Why Going Viral Isn’t a Growth Strategy (What Little Moons Got Right)

In this episode of Full Fat Marketing, Leonora breaks down what the rise of Little Moons actually teaches founders about viral growth, why attention and retention are not the same thing, and why hype alone does not build a stable business.

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And if you’re building a food, drink or hospitality brand and want help applying these strategies to your business, feel free to reach out at leonora@lrbcreative.com

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Disclaimer: Insights shared are based on Leonora’s experience with food and hospitality brands and are for educational purposes only. Results may vary.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

There was a point where it felt physically impossible to open TikTok without seeing little moons and Instagram as well, for that matter. And if you somehow missed it, little moons are really bite-sized balls of mochi ice cream. So imagine a really soft, chewy rice dough shell on the outside with this sort of really delicious, soft ice cream in the middle. Now they're really satisfying to bite into, which already sounds more interesting than here's another tub of vanilla and enjoy yourself. And I remember when every second video on my feed was someone dramatically walking into the freezer aisle like they were about to uncover state secrets. Then they had the bite, then the face, then the oh my god, then thousands of people thinking, well, now I need frozen mochi immediately. It was one of those really rare moments where a food product stopped being a product and became almost internet behavior, which is incredible but also incredibly misunderstood. I'm Lenora and this is the Full Fat Marketing Podcast, where you'll hear uncomfortable strategy truths for FB brands that most people won't tell you, but I will. Now, virality looks like magic from the outside, yeah? Like I'm not gonna attest to that. But when something blows up online, people love to act like it was really random. We hear it all the time, or it was just luck. It was just timing, it was the algorithm having like a really funny five minutes. But viral products usually have what I like to call ingredients, mind the pun. Not literal ingredients, although in this case, yes. I mean ingredients like visual appeal, curiosity, easy reactions, really solid social proof, something people want to copy immediately, low effort to understand as well to the consumers, and Little Moons had literally all of them. You could understand it instantly. Really soft, chewy outside, delicious ice cream inside, cute colours, different texture, even the packaging was really, really nice. And of course, it had that really interesting bite, yeah? So it was like a texture that not many people had experienced outside of, say, like maybe Japan. Now you've got to remember that the internet rewards things people can grasp in seconds, not after almost like a carousel or six-side explanation. The thing with Little Moons is that people were not just buying dessert, they were buying almost like participation. And that's the big difference here. People did not just want mochi, they wanted to be a part of the moment. They wanted to try something that everyone was trying, to post the thing that everyone was posting, to really have the opinion on the thing that everyone was discussing at the time. And that social energy can move products incredibly fast and get them to sell out really fast, way faster than traditional ads for that matter. Seeing thousands of people try something feels way more convincing than a brand simply saying, Oh, please enjoy our frozen innovation. You know, no one's no one's gonna no one's gonna go try it. This really creates that trust beyond belief and of course curiosity, which then leads to that conversion as well. And this is where I find a lot of founders get confused. This is where the problem starts as well. They think that the lesson is, how do we go viral? Which is literally just, I just can't, or my favorite, how do we get more followers? And I just hate this. So many meetings with founders, and that is legit their first question the minute we sit down. How do we get viral? How do we get more followers? No, that is really not the question to ask. And the thing I always say to people who ask me that is would you rather one million followers who never buy from you or engage with your brand at all, or 10 loyal followers who are literally obsessed with your brand and buy from you all the time. Think about things that way because it really, really has this sort of almost psychological shift in your brain where you really start thinking of things in a different way. I've worked with brands where they've got, say, like 300 followers on Instagram and they are booked out. In fact, it was a cakery I worked with and they had, I think it was like 400 or 500 followers, and they were rammed. And I mean they had a wait list of something like three to four weeks to even get a cake ordered with this place. And then I've worked with people who have had like two million followers and they struggle with engagement, they struggle to get footfall, they struggle to get people through the door, they struggle with literally everything and never get online orders, you know. So I've really seen both sides, and it's really, really important to acknowledge that this is an actual thing, you know. This obsession with becoming viral, this obsession with getting all these followers is not necessarily gonna reflect in your business itself. It does also not mean that your business is gonna go from maybe not making many sales to suddenly being like an everyday bestseller. That is really not the case. And I couldn't drive that home enough. And ultimately, virality is really not a strategy. It's an outcome of posting something. The smarter question is what makes something easier to post about? Now that could be like surprise, novelty, status, humor, strong reactions, visual satisfaction. If your product has none of those things, posting more videos of, say, like your founder speaking into the camera without it being very engaging is unlikely to save the day, respectfully. And the thing is, getting attention and then keeping customers are two very different skills. One gets that first purchase, the other builds a business. Loads of brands can create a spike. Far fewer can turn that spike into repeat purchase, habit, loyalty, emotional attachment, long-term relevance. Novelty really gets you tried, but meaning behind that gets you remembered. And the right system gets you bought again. And so many brands don't actually prepare for this side of things. They ride that virality wave, convinced it will never stop. News flash, it will, and you have to be ready to continue being relevant and build your own wave on the back of that. But this is where the Little Moon story gets really, really interesting. After their huge viral moment, the business later faced serious financial pressure. Reported losses ran into tens of millions, and their major factory in Kettering in England was actually closed. Their sales dropped from their really earlier highs, and jobs were put at risk as the company restructured as well. Now, to be clear, that does not mean that the brand failed per se. And I really don't like that and I don't believe in that. They are still operating, they're still launching products, they're still in market, but it does show something that founders need to seriously understand. A product can win the internet temporarily and still face brutal real-world business challenges afterwards. Views do not run factories, and hype does not fix your margins. Virality does not automatically create a stable, profitable business model, like I said earlier. That is why growth has to be deeper than attention. The smartest brands tend to use spikes in awareness almost as like a door opener. Then they build the boring but really valuable stuff after. And that is what builds the retention, operational strength, repeat revenue, customer loyalty, commercial resilience. That part, of course, is less glamorous, and even saying it doesn't sound that appealing, but it is the part that decides what survives in the business. And my advice build that before. Not only that, there might be a time where you know you're posting consistently on social media. Overnight successes do not happen, by the way. There's a really good quote, I think, from was it Messi? Lionel Messi. Oh, I'm actually gonna look it up because it's really important. Here we go. It says, I start early and I stay late day after day. It took me 17 years and 114 days to become an overnight success. Honestly, I love that quote so much because I think it's so, so important. This overnight success thing does not happen, but it's really important for yourself as a business to be ready for that spike when it does happen and literally have all your ducks in a row in terms of everything that happens behind the scenes as well. Because going viral or suddenly selling out of your product is great, but what happens behind the scenes so that you can keep riding this wave if it does continue? And also be prepared to keep getting that marketing churning out because you need to keep staying culturally relevant. So if you're a founder, operator, marketing manager listening to this episode, here is the practical takeaway. You do not need to become a TikTok or Instagram or social media phenomenon. You need to understand why people share certain things in the first place. Ask yourself this: is our product easy to understand quickly? Is there anything interesting enough to talk about? Does trying it feel socially rewarding? What happens after that first purchase? And are we building momentum or literally just hoping for luck? And that is a much more useful framework than begging the algorithm for spiritual intervention at this point. So stop obsessing over going viral, start focusing on becoming easier to notice, easier to talk about, easier to remember, easier to buy again, and stay consistent with it, and eventually you will see results because that is where real growth lives. So many companies never go viral, but they continue to be consistent, and because of that, they build these really die hard fans, this huge loyal fan base. That is what you want from any brand, any business. That is the key to have that community and have that fan base, not over having five million views and you literally get an order through the door. That's really not what we're wanting here. You don't want an exciting week where your notifications look fantastic. You want consistency. And that's the full fat version. Now, tomorrow I'm talking about the real reason customers ignore your content. And no, it's not because of the million excuses you've already told yourself. Thank you for listening. And remember, you can listen to Full Fat Marketing Podcast wherever you get your podcasts with new bite-sized episodes released daily from Monday to Friday. You can thank me later for that. Oh, and before you go, if you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and a review as it really helps more people find it. See you tomorrow.