The viral spiral: Navigating risk vs. reward for your brand

For a long time, viral reach sat at the top of the wish list for many marketing teams. A single clip with runaway momentum felt like proof that the brand had broken through. 

The last year has shifted that perception. A Christmas advert created by five schoolboys dominated national conversation and even briefly overshadowed John Lewis’ established seasonal campaign. A luxury fashion collaboration featuring Sydney Sweeney produced endless commentary that swirled far beyond the product itself. Social feeds also swirled with conversation when [OpenAI CEO] Sam Altman appeared to repost imagery reminiscent of Studio Ghibli. 

Virality delivers visibility, but it does not guarantee brand recall.

Each moment moved at speed. They became talking points across platforms and across audiences that rarely overlap. Yet the impact for the brands involved was difficult to pin down. The noise was high, although the value of that noise was uncertain. This gap between public attention and brand impact is now too wide to overlook. 

Virality delivers visibility, but it does not guarantee brand recall. In some cases, the risks created by that visibility overshadow whatever opportunity it once promised.

Above: Sydney Sweeney's campaign for American Eagle produced comment that went far beyond the campaign itself. 

Two questions shaping the new meaning of virality

As viral culture becomes more complex, two questions are beginning to define how teams evaluate success. The first is: who owns viral content? Video now moves through an environment built around remixing. Users lift scenes from original clips. Fan edits reshape the tone. Content intended for one platform reappears on another without context. 

Many brands still assume that their rights extend automatically, but licensing frameworks tend to be narrower than expected, especially when content is distributed in environments that fall outside the original agreement. 

Virality inflates attention without guaranteeing recall, sentiment or measurable uplift.

The second question is: does the viral moment carry any real weight for the brand? High reach can break into mainstream awareness. It can also lose control of the story within hours. When a celebrity partnership inspires commentary unrelated to the product, the product loses meaning. These situations reveal a pattern that many teams recognise. A video can travel far while doing very little to reinforce the brand’s position or guide a consumer toward a meaningful action. 

Both questions highlight the same problem; virality inflates attention without guaranteeing recall, sentiment or measurable uplift. The reaction overtakes the purpose. The brand becomes a passenger rather than the driver.

Above: Online content, more and more, consists of video remixes, deepfakes and re-voiced scenes, making copyright ownership much harder to navigate. 

Usage rights and the rise of AI in remix culture 

The challenge is made sharper by the rapid growth of generative AI. Many tools draw from large training sets that combine public data, licensed material and scraped visuals. The rules governing those sets are still evolving. A piece of content that appears original may rely on elements that were never cleared for distribution across multiple environments. Teams may discover this only after a campaign begins to gain traction. In today’s climate, uncertainty around rights can create reputational risk, especially when audiences feel that creative work has been reproduced without fair credit or permission. 

The combination of unclear rights and rapid remixing forms a landscape that rewards speed rather than accuracy.

Alongside these concerns sits another layer of complexity; viral clips no longer remain in the format originally published. A growing portion of online video remixes consists of AI overlays, re-voiced scenes and deepfake reinterpretations. These derivatives can spread faster than the asset that inspired them. They can drift into narratives that work against the brand. When this happens, the original message weakens or, in some cases, disappears entirely. 

The combination of unclear rights and rapid remixing forms a landscape that rewards speed rather than accuracy. Brands stepping into this space need frameworks that provide clarity before distribution rather than after the viral moment emerges. They need confidence that the content they activate can live safely across environments where scrutiny is higher and audience expectations are sharper.