The Story of One Egg that Broke the Internet World Record

How it all started?

One month for now, the internet world became obsessed with the Egg on Instagram – a bold stock random picture of an egg, published by UK based instagram account : @world_record_egg:

The account has had only one post of dark shell egg and it stated: “Let’s set a world record together and get the most liked post on Instagram”. Just in 10 days, the post became viral and broke the record of Kylie Jenner’s photo (most-liked Instagram post with 19 mln likes). She herself, supported the viral effect and responded, cracking the egg on the video. The ball (or the egg) was already rolling: everyone was talking about the egg, everyone was hitting the like buttons from teenagers to celebrities. Currently the photo of the Egg has reached more than 52 mln likes. Following days, the account started to publish series of pictures of an egg, but with small cracks on the side, and with every post cracks became more and more vivid. The final post shows the egg with the white stitches on the side, similar to American football, claiming that all will become clear after Super Bowl.

For around one month, the mystery was still there, nobody knew who was behind this campaign and if it was a joke. There were rumors and theories, guessing who that could be. Nevertheless, the numbers of likes were keep on coming, the subject “World Record Egg” became trending on news, people were talking about it, creating more and more content on the subject; famous celebrities and TV hosts were talking about the famous post on their TV shows; and everyone was wandering who and what kind of message is behind the egg?

So the intrigue is over and here are all the answers, including main question: HOW DID THEY DO IT?

Who is behind the Egg?

The long wait was over on Sunday evening, February 3rd. First, Hulu sponsored World Record Egg, and showed the add, supporting the fight against the mental breakdown from social media. Later, the reporters of New York Times have interviewed the creators of the famous Egg. It appeared that the creator is Mr. Chris Godfrey, he is 29, working for advertising agency, based in UK. He, together with his two friends has partnered to work on this project. The initial idea was to beat the record of Kylie Jenner by something as simple and genuine as an egg.

Why Egg?

When asked this question, Mr. Godfrey says that “An egg has no gender, race or religion. An egg is an egg, it is universal”. From the beginning, it was pure interest to see if the simple photo of an egg could break the record.

How did they manage to break the record of most liked photo on Instagram?

The most interesting and intriguing part of the viral ad, is how they have been able to achieve this great result in such a short time frame? So here are the key points they stick on their way to success.

1.They created clear message and goal, encouraging the audience for the action to break the record of most liked photo on Instagram. They gave clear instruction to like the post and spread the word, so the record could be broken.

2. They specified their target audience, focusing on teenagers and younger generation mostly (Generation Z), identifying that they are more likely to fall for the viral domino effect and quick spread of the post, rising it to the trends, where all others can see it and follow as well. The target audience identifies as well the social network they are most likely to be most active (Instagram is very popular among younger generation)

3. They have chosen instagram as their main platform, being presented on other social medias, but not focusing on them. For instance: Their Facebook page has only 150 thousands likes (compared to 52 millions on Instagram). They’ve chosen their niche platform and focused on spreading the word from there. Another reason for choosing Instagram is that Facebook algorithm is downgrading the contents from the Pages, so it would become impossible to reach the same effect on Facebook only with organic reach.

4. The creators of the Egg claim they used only organic reach and never invested in paid advertising to gather more likes or used influence marketing. Organic reach of 52 mln likes is impressive result, it requires dedicated constant job on the content, interaction with the audience, etc. Since you don’t have paid ad, where algorithm will do the job of reaching your audience, you need to constantly work on it.

5. They do analytics properly: They analyzed two key factors: demographics and hours of peak activity, as well as possible correlation between them. As per initial analytics, the post went viral with youngsters, and high peak of likes were coming between 3-4 pm (approximately when the school is over). As a result, they come to conclusion that their main audience was teenagers, studying at secondary and high schools.

6. They keep their Instagram feed clear and mysterious, with only 1 post, all other communication has been transferred to stories. With this, they were creating more interest among anyone who would visit the page to check the posts.

7. They use Stories as their most powerful source of communication with the audience. They were sharing the user generated contents in their stories, re-sharing the videos and photos from the fans, tagging people, encouraging audience to share the egg relevant content with friends to break the record and gather more and more likes.

8. Creating special hashtag #EggGang, which helped to inflect people and spread the sense of team spirit. People were making posts with this hashtag and then they were featured in Egg’s stories in return. As a result, organically it created “word of mouth” effect, spreading the Egg record challenge further.

9. Viral marketing. They created buzz on the internet, it has short life span, it was spread in a blink of an eye, it has mystery and thus makes it interesting for the audience.

You may laugh at it or take it serious, but one thing is true: It is a perfect example of EGG-ceptional viral marketing.

What is the message and final ad behind it?

As revealed in short 30 seconds ad during the Super Bowl, World Record Egg supports the the fight against the mental breakdown from social media.The ad says: “Pressure of social media is getting to me. If you are struggling too, talk to someone”. At the end of the ad, it showed the link to the Mental Health America organization.

As a conclusion

The effect of the Egg became dispute for marketers: One claims that it is genius, others claim that it has nothing to do with marketing and success is pure luck and viral effect, based on momentum. True, it can be upsetting fact, that many marketers would study and do lot of analysis of consumer behavior, plan and introduce the marketing strategy, implementing variety of techniques and tools, and then at the end here comes the egg, and it breaks the internet record. However, it reflects the current situation of the internet audience:

• the short span of the campaigns (as due to high volume of the information, it is getting harder to be noticed and stay on popularity wave)
• viral effects of such ads – it spreads with the speed of lightning, but will be forgotten quickly as well.

Another factor to take into account that it is not replicable, any efforts to imitate the similar viral ad are doomed to failure. So if you are trying to repeat the success of Eugene Egg (that’s its name, by the way), my advice is not to do it. All imitations are detectable and not able to repeat the success. Instead take into account the techniques and strategies they have used to reach this success and implement into your campaign.