Advertising Age asks the question referencing this brill, quirk viral.
More on the article here. Here's my response below.
@kcorrick thanks for tweet.
Great pts from previous posters, but there's something else in the UK. You've seen it in BYAs (Young Brit Artists e.g. Hirst), Grime/rare grooves(8os), and starting out film/commercial makers such as Cunnigham and Glazer (Guinness Ad voted best ever by Brits); that is an undercurrent, indie-come-good, might even say subversive movement that bangs against tradition.
And viral ad making was everything anti to the methodology of classic ads until relatively recently. The Viral Factory - a major proponent to Brits viral movement was not too long ago wrestling the status quo, now I doubt many Brit viralists will not pay some form of homage.
In 1999 I was working as a creative director for an interactive ad company in Soho (London) re-active.net and most of ad companies thumbed their nose to this new thing called "viral" It was cheap and followed no apt discourse. I recall one of the founders of The Viral Factory explaining their plans to us. Our mouths dropped, but that a wasn't universal reaction.
This creative (DIY) disruption is something the UK is particularly good at. Their indie TV scene is equally something to admire, which has govts attempting to find ways of helping out to relatively little success.
Your title could also have read: Why Does the U.K. Music Scene Always Seem to Go Viral? Semantically incorrect, but no less worthy. I conducted interviews with greats like Clinton, Fela Kut and Roy Ayers who marvelled at what creatives here could do with their sound.
Personally, I'd say there's a bloody mindedness, coupled with that old Brit jape, but yes as many that get made and seen, there are dead virals strewn across the innards of broadband pipes that we'll never get to make you happy, happy, happy, joy, joy, joy.
David Dunkley Gyimah
Artist in Residence, South Bank
Maker, Viewmagazine.tv
Clinton, Fela Kuti and Roy Ayers who marvelled at
