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Since the start of 2020, the world has undergone a series of drastic transformations – COVID-19 has forced us to make significant lifestyle changes and shift our social behaviour to ensure our safety and that of others. These transformations have been helped by developments in the signage industry; specifically, by giving a visual identity to COVID-19, new graphic signage has provided greater social awareness of coronavirus and helped governments and public agencies to disseminate and reinforce health-related messaging. In this article, we discuss the various transformations of graphic signage since the start of 2020 and explain how transformed creative visual signage elements are currently being used to encourage behavioural change and assist individuals to navigate through the pandemic. We conclude by discussing the role that these transformations can have in the post-pandemic world.

The purpose of this research is to identify contributing factors that make brand video content viral as well as the video content characteristics that affect the popularity of branded videos in Social Media. Using the method of netnography, a sample of 4000 Youtube user comments under four branded viral videos were collected and analysed. Additionally, an online questionnaire was circulated among 157 Social Media users who shared their experiences regarding their engagement with the content characteristics of the brand videos monitored through netnography. The results suggest that visuals, audio and plot can impact a Social Media user's decision to create an online story about a brand video in Social Networks and consequently, increase its virality. Additionally, the results indicate that plot has the most impact among the three content characteristics and that the inclusion of celebrities and animals can significantly increase the chances of the brand video to go viral.

Drawing on theoretical insights from multidisciplinary research in the fields of Multimedia, Internet Marketing, Business Management and Information Systems, this research is set out to explore how video content characteristics affect brand video virality. In this way, this research attempts to address a well-documented gap in existing research on the contributing factors that make brand videos viral (West, 2011; Cashmore, 2009). More specifically, it investigates the effect that particular content characteristics (visual graphics, audio and plot) might have in driving large numbers of consumers/social media users to create online stories about the same brand video by sharing, commenting or liking it in social networks. \ud To examine this, engagements of Social Media users with brand videos were analysed and monitored by using the method of netnography. Following Dobele et al (2007)’s sampling approach, four brand videos selected on the basis of three main criteria: being global, being viral and being examples of a recent viral marketing campaign, were examined. In addition, two online surveys of a total of 351 Social Media users were conducted. The online surveys included open-ended and closed-ended questions regarding the participants’ engagement with different video content characteristics that were included within the brand videos examined. \ud The results of this research suggest that the separate characteristics/components constituting a brand video's content may have an independent effect on the virality of the brand video. More specifically, across the video content characteristics examined, plot was the most powerful in terms of its impact on a Social Media user's decision to create an online story about a brand video in social networks and consequently, enhance its virality. Moreover, the presence of a familiar character/actor within a brand video’s visuals can significantly increase the possibility of the brand video going viral. In respect to the audio, there was evidence that for a brand video to go viral, "music fit" is vital.