Planning a Viral Advertising Campaign
Viral advertising has become a discipline of understanding consumer media habits. Viral advertising is not just about creating a funny or shocking film clip, or making a whacky branded game and expecting it to just go viral. The ads themselves are important components of something that runs much deeper; the reason they work is a symptom of the coming together of technology and communications, and the increasing digitisation of brand messages.
Some have commented that viral communications is nothing more than traditional word of mouth. And to some extent they are right, except viral communications is like word of mouth on steroids. Just like email is the same as snail mail, in that is it serves the same function of delivering a message, email is faster and easier and more and more people can do it. The same is true for viral communications; viral is word of mouth, except that the increasing digitisation of brand messages and the growing use of technology amongst a growing number of consumers, has made it much faster, easier and cheaper.
So at the root of all this frantic sharing activity, it is the adoption of technology and the digitisation of messages that makes this all possible. And as we adopt more and more technology, so it will increase the amount of digitised messages that we share and send to each other, either through one to one, or one to many publishing. Each of us will be publishing what we know of value through our own personal networks more and more; sharing knowledge, entertainment and other value.
So how as marketers do you take advantage of what’s happening here, how do you get your message to be shared, to go viral? Well here at our agency we have developed our own killer approach to viral media planning that works every time.
We offer our clients an advertising model that will take viral ideas, and escort them to the “viral consumers”. We define the viral consumers as, the most media active consumers in any market; and we call them Early Idea Adopters.
Every market has its own Early Idea Adopters, and we have proved time and time again that by targeting them with elegantly executed brand ideas, the Early Idea Adopters will go on to spread messages to the mass majority of any given demographic.
An early idea adopter is similar to a technology early adopter, and very often they are one in the same. Early Idea Adopters are consumers that love new ideas and information. They can be both young and old; they are at the forefront of culture. They are media aware, they read the latest books, magazines and online blogs, they download video and music content, and they take part in communities both on and offline.
Online they are avid email users with extensive address books; they are often more than capable of making and publishing their own content too (consumer generated content). Offline they may be known as a gossip, they love to chat and to give opinions.
But who and wherever they are, most importantly for us, the Early Idea Adopters like to share what they know and find of value with other like-minded consumers.
Reader Comments.
Asa, thanks for a thought provoking article on viral advertising. Your latest web site incarnation(www.asabailey.com) is delicious. http://www.homesweetcube.com/
-the first vid selection reminds me of a personal event in a deja vu sort of way. lolrof!
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