Viral Marketing: Overview
Viral marketing is any marketing technique that induces users or the sites to pass on a marketing message to other users or other sites. This allows for exponential growth in the message’s impact and visibility.

In 2005, Viral Marketing became seriously infected as three former PayPal employees created YouTube as a method of sharing large video files painlessly. The subsequent purchase of YouTube by Google and the explosion of users have evolved YouTube as a dominant force in the viral marketing community.

An estimated 5 billion videos were viewed in July of 2008 on YouTube; by 2007 it was believed that YouTube’s bandwidth at that point was equal to the entire Internet in 2000. With 13 hours of video being uploaded to the site every minute, it is a force to be reckoned with.

Success Stories

The beginning of the viral marketing explosion came with some specific success stories including the following:

Blendtec: Will it Blend?
In an attempt to show the power of their blenders, Blendtec created the “Will it Blend?” campaign in which they used a broom, golf balls and an iPhone to demonstrate the power of their blades.

Success: The iPhone blended video attracted 6 million visitors, increasing their sales by 800%.

Burger King: Subservient Chicken
In one of the oldest pieces of video viral marketing, Burger King showed a video of a subservient chicken with an interactivity device. The viewer could decide what the chicken should do, and it seemed to respond. Offering more than 300 command options, the video was a huge hit.

Success: Within 24 hours of launching, the site received 1 million hits, 20 million in the first week. In a year, 14 million visitors to the site would see the newest promotion for the Burger King Chicken Sandwich.

Dove’s Evolution
In an effort to show what women are really comparing to them, Dove created a video showing everything a model encountered to gain the magazine cover effect. The airbrushing, makeup and hair work transformed an attractive woman to a supermodel image, but the behind the scene impact demonstrated that even in this case the transformation was smoke and mirrors.

Success: The site hit over 7 million views and launched the success of the Real Beauty campaign.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Good

Name recognition is one of the strongest benefits to viral video. One of the big success stories is for Mentos. Mentos and Diet Coke became household words with the launching of the infamous explosion video. Success: A 15% increase in Mentos sales was contributed to the video viewings.

Fast time to market is another strong benefit of viral video. Ideas, product launches and key concepts can be worldwide in the blink of an eye or the click of a mouse.

Bad

The world of viral video is not always paved with gold. In a recent viral video ad, Motrin implied that mothers who use slings and baby carriers will have aches and pains that Motrin could help. Unfortunately they also implied that these mothers were posing to look like better mothers. The backlash was swift and immediate creating a full blown PR and reputation nightmare.

Lash Back: Mothers have been acting quickly, responding in full force with rebuff and in some cases calling for a boycott. The travel speed of viral video thought to be so appealing has created a nightmare in this case, as there was no time to react, monitor or evaluate the results. There was only the exploding sound of the viral video hitting the fan.

Ugly

Sony created a video that appeared to be created by fans and users of PlayStation, but it was later exposed by bloggers as a marketing ploy causing ridicule and negative feedback.

Some videos have lead to the arrest and conviction of the distributor. In the recent case of a video showing a baby being swung about, or in the cases where serious or fatal injuries occurred.

Some topics are such open wounds that the videos are seen as offensive and detrimental to the reputation of the company that is promoting it. There is a fine line between funny and tasteless and between provocative and offensive.

Connecting the Dots: Converting Viewers to Customers

High visibility without good conversion will not yield the results most marketers are looking for from viral video.

Tips for creating an effective viral video camp include:

• Keep the Message in Mind
• Integrated Marketing Campaigns
• The Buying Stage of the Viewer

• Think about the lasting perception. In the ‘Will it Blend’ campaign the message was the blenders were invincible which convinced the viewers to buy.
• The repetition of the message in a variety of videos strengthened the message.
• Driving viewers to the website where they can learn more about the product or services is the end game.

Making it work

• Once the video has been created and uploaded, tell the world about it. Use email lists, blogs and discussion groups especially for controversial or provocative videos.
• Submit articles and posting about the elements of controversy, humor or entertainment elements. Then link the video in article directory and portal sites.
• Post the video on social networking sites, use the viral network of viral networks to spread the message faster.
• New enterprises like Viral Factory have developed as a service provider of higher ranking videos.
• Tracking results is difficult but web hits before and after, sales records before and after, and year on year results can all identify the success of the campaign.