Every brand dreams of going viral on social media (provided it happens for positive reasons).
But, with competition increasing and attention spans dwindling, only a small proportion will turn that dream into a reality.
So what does it take to go viral in 2025 (and beyond)? To help you figure it out, we’ve rounded up eight of our favorite viral social media campaigns from the past 12 months or so, including the likes of Airbnb, Duolingo, and Visit Oslo.
Let’s get into it…
1. Duolingo “Kills” Its Mascot
We’ll start with a campaign that’s so fresh, it’s still ongoing.
Duolingo has become the biggest name in language learning, largely thanks to the strength of its madcap mascot, Duo.
But, as McDonald’s could tell you, every mascot eventually outlives its usefulness. And so, on February 11, 2025, Duolingo took the dramatic step of announcing that Duo was dead:
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Sure, it’s not the most original stunt.
But it worked, with Google Trends showing a big uptick in search activity around the date of Duo’s “death”:
Much of the campaign’s success was down to the ability of Duolingo’s in-house social team to react fast and execute. The app regularly refreshes its icons, and just happened to introduce a version where Duo’s eyes were replaced with “X” marks.
So they decided to roll with it – and, just six days later, they hit us with the “dead Duo” campaign.
“A lot of our social is just what our community wants us to do,” explained Zaria Parvez, Duolingo’s senior global social media manager, in an interview with the Drum. “We’re very fast with reaction. It’s a priority.”
However, all isn’t what it seems. Just a couple days ago (at time of writing), Duolingo sensationally revealed that Duo wasn’t dead at all – it had all been an elaborate hoax!
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Of course, this could be a stunt too. Maybe Duo really is dead. Or maybe Duolingo’s social team will forget all about this campaign and move on to something equally zany.
We’ll just have to stay tuned to find out.
2. City of Miami Beach Breaks Up With Spring Break
Think going viral is only for consumer brands?
Think again, because the City of Miami Beach showed that government agency social media campaigns can do serious numbers too.
Unusually for a city government, Miami Beach actually wanted fewer people to visit. Specifically, they were sick of the carnage that afflicts the city during spring break season, so they imposed a bunch of new rules – like higher car parking charges and regular DUI checks – to dissuade visitors who only wanted to turn up and party.
To communicate this message, the city launched its “Breaking Up With Spring Break” campaign:
To date, the video has clocked up almost 400,000 views on YouTube and 20 billion impressions across social and earned media as a whole, as well as being shortlisted in three categories for Cannes Lions.
“We were happy that the message went out and people heard it,” Madison Brown, Digital Media Manager for the City of Miami Beach, told Sprout Social. “Thankfully, we had a safe spring break and there was a drastic difference between this year and previous years. The message was received, and that was the goal of the campaign.”
3. Visit Oslo Asks “Is It Even a City?”
Seems like non-traditional tourism campaigns have been something of a trend over the past year, because Visit Oslo went viral with a video highlighting all the things that 31-year-old resident Halfdan hates about living in the Norwegian capital:
Of course, everything he lists – the city’s walkability, its lack of pretension, the lack of queues – actually makes Oslo sound like an amazing place to visit. Clever stuff!
The campaign clearly resonated, generating over seven million views across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
4. CeraVe x Michael Cera
Sometimes, you discover a campaign that’s so brilliant you can’t even imagine how the creative team came up with it.
Other times, it’s extremely obvious. Like in CeraVe’s 2024 Super Bowl campaign featuring Michael Cera, where they definitely just thought: “Hey, ‘CeraVe’ sounds a lot like ‘Cera’!”
To be fair, they were right – it does sound a lot like Cera.
The resulting ad showcases the actor’s trademark oddball charm as he runs through a mock pitch to the CeraVe board:
Not only did the campaign rack up millions of social media views, but it also drove a ton of search activity around the brand (check out that big spike toward the start of the year)…
…which suggests that lots of people went out and Googled CeraVe after seeing the advert.
5. e.l.f. Cosmetics Rallies Sports Fans Around Power Grip Primer
Beauty brand e.l.f. Cosmetics collaborated with actors Joey King and Lucien Laviscount to promote its top-selling product, Power Grip Primer.
Frankly, the concept is kinda hard to explain. It’s something to do with Joey meeting her on-screen boyfriend’s parents, but they support different sports teams… so she has to keep her makeup on all year round… for some reason?
To be honest, I’m not totally sure. But the advert has been viewed over 2.3 million times on YouTube, so it’s clearly doing something right.
However, that’s not the main reason we included this in our roundup of viral campaigns.
Instead, we wanted to point out how this behind-the-scenes (BTS) content from the shoot racked up even more views on Instagram Reels (5.9+ million and counting) than the original ad:
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This is a clear reminder that if you want your content to go viral, you have to create something that feels native to social media. Sure, the ad content ad did well – but the more informal, authentic BTS clip generated more social impressions and engagements.
6. Heinz Launches “World’s First Ketchup Insurance”
According to Heinz Arabia, 48% of its customers regularly suffer “ketchup accidents”, like spills, splotches, and even the occasional explosion.
(Incidentally, this means that over half never spill their ketchup – what’s their secret??)
The food and condiments brand decided to take action by launching what it described as the world’s first-ever ketchup insurance policy for Heinz lovers in the UAE, covering 57 different types of claims.
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The campaign allowed customers to redeem “compensation” through various rewards, from home cleaning services to laundry assistance to spa treatments.
All totally stupid, of course. But it evidently caught the imagination, with the initial launch video (above) clocking up 5.3+ million views on Instagram Reels and 7.7+ million on TikTok.
7. Airbnb Invites Guests to Stay in Real-Life “Up” House
We’ve previously showcased Airbnb promoting stays at Barbie’s real-world Malibu DreamHouse in our roundup of brands successfully hopping on social media trends.
And the accommodation brand did it again in 2024 by inviting guests to “drift off” in the iconic home from Disney Pixar’s Up:
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In fact, creating and renting out the Up house was just one part in a global campaign that gave customers the chance to stay in 11 iconic properties. Other icons included:
- The Ferrari Museum in Maranello, Italy
- A 2D animated recreation of Marvel Animation’s X-Mansion in Westchester, New York
- Prince’s Purple Rain house in Minneapolis, Minnesota
8. Tinder Draws Inspiration From Couples’ First Chats
Sure, first meetings can be awkward.
But they can also be magical – and that’s exactly what Tinder chose to celebrate in a viral campaign entitled: “It Starts With a Swipe.”
In a series of viral videos, the dating app put a contemporary spin on cliched scenes from romantic movies, based on real conversations from couples who met on Tinder. Like in this example starring Gossip Girl actor Evan Mock and actress/YouTuber Lana Condor:
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“A new relationship starts every three seconds, thanks to Tinder,” explained Stephanie Danzi, the brand’s Senior Vice President of Marketing. “This campaign celebrates those millions of relationships, and we were honored to build creative inspired by real first messages from real Tinder couples.”
Want to learn more about the ingredients of high-performing social media campaigns? Sign up for one of our upcoming social media conferences.
Featured image by Pexels.
