Brands ranging from Sephora to the Utah Jazz are featuring Moo Deng in their marketing campaigns. (Illustration by John DiJulio, University Communications)
She’s slippery, she’s screaming and she’s all over your social media feeds.
A baby pygmy hippo named Moo Deng (or “bouncy pork” in Thai) is taking the internet by storm. Though she’s one of roughly 2,000 pygmy hippos in the world, Moo Deng is just about everywhere, from an ad for Sephora Thailand to a post about the NBA Utah Jazz’s opening game.
[♪ Background music ♪]
Narrator:
This little hippo resists the zookeeper’s touch and bites down on the zookeeper’s knee.
Moo Deng is a playful little hippo who loves to bounce around.
It often keeps its mouth open and it must have a lot of fun every day before it can fall asleep.
Even when it is asleep, it still twitches its limbs.
It really enjoys playing with water and takes a bath every morning.
Its slippery body makes it prone to slipping.
For its safety, the zookeeper sometimes restricts its movements which makes Moo Deng very angry and it turns its back on the zookeeper.
At this point, the zookeeper will give its rear a light pat.
Moo Deng , annoyed by the disturbance, will jump up in anger and later bite the zookeeper’s knee in secret.
After releasing its frustration, Moo Deng will then willingly approach the zookeeper again.
Its cuteness and liveliness have earned it a large following.
And this superstar even has its own blush endorsement.
The name Moo Deng actually translates to elastic pork.
Do you like this stretchy little hippo?
Her zookeeper set a goal to make her a star “the moment I saw Moo Deng born,” according to an NBC affiliate. He succeeded: Images of the feisty creature are everywhere. At her home in a Thailand zoo, she’s so popular visitors at her meet-and-greets only get five minutes with her.
But how did she become so popular that companies are using her in their own marketing materials? UVA Today turned to University of Virginia F.S. Cornell Professor of Commerce Nicole Votolato Montgomery, a marketing expert, for the answers.
Q. Why use a hippo to try to sell blush?
A. There are two reasons. One reason is that any content that piggybacks off of a viral piece of content typically gets increased exposure organically on a social media platform. The second reason is you’re tapping into something that’s already popular, and if it fits with the brand identity, people have more positive impressions of the brand if it connects authentically to something that’s already popular.
Q. When did brands start picking up organic social media trends for their own marketing?
McIntire professor Nicole Votaloto Montgomery says that using social media trends can backfire if they seem inauthentic. (UVA McIntire School of Commerce photo)
A. I can’t speak to when all of it started, but it definitely feels like it’s happened recently. My own personal opinion is that as these platforms have increasingly become pay-to-play, meaning brands have to advertise to get increased exposure on the platforms, being able to piggyback all of these viral trends and get increased organic exposure has a lot of benefit for the brands. They don’t have to pay for that content to be seen by a larger audience. As the social media platforms’ algorithms continue to evolve, we’re starting to see some brands try to play more in the organic space in an authentic way that can get them increased exposure.
Q. Are there pre-social media parallels to this strategy?
A. Brands have always tried to tap into popular trends. It’s just that we go through those trends a lot more quickly online, so there are more opportunities for brands to piggyback off of some of these viral moments than there used to be when news and information spread a little more slowly.
Q. Is this an effective form of marketing?
A. Effective is a tough question, because different types of marketing are meant to do slightly different things. I would say that piggybacking off of viral trends is really effective at increasing exposure. The hope is that as more people see the content, more people are going to like the brand and more people are going to buy, but it doesn’t necessarily lead to increased purchase behavior.
Q. Does this ever backfire?
A. The biggest risk is if you try to pick up on some of these trends in an inauthentic way. When it doesn’t make sense for the brand to play with that viral content, consumers are really great at sort of recognizing that inauthenticity and penalizing brands accordingly.
Q. How has this changed marketing overall?
A. One of the biggest changes as a result of all of this is a need to be much more efficient. There’s a finite time that it works to engage online with one of these viral pieces of content or viral stories. Paying attention to and understanding what’s happening in pop culture has also become really important.
Q. Can you foresee a future in which brands don’t engage in this kind of marketing?
A. I have no idea what the future holds. In the near future, it seems to be working. But social media and digital marketing are evolving so quickly that it’s really difficult to predict what’s going to happen in a year, let alone in a few years.
University News Associate Office of University Communications
aberry@virginia.edu 434-924-6861
December 5, 2024
