Sometimes “Viral Moments Fail,” Sometimes You “Bring YA A$$”

One of the questions that always comes up in class is how can you make a “viral moment” happen?

Well, you kinda can’t, but what you can do is be always listening and learning and being able to be nimble enough and have the trust of leadership to act smartly so that the match is lit…and then we see if it catches fire.

We saw it years ago during the 2013 Super Bowl in New Orleans when Oreo…not an NFL partner…was ready for “something’  to happen during the game they could take advantage of with a social campaign…and low and behold the lights went out…and their amazing Dunk In the Dark campaign went viral without ever mentioning anything about the game. Today, measuring tools, social listening, influencer strategy and even AI can make one viral moment more of a possibility, but you still need the ability to be in the moment and act…

And that’s what we got in Denver on Sunday night.   

For those who don’t know, Anthony Edwards live response to Charles Barkley saying he hadn’t been in Minnesota in years… “bring ya ass”…got a tremendous amount of social play, but it was how Explore Minnesota, the state’s department of tourism, was able to think, pivot and use their channels to explode a campaign in just hours, was the real story.  

 According to Front Office Sports, ‘The tourism leadership turned it into its own tweet that has generated more than 310,000 views as of Tuesday afternoon, with companion posts on Instagram and Facebook. The bringyaass.com website address, which was quickly acquired by comedian Jon Savitt, also now redirects to Explore Minnesota’s page. The department is now in discussions to purchase the website registration permanently from Savitt, who doesn’t have a prior relationship with Explore Minnesota. In keeping with the state’s “Minnesota Nice” image, though, the tourism department lightly sanitized the original remark from Edwards to have North Star–shaped asterisks for the “s” letters.

The campaign also got the buy in of the Timberwolves…whose communications team led by Patrick Rees was selected for the Brian McIntryre Award as the NBA’s Communications Team of the Year a few weeks ago…who will be able to amplify and ride the campaign into the NBA Western Conference finals and all the exposure that will bring. Tee shirts, signs, play on words, hats and who knows what else will be coming, both licensed and viral. It’s all fun, and all part of what happens when an opportunity strikes, and the fires can be stoked with confidence.

Sometimes the wind blows the match out, sometimes you sit back and watch the embers ignite. Perhaps the best feel-good story left in the Playoffs just got a little better….and it wasn’t planned or influencer driven by dollars.

It happened and some smart folks seized the moment, and it went viral around the world. Thanks, Chuck, for getting it going and congrats TWolves and the smart tourism folks in Minny for riding the wave!