt an ageing brand with fast, absurdist humor aimed at both the men who use the product and the partners who buy it. The single-take format and quotable script made it endlessly shareable and spawned a wave of response videos. It remains the template most brands copy when they try comedic advertising.
4. Dove: “Reverse Selfie”
Dove’s “Reverse Selfie” rewinds a young girl’s heavily edited selfie back to the untouched photo, exposing how much retouching distorts the way girls see themselves. The emotional, issue-driven message extended Dove’s long-running real-beauty campaign and drew millions of views. It shows that a clear point of view about something people care about travels further than a product pitch.
5. Blendtec: “Will It Blend?”
Blendtec’s “Will It Blend?” series took a boring category, blenders, and turned it into must-watch content by blending iPhones, marbles, and glow sticks. The format is cheap to produce, infinitely repeatable, and proves the product’s power in a way a spec sheet never could. The iPhone episode alone drew millions of views.
6. Volvo Trucks: “The Epic Split”
Volvo Trucks’ “The Epic Split” shows Jean-Claude Van Damme performing a full splits between two reversing trucks to demonstrate steering precision. The single-take spectacle earned more than 100 million views and countless parodies. It is a reminder that a genuine feat, filmed with restraint, can out-perform any amount of hype.
7. Metro Trains: “Dumb Ways to Die”
Metro Trains’ “Dumb Ways to Die” disguised a rail-safety message as a cute, catchy song with cheerful characters meeting absurd ends. The tonal twist and earworm melody pushed it past 100 million views and into a hit mobile game. Pairing a light format with a serious message made a public-safety spot genuinely shareable.
8. Red Bull: “Stratos”
Red Bull’s “Stratos” live-streamed Felix Baumgartner’s jump from the edge of space to a record-breaking global audience. The brand funded an actual world record rather than an ad, and the event became content people watched in real time and rewatched for years. Owning a moment beats interrupting one.
9. GoPro: “Fireman Saves Kitten”
GoPro’s “Fireman Saves Kitten” used real first-person footage of a firefighter reviving a kitten pulled from a burning house. Shot entirely on the product, it proved GoPro’s value while telling a genuinely moving story, and it drew tens of millions of views. User-style point-of-view footage can be more persuasive than a polished ad.
10. Purple: “Goldilocks and the Raw Egg Test”
Purple’s “Goldilocks Raw Egg Test” explained mattress pressure relief with a costumed Goldilocks dropping raw eggs onto the product without breaking them. The comedy made a technical feature memorable, and the video drew tens of millions of views. A funny, visual demo turns a dull spec into a story people share.
11. Squatty Potty: “This Unicorn Changed the Way I Poop”
Squatty Potty’s unicorn video sold a bathroom stool with a prince, a unicorn, and rainbow soft-serve ice cream. The gross-out humor gave viewers permission to share an otherwise awkward product, and it drew tens of millions of views. Humor lowers the barrier on categories people do not usually talk about.
12. Friskies and BuzzFeed: “Dear Kitten”
Friskies’ “Dear Kitten,” made with BuzzFeed, features an older cat narrating life advice to a new kitten. It reads as entertainment first and product placement second, which is exactly why it passed 30 million views. Native storytelling that fits the platform beats an ad that fights it.
13. McDonald’s: “Grimace Birthday Shake”
McDonald’s promoted its 2023 Grimace Birthday Shake with an official brand film, and TikTok users turned the purple drink into a horror-meme trend, filming dramatic “reactions” to it that spread far beyond the ad. It became one of the biggest user-generated trends of the year. The brand handed fans a character and a prompt, then let the platform run with it.
14. Duolingo: “Duo’s Work Day”
Duolingo’s “Duo’s Work Day” leans into the brand’s unhinged owl mascot, the same character that made its social accounts famous for chasing trends and roasting users. The clip has been watched more than 30 million times and shows how a strong, consistent character turns routine brand content into something people share. Personality, repeated across many clips, beats one-off swings.
15. Liquid Death: “Safe For Work”
Liquid Death’s “Safe For Work” sells canned water with the deliberately absurd, heavy-metal irreverence the brand built its whole identity around. By making ads that look nothing like water ads, Liquid Death earned millions of views and a devoted following. A distinct brand voice, pushed hard and consistently, becomes its own distribution.
What Makes a Marketing Video Go Viral?
Viral marketing videos share a short list of ingredients. A video rarely needs all of them, but the strongest hits stack several.
- Emotional trigger: Content that makes people laugh, feel awe, or feel moved gets shared. Every video above leads with a feeling before it mentions a product.
- A built-in reason to share: The best viral videos answer “who would I send this to?” A joke, a jaw-drop moment, or an identity statement gives viewers something to pass on.
- Simplicity: A clear, easy-to-grasp idea travels faster than a complicated pitch. “Will it blend?” is three words.
- Relatability: Videos that reflect a viewer’s experience, values, or sense of humor spread through their networks.
- Timing and cultural hook: Content tied to a trend, event, or cultural moment, like the Grimace Shake, rides an existing wave of attention.
- Subtle branding: The product sits behind the story, so the video earns the view before it asks for a sale.
Every viral video on this list paired a clear emotional trigger with a built-in reason to share.
What Counts as a Viral Marketing Video?
A viral marketing video is brand content that spreads rapidly and widely through organic sharing rather than paid distribution alone. It is measured less by a single view count and more by the speed and reach of people passing it on across social platforms.
A viral marketing video is measured by the speed and reach of people sharing it, not by a single view count.
The line for “viral” is not fixed. A niche business video reaching hundreds of thousands of the right buyers can matter more than a consumer clip with millions of casual views. What the examples above have in common is that viewers, not just media budgets, did the distribution.
Why Most Brand Videos Never Go Viral
Most brand videos fail to spread because they lead with the product instead of a reason to care. Viewers scroll past anything that feels like an ad in the first three seconds, so a video that opens with a logo and a feature list never earns the share that fuels reach.
The second trap is treating virality as luck. Hoping one post breaks out wastes budget, while the brands above engineered a repeatable trigger and a built-in share mechanic. Video is worth the effort: HubSpot reports that 93% of marketers say video is an important part of their marketing strategy, and 49% name short-form video as the format that drives the highest ROI, ahead of every other format.
49% of marketers name short-form video as the format with the highest ROI, and 93% say video is an important part of their strategy. Source: HubSpot.
The third trap is measuring the wrong thing. Views and likes feel good, but for most businesses the video that matters is the one that moves a real metric, which is why short, emotionally driven video keeps earning the most attention per dollar.
Why Work With Vidico for Viral-Ready Video
Vidico is a B2B explainer video company built for ongoing production, not one-off swings at a viral moment. Across 2,000+ campaigns and 1.5 billion+ views for 920+ brands, our approach is to build a reusable library of branded templates so every video ships faster and cheaper than the last, then test enough variations to find what actually spreads.
That system produces work that travels. Temple & Webster lifted brand recall by 335% after partnering with Vidico, and Koala won a Platinum MUSE Award while raising its positive response rate 20%. In our 2026 State of Creative report, B2B tech marketers named paid social video and customer-proof video as the two highest-impact formats for the year, both of which reward the systematic testing a template library makes possible.
Temple & Webster lifted brand recall by 335% after partnering with Vidico, and Koala raised its positive response rate 20%.
Want to see where your video could win attention? Our Creative Intelligence Report is a free competitive analysis delivered in 48 hours, covering 12 areas of your creative. Spots are limited.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many views is considered going viral?
There is no fixed threshold, but a video is usually called viral when it spreads far beyond its expected audience in a short window through organic sharing. For a consumer brand that can mean millions of views in days; for a niche business product, reaching hundreds of thousands of the right buyers can qualify.
What videos go viral the most?
Humorous, emotional, and surprising videos spread most reliably. Content tied to a relatable experience, a trend, or a strong point of view gives viewers a clear reason to share it with their own networks.
How do viral videos make money?
Viral videos earn money indirectly more often than directly. Brands convert the attention into sales, signups, and brand recall, while creators can add ad revenue, sponsorships, and merchandise. The value is in the demand a video creates, not the view count itself.
How much does a viral marketing video cost?
Production costs range widely, from near-zero for a phone-shot clip to six figures for a stunt like Volvo’s. Several videos on this list were made cheaply, which shows that a strong idea matters more than budget. For a detailed breakdown, see our guide to video production costs.
What is the 3-3-3 rule in marketing?
The 3-3-3 rule is a rough guide for short-form video: hook viewers in the first 3 seconds, deliver the core message in the first 3 sentences, and keep the whole clip to about 3 short scenes. It reflects how quickly attention is won or lost on social feeds.
The Bottom Line
The best viral marketing videos are not accidents. They pair a genuine emotional trigger with a built-in reason to share, keep the idea simple, and let the product sit behind the story. From Dollar Shave Club’s warehouse tour to McDonald’s TikTok trend, the pattern holds across budgets and decades.
Vidico is a B2B explainer video company that builds production systems to make shareable content repeatable rather than lucky. If you want a plan for creating videos your audience actually passes on, book a free strategy session.
