Remember Dan Ackerman Greenberg? He caused quite a stir in the online marketing community after writing a guest post on Techchrunch in which he discussed some of his underhand tactics to get videos to go viral.
Later he claimed he was simply putting forward some of the ‘opportunities’ out there, rather than saying these were the tactics he used for his clients. Whatever the truth may be, he got plenty of attention.
Warner Bros must have been one of the interested parties as they’ve taken the concept and turned it into an online show. It’s called Viralcom and claims to give you a look into the ‘real world of viral marketing’. This is what it says on their website:
“Come behind the scenes at the web’s hottest “User Generated Content” studio for an exclusive look at the “real” viral video industry: a digital Hollywood where the A-listers are celebs like Chris Crocker and that Chocolate Rain guy, where everyone’s favorite YouTube classics are professionally produced, and where success hinges entirely on your number of “hits.”
So far 3 episodes and a trailer have been produced. The videos can be watched both on Youtube and the Viralcom Series website.
Unilever seems really dedicated to integrate viral commercials and social media succesfully into it’s marketing approach? In this item we will show you an overview of Unilever’s viral campaigns.
Already in 2006 Unilever’s Axe used the pretty MySpace user Christina Dolce AKA ForBiddeN, with Game Killers. Christina had 900.000 MySpace friends at that moment and was the perfect vehicle to reach 18-24 year old guys. At the Christina Dolce MySpace profile an interactive game with datingtips, named Game Killers was launched, with hints to Axe. Over 75.000 MySpace users participated! Read more at DLD.
In November 2006 KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flew to viral success with it’s Fly For Fortune campaign. A Pixar alike viral movie trailer was targeted with social media planning and naturally seeded by LaComunidad and dominated the social universe, reaching millions of eyeballs without buying any media space.
The KLM viral movie trailer was viewed 8 million times in 90 days, a large chunk came from European and Asian video portals. Viral tracking was done with ViralTracker.
787.000 unique visitors visited the KLM mirco website developed by Publicis Dialog. Due to all inbound links at blogs and social media, the KLM micro-site hit Google pagerank 6/10 within a few weeks. The game Fly For Fortune was played 1.1 million times and KLM realized 210.000 new opt-in e-mail addresses in the campaign period.
KLM increased it’s online ticket sales and the return of investment of this viral campaign was 1200%. Fly For Fortune won the Bronze Esprix in The Netherlands for most effective campaign and also Bronze at the IMC Europe Awards.
KLM has launched a new viral campaign last week, which we will cover soon. Download the full KLM Fly For Fortune case study here. Be aware, my agency LaComunidad was involved in this campaign.
There is an age old principle in marketing and advertising: Sex sells. Oddly enough, in my two years at university none of my lecturers have told us this - but apparently it’s true. Even our very own Igor tells us to show some pussy in viral commercials.
It’s simple, you make an average product, hire a model to do whatever to make your product more appealing and you’ll sell faster than you can hand out candy at fat camp.
This is a rather simplistic view and a lot of marketers are moving away from this school of thought, take Dove’s campaign to celebrate ‘real women’ . Although I can see both sides of the story and believe that both sides of the coin have some truth to them and can work, some people still heavily way towards the old way of thinking.
Like the two middle aged ginger guys on the Discovery Channel, the internet is a great resource to refute (or start!) rumours and bust myths. Recently we came across a very touching story about a 20 year old German guy who was diagnosed with leukaemia – he was going to die within a year. Due to his disease he decided to live his last year on earth on the edge and took up train surfing as a hobby. He posted his exploits on the internet.
Shortly after he shot to fame on Youtube he died. Or did he?
We all learned Philip Kotler’s marketing laws. If you don’t know Kotler or his theories, your job might be a vacancy soon. Or not? In Kotler’s theories, the -P- for Place is key to marketing success,. But that theory is just not applicable for global dotcoms like eBay, Skype or Google. Okay, these NODA’s (No Dollar Advertising Companies) have grown fast by being remarkable and no advertising budget, but -P- for Place simply is overruled by the internet.
Talking about being remarkable? Seth Godin has really coined viral marketing in his books and speeches. I love his theories. But are Godin’s theoretical viral ideas backed by case studies including social media, video portals and conversational tracking? Maybe we should add a new phrase to his tagline: turning strangers into friends … and let them tell their friends about being your customer!
My point? Probably most marketers of 40 years and older have studied Kotler’s laws. And most of these marketers might even have read one or two of Godin’s books by now? (I guess Purple Cow or Unleashing the Idea virus). But loaded with all theories, how can viral marketing still be a myth? How can only 15% of all US viral campaigns succeed?
It ain’t over till the fat lady sings? Well, we keep watching the Dove viral commercials for sure. Have you read our prediction of Dove Onslaught yet? Dove Onslaught was the number 1 viral commercial in our weekly Viral Friday!
You do remember Dove Evolution viral commercial off course?! Well to be totally honest to our readers, we like the Dove virals. But Eva in a viral commercial, wouldn’t that be eye-candy too? I’m also eager to see, what new official website of Eva Mendes will look like. Eva’s site promises us that it will be renewed at October 12, 2007.
It’s viral old skool. But I had to post it. Since Crispin Porter’s Subservient Chicken viral campaign for Burger King is one of the web’s most famous examples of viral marketing in action.
And for marketers that still think: can a viral really help my brand or increase my retail sales? The answer is: Yes Sir! Read all about the effectiveness in this case description in Adweek.
How do you lure 9.3 million unique visitors to your Web site in three weeks? Take the premise of Burger King’s widely popular “Subservient Chicken” then substitute the chicken for Tammy, a “Virtual Bartender” who’s willing to please. Dhtree shares some interesting figures of Beer.com’s successfull viral game from 2004, where you had to guess commands. A second version was released in April 2005.
23.6 million visits to the Virtual Bartender properties since Nov 2004
Average length of Visit on the Virtual Bartender properties: 10 minutes
VB Fan club continues to attract 8,000 – 10,000 new members per month
