Viral Rant

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

Comments

[Zac Martin]

I find this topic very interesting, so interesting in fact that I started a second blog just about it. And I agree with you.

However, whilst you cannot guarantee viralism, do you think certain things can be done to encourage the message/content to spread? If so, does this count as a "viral campaign"?

I'm with you in the fact that what people normally call a "viral campaign" is simply just a wish rather than a technique... but are there things beyond being a Purple Cow that can encourage exponential spread?

[Stan Lee]

No arguments from me.

Having said that, here's a nice viral I mean fun video that I shared with tons of people:

http://tinyurl.com/5s5358

[simon]

Hi Zac, thanks for the comment. I think there are some things beyond the Purple Cow / remarkable'ness of the content that have an impact. I think there are certain elements to successful viral content that seem to scan across most campaigns (things that appeal to base human instincts such as spite, greed, appreciation of the absurd, come uppance etc) but these things cannot GUARANTEE what will work. I think successful viral content is similar in form to successful ideas; that being that a really good idea needs to be 4 things. It needs to be simple, timely, topical and mass. I think great viral content is similar to that. But it can stil die a death even when it happens to have all those things!