Viral Marketing
Not so long ago it was snappy marketing jargon that made the uninitiated think that it was a disease caught by marketing people. Some would say that a number of marketers demonstrate worrying symptoms, babbling speech, glazed look when words like return on investment are mentioned and sweats when they have a week without a "heavy lunch" session.
As with most marketing disciplines it depends upon the business and their market but you can find a viral solution for most organisations seeking to raise profile without raising the FD's blood pressure.
Viral marketing is the term given to communicating a concept, product, service or brand to an individual with the objective of inspiring and motivating that individual to spread the word. They used to call it word of mouth but with the explosion of the internet we now have a worldwide audience of many millions and viral marketing has grown into an industry in its own right.
The most common method of inspiring activity within the audience is to use humour. Good examples are the derivatives of TV campaigns such as the Budweiser Toads who became a popular screensaver in 2001 but with popularity came trouble when the file was replicated but content replaced with a virus causing a rather negative impact - "true" eh Bud!
Over the past couple of years the sophistication of this medium has seen very professional executions of video clips and short films designed specifically for the web and made easy for browsers to forward links and files to friends. Examples are a photo shop generated image of Argentinian footballers holding handbags whilst facing a Beckham free kick, this went down a storm during last year's World Cup, especially after the 1-0 victory, flooding in boxes and even making the front page of the Daily Mirror.
BMW recruited Clive Owen, Gary Oldman and other high profile actors with equally well known producers, Tony & Ridley Scott to create a series of short films called "The Hire" produced exclusively for the web. The aim being to promote the BMW Z4 roadster, The Hostage, one of the 3 films even won an award as best action at the Los Angeles Short Film Festival. To view the films click on the link BMW Films
The simple psychological driver tapped into by marketers is the human desire to be "on the ball" "ahead of the game" and contributing to their community through the provision of entertainment albeit not of their making. The web has been a great enabler in this respect.
Marketers look to capitalise on this desire and feed the ever-eager audience. The challenge, as always, is to keep the execution fresh, topical and designed to entertain while delivering the message for the client.
For more information on viral marketing and to discover if it may help your business e-mail david.laud@i2isolutions.co.uk
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