Marketing Viruses

The marketers dream is the viral video or web page that spreads out across millions of people who are amazed by how cool the dancing sheep are or the billion to one basketball shot. They are filtered out by a few sources on to the popular social network sites such as digg where they can become a global phenomenon within days.

Some sites are purely based on the power of social plugs, this cheap form of advertising is a very strong one because of the strength of personal recommendation. Just as if a friend told you about a great restaurant, you can see clearly which websites are worth looking at because a friend has posted a link, a review or even a comment. Trusted blogs are also a good source of links to good pages. This social media helps smaller companies with great products and innovative marketers make large profits in markets where there are traditional dominate companies.

Viral marketing, in my opinion, works best when used to promote events, charities, and campaigns. On it’s own it is unlikely to encourage people to buy products because the campaigns are often gimmicky, take the fun theory and their campaign to take the boredom out of simple tasks such as recycling and exercise. The campaign here is to encourage innovation in to making things that help the world more fun. There is no product to buy in to it is more about ideas. VW have sponsored this project but this more a case of corporate alignment, as they want people to see the brand as fun and environmentally conscious.