Recently in a discussion about concepts for marketing strategies a list came up of all sorts of methods.
Viral marketing was one of them. It came up in the context: "Viral marketing, something all the young marketeers bring up as a way to cheaply build a campaign with a lot of result."
That a lot of marketeers think that this is true, is true. Especially on client side there seams to be an idea that viral is the way to go. Most of the agencies already had their fair share of viral marketing experiences and most of them didn't work as well as they wanted to.
Still, viral marketing is an awesome way to campaign a product. Yet, the ways to viral market are very dependant on which product is being marketed and what the underlying marketing foundation is.
There are two very common misconceptions, one is that every type of product and brand can be virally marketed to a success. This is wrong.
The other one is that viral marketing is cheap. This is wrong.
After these two very black and white statements, let's delute it a bit.
Together they are always wrong, seperate there are exceptions.
When your brand isn't cool and known, for example you are a manufacturor of door handles, you can not participate in a cheap viral campaign.
Most viral campaigns trigger the user in sharing his or her experience. When you are uncool and unknown you have to build a new experience from scratch. This is risky, time consuming and expensive.
"What about those cheap internet virals, those don't cost much and are very effective?" You ask. Well for example the timeless add from Cadburry (an unknown brand in The Netherlands) which features a man in a gorrila suit drumming is a nice example. The add didn't cost much, and millions of people on the internet picked it up. It also spread quickly through the Dutch online community, but when people don't know what a Cadburry is, and don't know what it sells, the video is just as effective as that one video of a fat kid running into a wall on his bike.
So Cadburry had a major campaign site behind it, people got a little tease by the cheaply made but effective gorilla video, and then were invited to enjoy more of the fun at the campaign site.
This website is much more focussed on the product and combines games, videos and a pleasent interface with hard selling and product placement.
Now, hundreds of thousands of people know, what Cadburry is. Even if they can't buy their products.
So when is viral marketing cheap?
Viral marketing is cheap when you are a brand manager of MTV, Nike, Coca-Cola and such. These brands are so cool and known, they can shamelessly put product placement in their virals and still provide a wholesome valued experience. A nice example is the add where Coca-Cola made on of their machines dispense free coke's and even slices of pizza. The responses of the people receiving the free cokes became the add and the idea of a Coke machine dispensing so much free things and the response of the overly excited people was enough for millions of people to tune in.
If u'd be giving away free door handles at the local doorhandle retailer and filmed that, it wouldn't be a very exciting video. People don't care about door handles.
To summarize, if you have a group of core users who are already dedicated to your brand, you can utilize this group. Even the smallest triggers, such as free hand outs generate response.
The already build connection between brand and consumer is strenghtend immensily and the viral campaign becomes a tool for your loyal customers to promote you.
When you don't have this strong bond with your consumers, such as a doorhandle manufacturor who resells and doesn't have a lot of return customers will not have this group of apostles to spread the viral. When it does create enough buzz, it is harder for an unknown company to place a product. As for example the Coca-Cola brand is already known and cool and more easily accepted in a campaign. It is a part of your life, known and trusted.
So, in order to tackle being unknown, not having the respect to place products in the viral and not having the group of loyal customers to add an extra layer of trust, you have to build a very large hierarchial campaign.
The campaign consits out of a first viral bit, it teases, grabs attention and generates buzz. This viral has no real commercial product placement, in this viral you tease the visitor to find out more. This can be done by having a mysterious website, offering more fun videos, offering an extended experience such as a game.
Only a fraction of the viewers of the viral will move to the campaign part, but it will generate quality attention.
This quality attention is very valuable, but in order to get here, you are already looking at an expensive campaign.
Thus, virals are not a cheap solution.
They are based on:
Is it cool?
Is it wholesome?
Is it well executed?
Is it placed in the right target group? (loyal customers)
What is it based on?
Where do you products come in?
Do you have any clue why you even want a viral?
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Viral marketing was one of them. It came up in the context: "Viral marketing, something all the young marketeers bring up as a way to cheaply build a campaign with a lot of result."
That a lot of marketeers think that this is true, is true. Especially on client side there seams to be an idea that viral is the way to go. Most of the agencies already had their fair share of viral marketing experiences and most of them didn't work as well as they wanted to.
Still, viral marketing is an awesome way to campaign a product. Yet, the ways to viral market are very dependant on which product is being marketed and what the underlying marketing foundation is.
There are two very common misconceptions, one is that every type of product and brand can be virally marketed to a success. This is wrong.
The other one is that viral marketing is cheap. This is wrong.
After these two very black and white statements, let's delute it a bit.
Together they are always wrong, seperate there are exceptions.
When your brand isn't cool and known, for example you are a manufacturor of door handles, you can not participate in a cheap viral campaign.
Most viral campaigns trigger the user in sharing his or her experience. When you are uncool and unknown you have to build a new experience from scratch. This is risky, time consuming and expensive.
"What about those cheap internet virals, those don't cost much and are very effective?" You ask. Well for example the timeless add from Cadburry (an unknown brand in The Netherlands) which features a man in a gorrila suit drumming is a nice example. The add didn't cost much, and millions of people on the internet picked it up. It also spread quickly through the Dutch online community, but when people don't know what a Cadburry is, and don't know what it sells, the video is just as effective as that one video of a fat kid running into a wall on his bike.
So Cadburry had a major campaign site behind it, people got a little tease by the cheaply made but effective gorilla video, and then were invited to enjoy more of the fun at the campaign site.
This website is much more focussed on the product and combines games, videos and a pleasent interface with hard selling and product placement.
Now, hundreds of thousands of people know, what Cadburry is. Even if they can't buy their products.
So when is viral marketing cheap?
Viral marketing is cheap when you are a brand manager of MTV, Nike, Coca-Cola and such. These brands are so cool and known, they can shamelessly put product placement in their virals and still provide a wholesome valued experience. A nice example is the add where Coca-Cola made on of their machines dispense free coke's and even slices of pizza. The responses of the people receiving the free cokes became the add and the idea of a Coke machine dispensing so much free things and the response of the overly excited people was enough for millions of people to tune in.
If u'd be giving away free door handles at the local doorhandle retailer and filmed that, it wouldn't be a very exciting video. People don't care about door handles.
To summarize, if you have a group of core users who are already dedicated to your brand, you can utilize this group. Even the smallest triggers, such as free hand outs generate response.
The already build connection between brand and consumer is strenghtend immensily and the viral campaign becomes a tool for your loyal customers to promote you.
When you don't have this strong bond with your consumers, such as a doorhandle manufacturor who resells and doesn't have a lot of return customers will not have this group of apostles to spread the viral. When it does create enough buzz, it is harder for an unknown company to place a product. As for example the Coca-Cola brand is already known and cool and more easily accepted in a campaign. It is a part of your life, known and trusted.
So, in order to tackle being unknown, not having the respect to place products in the viral and not having the group of loyal customers to add an extra layer of trust, you have to build a very large hierarchial campaign.
The campaign consits out of a first viral bit, it teases, grabs attention and generates buzz. This viral has no real commercial product placement, in this viral you tease the visitor to find out more. This can be done by having a mysterious website, offering more fun videos, offering an extended experience such as a game.
Only a fraction of the viewers of the viral will move to the campaign part, but it will generate quality attention.
This quality attention is very valuable, but in order to get here, you are already looking at an expensive campaign.
Thus, virals are not a cheap solution.
They are based on:
Is it cool?
Is it wholesome?
Is it well executed?
Is it placed in the right target group? (loyal customers)
What is it based on?
Where do you products come in?
Do you have any clue why you even want a viral?
Comments (2)
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