Can You Guess Which Pitch Is a Real Viral Campaign?

Apparently, Many Agencies Can't

Posted by B.L. Ochman on 12.05.08 @ 04:10 PM

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Dear social media gurus, advertising agencies and PR flacks: You need to read this post.

I got three e-mail pitches yesterday about new viral-marketing campaigns. One was from an agency that said it "provides complete viral services." Another was for a "brand-new IBM (Lotus Foundations) viral video campaign" that will launch on Monday. (Hint: a campaign that has not launched yet is not viral.) And the third was from a friend, who saw something she thought I'd love and forwarded me a link.

Guess which one was actually a viral? Apparently most agencies can't.

First let's define viral marketing:

Content passed from one person to another, including images, videos, links, applications, games, stories, e-mails, documents or virtually any other type of digital content that one person passes to another via e-mail, IM, text messaging, or social network like Twitter, FriendFeed, etc., or content-sharing sites such as StumbleUpon, Digg, etc.

What doesn't make a campaign go viral:

Sending out a press release about your latest viral campaign
An e-mail that says, "This is a viral campaign."

What kind of creative is likely to go viral?

Knockout creative that's funny, shocking, intriguing or surprising
An idea customers can relate to and care about
A clear-cut message so people are able to pass it on with one sentence
An easy way to pass it on -- a link, embedding code, "share this" button, e-mail to a friend, etc.
A concept that builds relationships with customers by getting them to interact with others
Measurable outcomes, as in: What is this campaign hoping to accomplish and how will be measure it?

What can help spread the word?

Blog advertising with the right creative can be remarkably cost-effective and high yielding.
Blogger outreach (which can backfire if pitches are lame)
A seeding plan to get the campaign started:

JibJab, for example, e-mails to tens of thousands of people who've asked to be notified of its latest efforts. One of the all-time most successful virals, launched in 2006, is ElfYourself, which OfficeMax created with Toy and EVB. But this year, OfficeMax has partnered with JibJab.
It's great because it's about us, not a blatant sales effort. It's fun, it's funny, it's easy to use, and it's easy to send.

In 2007, ElfYourself.com was the No. 1 holiday e-greeting website, surpassing AmericanGreetings.com and Hallmark.com, and secured more traffic than Facebook.com, according to OfficeMax. In 2007, in six weeks, it attracted 193 million visits with users spending 2,600 years collectively on the site. In fact, one in 10 Americans "elfed themselves" in 2007.

ElfYourself is back and -- aside from taking what feels like forever to upload your photos -- it's even better in 2008 with several new dances and features including:

A Facebook application that enables users to place elf videos on profile pages and invite friends to do the same
"Quick Post" options to place ElfYourself videos on MySpace, Friendster, BeBo, Live Journal, iGoogle, etc.
The ability to create print greeting cards featuring custom elves
Tools to customize photo gift items -- snowflake ornaments, mouse pads, coffee mugs or playing cards
Downloadable elf videos that can be saved to desktop
Profiles where users can save elves and videos for future "elfing."

Remember, social-media gurus, advertising agencies and PR flacks:

It ain't viral til it is.

So please please don't send me another pitch that includes the words "new viral" in the subject line.

23 Comments

By sschildwachter | Chicago, IL December 5, 2008 05:30:01 pm:

Viral is an outcome, not a plan. -- Steve S., Chicago

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By BL | NEW YORK, NY December 5, 2008 05:52:59 pm:

Steve - amen! what an eloquent way to put it.

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By Stevewax | NEW YORK, NY December 6, 2008 07:32:41 am:

Man, it's about time someone called the "viral" label out. a couple years ago on our site we talked about how saying you were working on a viral campaign was like saying you were writing a best seller or penning a blockbuster movie. If you're interested the post is here: http://campfirenyc.com/2006/11/09/viral/

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By BL | NEW YORK, NY December 6, 2008 11:04:21 am:

Steve (Wax) - That's a great post. I too have been going on about the fact that it ain't viral til it is for years. So has Steve Hall at www.adrants.com and yet, there they were: three pitches in one morning about "new virals." As if they were strains of the flu. Acchoooo!

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By darlin16 | Chicago, IL December 6, 2008 12:25:00 pm:

I can't believe this is still an issue. If you don't know what viral means, you shouldn't be working in this industry. If your clients don't know what the term viral means, you shouldn't have many clients.

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By SingularityDesign | Philadelphia, PA December 6, 2008 02:38:28 pm:

I agree with the widespread lack of knowledge about what makes things truly viral, but I think that campaigns can be engineered with the intent of being viral (i.e. they can be planned), and clearly many are. What you see after they are released into the wild is whether they are SUCCESSFULLY viral. As an example, we created www.TrickedOutMouse.com with the specific plan for it to be viral, and it spread on its own to over 100 countries, but wasn't it a viral campaign before it was launched? If not, then a bomb isn't really a bomb until it has exploded, right? Maybe this just becomes a "tree falling in the forest with nobody around" riddle for the ad industry.

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By BL | NEW YORK, NY December 6, 2008 06:49:53 pm:

Rock - lucky you to have so many clients who are so wise about viral marketing. Must be nice.

Jeff - Your Kensington campaign was a marketing campaign that you hoped would go viral. you seeded it, promoted it, and hoped it would spread. and when it did, voila, a viral campaign.

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By Steve | Groton, MA December 6, 2008 07:24:02 pm:

Thanks, BL. We've been bitching about this for so long. I'm so tired of it I can't even write about it anymore. For as much bitching as we've all done, there's still people out there who think you can slap the label "viral" on something and it will magically "go viral." Absurd.

We need new terms like, oh, "viral wannabe" or releases that simply say "here's some work we hope will become viral and here's the things we are doing to help make that happen."

Is that so hard?

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By evolvingwheel | CHICAGO, IL December 7, 2008 09:58:36 am:

All virals originate in a very low-key platform. The trigger point to reach viral depends primarily on the users who are toying around with the message in its seed stage. If the brands/agencies can identify the right seeding target group and the tools they use to communicate most, there could be a very good chance to hit at least semi-viral, if not viral. Motrin for mothers in a negative way landed in that seed group.. with a seemingly bad outcome though..

Pinaki Saha (aka Evolving Wheel). Chicago

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By MARCELO | CORAL GABLES, FL December 7, 2008 12:17:08 pm:

Only performance is real. Great post.

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By SingularityDesign | Philadelphia, PA December 8, 2008 07:34:39 am:

OK, so it seems that the consensus is that nothing is viral until after it has proved that it has a viral spread. Then what do we call a campaign that is specifically engineered with that goal in mind? In other words, a bomb is specifically engineered to create an explosion (although it may not be triggered or it may not work). So "viral" is to "explosion as "????" is to "bomb"?

I just think that because there are distinct strategies to these types of campaigns, that there should be a valid name for them, even if "viral" isn't the right name.

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By BL | NEW YORK, NY December 8, 2008 07:40:56 am:

bobms and viral videos are completely different species. viral is nothing to explosion. the comparison is wrong.

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By nickkinports | Chicago, IL December 8, 2008 09:49:21 am:

I agree with everything that BL has put out here - general ignorance about definitions for 2.0 applications and techniques is still out there. We should be careful as agencies and as marketers to define terms in a helpful, non-elitist fashion.

It would help companies move into the space faster if intellectual barriers are removed.

I see a lot of frustration in the comments (and some in BL's original post) and this is obviously a hot issue judging by the amount of feedback. Patience and hand holding (both client and agency side) will help everyone get up to speed on what it means to execute a campaign that then successfully goes viral.

http://admaven.blogspot.com

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By BL | NEW YORK, NY December 8, 2008 11:42:00 am:

Update: J.C. Penny's Doghouse campaign has gone viral over the weekend

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By BL | NEW YORK, NY December 8, 2008 11:42:53 am:

Here's the link for the JC Penny Doghouse campaign http://bewareofthedoghouse.com/videoPage.aspx

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By adbdc | RutlandVT, US December 8, 2008 01:34:17 pm:

---Maybe I've got to much P&G "training" in my blood absorbed over the years, but I think BL and commenters may be too close to the situation here(not to detract from BL's original point that calling something "viral" doesn't make it so--and that one should focus on results, and in the planning stages, HOW you are going to get them--but that's just plain ol' Advertising/Marketing 101 and Executive Efffectiveness 101).

---Maybe y'all should take a step back and think in terms of Objectives, Strategies, Campaigns, Execution, Targeted Results and Results.

---A la: "Our OVERALL OBJECTIVE is to build product or service X" ........"One of our STRATEGIES will be to use viral marketing--a well-designed and effective viral marketing campaign--because of viral's compatibility with our brand and target audience and resulting possibility for building business. (include proof/ rationale for statement)" ...."The OBJECTIVE of THIS viral marketing CAMPAIGN is to blah blah blah, by blah blah blah (STRATEGY) and using blah blah blah (EXECUTION when developed). .........." Our Target Result is to get Y% of our target audience, a Z% internet-cellphone-etc subset of our total target group, to become aware of product/servicde X, pass on the news-execution-vehicle to a W% of their relevant friends and acuaintances, and buy the damn thing themselves ( target U% if them anyway."

I could go on--but you get the idea, and this is just a first pass.....

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By UNBOUND_TECH | Palo Alto, CA December 8, 2008 02:10:32 pm:

We're asked many times to take this video and make it go viral or we want to go viral but with what? What make things go viral is value to the audience and are you connecting with the right people to start with. Here is some good examples of what works http://www.slideshare.net/UNBOUND/finding-passion-points-creating-a-sustainable-social-interaction-model-presentation-810947 another perspective on seeding http://www.webmetricsguru.com/archives/2008/12/how-do-you-find-passion-points-create-a-sustainable-relationship-via-social-media/ In the end its how well you connected and the type of conversation you were able to start.

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By BL | NEW YORK, NY December 8, 2008 02:22:34 pm:

Chase - you said: "In the end its how well you connected and the type of conversation you were able to start."

No it isn't! In the end viral is about whether you have content that people want to share with their friends and family. I don't care how well-connected you might be - if you try to spread corporate BS an amazing thing will happen - NOTHING.

Ronaldo - please re-read the post. It's about why calling a campaign viral doesn't make it viral. it ain't viral til it is.

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By jaypullur | SUNNYVALE, CA December 9, 2008 03:35:25 am:

Interesting to see the definition by BL. Our Tell-a-Friend free widget perfectly matches this definition and hence could be a great tool for viral marketing. We also see it very effective on sites, where the content meets the criteria mentioned in the post.

tellafriend.socialtwist.com | Jay

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By BL | NEW YORK, NY December 9, 2008 08:14:38 pm:

Jay - your widget is a tool that lets content go viral. It is not, in itself, viral. Cool tool, I use it. :>)

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By cperkett | boston, MA December 10, 2008 10:06:20 am:

If I had $1 for every time a client told us they wanted a viral campaign ....

I think Steve S. above said it best - it's an outcome. You can design a campaign to be as appealing as possible and promote in a way that you hope will make it viral, but it's the people/consumers/target audience that ultimately decide.

As Charlene Li once said, "While you cannot control word of mouth, you can influence it."

Anyone who doesn't understand this should not be in advertising/marketing/PR.

Cheers,

Christine Perkett
PerkettPR
http://www.perkettprsuasion.com
http://www.twitter.com/missusP
http://www.twitter.com/PerkettPR

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By yurovska | MASON, OH December 11, 2008 10:55:49 am:

I am sure that JC Penney's Jewelry department came to their agency with a request to create a "viral campaign", or do you think the agency just came up with an idea and sold the client on it? There is nothing wrong in being a wannabe and planning for a viral campaign. Creating meaningful and relevant content that ultimately goes viral requires understanding of the target audience and knowing own brand strengths and weaknesses, and that is Marketing 101.

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By scottmonty | Dearborn, MI December 29, 2008 01:04:37 am:

I know I'm late to the party here, B.L., but I had to add one last thing. When someone says "Make me a viral video," my retort courteous is, "Sure. Write me a bestselling novel."

Viral is about results, not intent.
http://www.scottmonty.com/2008/07/why-i-wont-make-viral-video-for-you.html

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