Inspired Ideas

DeAndre Who?

No, you likely haven’t heard of DeAndre Way. That’s because he more commonly goes by the nickname Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em. He’s got a record deal and his own dance. And who doesn’t want their own dance?

In my opinion, he was also the real 2007 viral success of the year and not Office Max’s “Elf Yourself” micro-site, which every marketer can’t seem to stop talking about.

The Elf Yourself site scored 26.4 million visitors. Now compare that to Soulja Boy who broke the MySpace record with over 30 million hits. His official YouTube video has over 31 million views and his instructional video for his dance has over 27 million views.

That’s just for his videos. It doesn’t even include all of the people who uploaded their own versions from little ballet kids doing the Soulja Boy dance to the Travis Barker rock remix. Add all of those up and you’re easily over 100 million.

Crank dat dancing elves.

At only sixteen, DeAndre Way seems to understand exactly how this whole business works. He started by pushing his songs on YouTube and through popular file sharing sites. It was a completely viral effort. Next, he created an instructional video of how to do the “Soulja Boy” dance so that you could follow along with the song.

Effective marketing doesn’t simply follow culture, it creates and becomes a part of it. And that’s exactly what Soulja Boy did. This is the same strategy that Burger King uses with The King or what Sunsilk tried to do with “Wig it Out”.

So why did millions of people want to learn the Soulja Boy dance? I think the answer is rooted in our DNA. It goes back to our hunter/gatherer days where we needed to be part of a tribe in order to survive. We yearn to be a part of something.

Let me explain.

When I was younger my parents would drag me to horrible parties with equally horrible music. And without fail, at every single party the DJ would stop the music and tell everyone to get on the dance floor because it was time for…..the Macarena.

I hated the Macarena.
I refused to do the Macarena.
It seemed like I was the only one. And I hated that feeling of being the only one. True story.

The point is that the Soulja Boy dance just like the Macarena allowed people to feel, even if only for a few minutes, that they were part of something.

Continuing his success with his first single, Soulja Boy has a new track out and it’s already climbing the charts. It’s a terrible song with zero lyrical content. But you know what? It’s going to do well. Soulja Boy is up to his old tricks once again, this song introduces a new word into the mainstream teenage lexicon and even explains how to use it.

Hmmm, sound familiar? Hey, don’t hate. When you’ve got a recipe for success, why mess with it?

Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em. YAH trick YAHHHH.

- Nish

This post is tagged deandre way, macarena, marketing, nish shah, soulja boy