What can Binley Mega Chippy Teach us about Viral Marketing?

TikTok trends come and go; they are the fast fashion of the marketing world. Today’s news is tomorrow’s chip paper – almost literally in the case of Binley Mega Chippy, aka, TikTok’s latest obsession.

TikTok trends are great; going viral in any way is incredibly useful for any business. However, how businesses leverage their five minutes of fame is where the real money can be made. Jumping on trends before whatever people are discussing ‘falls off’ is crucial to making the most of the situation.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will have heard of Binley Mega Chippy in recent weeks. A once unassuming chip shop located in Binley, a suburb of Coventry, found overnight success and was inundated with visitors after a TikTok about it, accompanied by a ‘Binley Mega Chippy’ song that was stuck in our heads for days on end, went viral.

In an article on The Guardian website the owner of the chippy said: “We’re really grateful, it’s a gift from God really,” and he claimed he is still bewildered as to how his shop achieved such fame having never used social media to promote it.

And that’s the thing – TikTok has the power to blow these places up (metaphorically of course!) and if businesses want to capitalise on the success further, they need to jump on it ASAP! By creating social media accounts of their own they can engage with their newfound audience and keep the momentum going. It’s not only Binley Mega Chippy that can leverage their own notoriety – other brands can jump on it too. Iceland created a mock bag of Binley Mega Chippy Chips and Avanti West Coast added the shop’s sign to its route map, both of which were social content pieces that performed incredibly well. Consumers love it when brands reference popular culture, just look at Burger King talking about Kanye or Gucci and Francis Bourgeois’ collaboration.

Feta cheese even had its own shining moment back in 2020 when people went wild for Baked Feta Pasta, a recipe that did the rounds on you guessed it, TikTok. Now, we don’t think that Feta Cheese had its own PR team or marketing strategy that could’ve jumped on such celebrity status, however, ASDA did on their behalf. ASDA created a bargain bundle kit with all the ingredients one would need to create the pasta dish, and it went down a storm. They received plentiful coverage across various news channels and were particularly celebrated in industry press for being fast-acting and relevant.

At Shooting Star, we tapped into the Wordle trend by running a game on our stand for visitors to enter and possibly win a luxury hamper which proved incredibly popular. The message here is that any business can utilise the prominence of another’s, even if the link seems somewhat tenuous. You just have to get creative.

Even when something ‘falls off’, a platform has already been built for a new campaign to be executed. And, let’s be honest, it won’t be long until the next fad comes around. From Tiger King to whipped coffee, wheels vs doors to bones or no bones, brands won’t struggle to fill the 24 hours that Molly Mae reminded us we all have, with timely content creation and execution.

If you’ve had a viral moment and want some guidance on how to make the most of your emerging stardom, get in touch with us at Shooting Star. But act quick – you want to get in there before any Tom, Dick or Ollie Ball appear on the scene!

TB