Where does viral come from?

Inspirado.

To paraphrase Jack Black’s Tenacious D, “It arises from a stillness, a quietude. When your heart mingles with your soul and they do the dance…”

“Now, I could 23 skidoo you a video. I could zippety-do-dah you a game. But that would be false.”

You can’t manufacture Inspirado

Inspirado is where viral marketing campaigns are born.

By definition, you can’t manufacture a viral campaign. You can’t force a video to be popular, much less force viewers to tell their friends about it.

Viral just happens. The Star Wars kid never wanted to be famous. But somehow the video got out. Ultimately, viral campaigns are a gamble.

But human nature craves that the success story. As marketers we want to push the limits (or jump on the bandwagon). We WANT the next great viral campaign. We WANT to make it happen.

Sometimes You Have to Manufacture Inspirado

The Mentos guys did it. They made a video and hoped it would catch on. It hit big time. But they weren’t selling anything. We know people resist being marketed to.

So you hire a hip, creative agency. You have brainstorming sessions and creative workshops, and you come up with a great idea for THE NEXT BIG YOU TUBE HIT.

You release it to an unsuspecting public and wait… Maybe it needs a jumpstart, so you seed a few influential blogs. If it still doesn’t hit, you blast it out to your email database and hope that they will be so enamored that they will forward it to their friends. What’s left? Banner ads?

Now we’re squarely back in the world of mainstream online marketing. Hardly a runaway viral hit.

The cover story of the December BtoB magazine asserts that “playful platforms reach audience subsets and spark viral campaigns”. The article touts how “a simple online viral game created as a promotion for Microsoft Corp.’s “Flight Simulator” game for Xbox 360… has attracted 159.3 million players [since December]” as an example of how “such campaigns can propel brand awareness and take on a life of their own”.

Touché.

Microsoft, the world’s largest software company, managed to create a video game that people enjoyed. And just in time, their brand awareness was really slipping…

Does your company have Microsoft’s resources?

Office Depot used “an e-mail promotion that can be forwarded to friends” to promote their “Gift of the Day Giveaway”. “Once on the microsite, customers can enter the contest as well as play another game called ‘Snowball Standoff’ wherein players throw snowballs at a cartoon reindeer”.

Anyone remember “Elf Bowling“, circa 1999? It seems not much has changed.
Finally, UPS has bought a ride on the bandwagon with a game of their own. “We wanted to [promote the new services] in a fun way, because shipping in general is not exactly sexy”. In the space of two lines the BtoB article again quotes UPS’s Donna Barrett, “It was designed to have a viral component so they could send it to a friend,” followed by “Banner ads promoting the game ran on the UPS site.”

What is the common theme among these “viral” campaigns? Promoting them with mainstream online tactics. Banner ads, email, forward to a friend.

Orbitz Got it Right… in 2005

Surly you’ve seen them. Probably even played them. Those Orbitz pop-up banners with fun little games. People love them. They’re so popular that there is even a site where you can play all of Orbitz Games, past and present.

Why do they work? They engage the viewer in a fun and creative manner. They are a soft-sell, with little relevance to travel other than the Orbitz brand. They are a quick and entertaining diversion. Importantly, Orbitz knows that the value of repetition and reinforcement. Every few months they launch a new game. This re-engages the viewer and even builds anticipation. Imagine, your customers anticipating your new banner ad.

Viral is the latest and greatest, right?

Orbitz did it in 2005, and we can still learn from their example.

Is this really “viral”?

Is “viral” really the NEXT BIG THING? Or is this just another tool for the marketer’s toolbox? If you need to advertise it, how is it different from ads and email and the rest? Orbitz Games may be a success story, but they are banner ads. Expensive banner ads. Where is the big win when you have to advertise your advertisements?

When we add up the numbers at the end of the day we may find that these campaigns successfully “grew the brand” with a positive ROI. As such, they may earn a place in my tool box. And sure, some of them are pretty neat.

Please, just stop calling them viral. That’s for the people to decide!

Jason Rogers, eMarketing