ANGRY!!!
It would be perhaps an exaggeration to say I have an obsession with this particularly topic. But it would be fair to say that I feel VERY STRONGLY about it. I mean VERY STRONGLY...so strongly in fact that there are flecks of saliva on my screen as I type this.
Here is an excerpt from a lead story running in today’s edition of ‘AdNews’ (an Australian advertising & marketing magazine)...
“The Bavarian Bier Cafe has kicked off a viral marketing campaign to support its brand...The latest campaign is an online viral building on a theme...”
*Deep Breath*
OK. Here goes. One more time for the cheap seats...
You CANNOT create a viral. Viral is not a creative execution. Viral activity is (if you are very, very fortunate) something that occurs if the content you have disseminated becomes popular and begins to be distributed, in an ever increasing fashion, by the people that come in to contact with it.
You DON’T create a viral.
You cannot control viral.
Or guarantee something going viral to your client.
What you can do is create terrific digital content that you hope has some instinctive triggers imbedded into it that resonate on a large scale. And by large scale I don’t necessarily mean mainstream or mass. A targeted viral success would have relatively small reach into the mainstream, but could still get large scale distribution and penetration into a certain niche group.
Viral activity is something that happens. You don’t create it and you sure as hell cannot bank on it happening. You just hope, as with ideas in general, that you have captured something that is topical, timely and brilliant.
Rant over.
- Simon
