The Six Signs of Viral Advertising
4. Controversial…um…bility
Is it crude? Does it make some people angry?
People say there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Personally I disagree, but something controversial or something that rubs some people the wrong way will definitely help a campaign go viral. Right now CourtTV (according to Gawker) is running a viral campaign for an upcoming TV show that’s run into some controversy. They started a blog by a persona called “thatgirlemily,” who flips out about her cheating husband. “Emily” proceeded to seek advice on other blogs and forums, and erect billboards in various cities that called her husband a “dirty, sneaky, immoral, unfaithful, poorly-endowed slimeball.”
The campaign has gotten some flack in the blogosphere because some folks on the support forums and things thought “Emily” was real and empathized with her. The campaigns creators also failed to realize that a real person was already known in those circles as “thatgirlemily.” Good? Bad? It’s certainly helped the campaign to spread.
5. Copyability
Is it closely connected to some mechanism that will let the ad replecate easily?
I’ve seen this one from the very first days of free web-based email accounts. Those “get your own free email” links at the bottom of each message spread Hotmail like wildfire. Some modern ways of connecting an ad or campaign to a viral distribution system would be the “digg this” links you see at the bottom of some blog posts and online news articles. Some closed services will give their users a certain number of invites they can use to invite their friends to join. It’s a way to control the rate at which a service grows (so it doesn’t pull a Google Analytics), but it also provides an integrated viral distribution method.
6. Spoofability
Is it something that people can easily make their own version of? Can people play with it? Is it easy to make fun of?
Apple’s “Get a Mac” campaign jumps to mind. Their video ads of two people standing in front of a white backdrop are relatively easy to recreate, and have spawned a number of funny user-created spoofs. If it can be modified or “mashed up” by the community, then it probably will be. Each user created variant, even if it makes light of the original, carries the same aesthetic (and thus the brand identity) of the original.
Reader Comments.
The best “viral” advertising is free advertising. That’s right “free”. No PPC. No idiotic chickens. No stupid truck ads. Its the cynical manipulation of the advertising industry that offends, such as trying to get viewers to leverage a brand, as if buying into the damned thing isn’t enough. People want information they can do something about: actionable information. Period! And, if “actionable” amounts to forwarding an ad that’s actionable because of value instead of manipulation – then “viral” will take care of itself. Don’t think so? Ever hear of free AOL e-mail? AOL’s example (for example) is an actionable model that introduces an apparently novel concept these days in advertising, called “value” instead of cynical manipulation.
Derick Harris
Cyber ID
Volcano, Hawaii
Hmm, interesting. What happened to #1, VALUE? I have never (nor do I know any reasonable human being who has) passed on anything online, whether textual, pictorial or video that he/she did not find valuable. VALUE is the #1 thing we are looking to provide via our travel videos. It seems like 8% of our visitors find our videos valuable enough to pass them along to a friend via the good’ol “email to a friend” link.
Dom Einhorn
Free Travel Podcasts
Hosted by Latin Supermodel Estelle Reyna
http://www.estelle.tv
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