The short answer is: “Nothing happened to good old viral marketing”. It is still alive and well, albeit a little tattered from some failed attempts by major brands. It may not be in the spotlight quite so much, and is perhaps overshadowed by more ‘trendy’ techniques and buzz words, but there is always more to the story.
A recent redemption of the viral campaign
Television program Dexter has returned to the viral movie concept in 2008 with another personalised movie, this time portraying the friend as a potential target for murder.
Inevitably controversial to some, it plays on the human fascination with news and the ‘gossipy’ stories that often fuel them. Perhaps also, it exploits the modern need for many to be famous or recognised, one way or another. This type of marketing is not necessarily going to work for all brands.
The notable pioneers of digital viral marketing
Some years ago a few clever digital agencies made quite an impact on the advertising world with campaigns that relied on the ‘send to a friend’ concept. One of the techniques was to provide a website which allowed a person to create a customised movie containing selected personal pieces of information about their friend, which could be collated into a seamless movie clip. That a link to that clip would be sent to the friend, with often humourous results.
London interactive agency Glue created such a campaign for Mini. The site uses asks for personal bits of information about the friend (first name, occupation, hometown, wife/girlfriend’s first name, etc.) and weaves them into a video that questions the friend’s manhood and general worthiness for owning a Mini.
It was always a risky business
As is the natural way, there were always going to be imitators that just didn’t quite get the viral formula right. Or innovators that took a chance on a viral campaign which backfired. Brands like Chevrolet, Starbucks, and Malibu have all made viral marketing blunders which didn’t have quite the impact desired.
Certainly in recent history a most notable failure was a Christmas campaign from electronics giant Sony to promote their PSP console.
Making the right viral marketing decisions
It can be challenging for marketing departments or executive leadership to make the appropriate decisions about whether to use viral marketing, and especially how to go about it.
Several years ago we produced a document titled “Viral marketing – impacting established brands” which contains recommendations and considerations for such decision makers.
