Viral Marketing

Ad campaigns for the Olympics have become as big budget, exciting and inspiring as the games themselves. Coca-Cola's "Move to the Beat" campaign is no exception, launching their brand into ambitious new territory for London 2012. Their multimedia approach uses youth, the largest demographic of internet users, to distribute campaign material via social media in order to ensure it spreads fast and reaches their target consumers.

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In today's Globe and Mail, Amber MacArthur, media consultant, speaker and journalist, comments and provides some interesting insight on Evenflo's video ad - ‘How to Endure the In-law Feeding Frenzy.’


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The term "social currency" may not have been coined to reference the current online space, but it certainly applies. Offline, the general concept is that everything from knowledge about sports and popular culture to sharing a meal can incite social interaction, and has the potential...




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In this week's PERSUASION column, How the 'No Pants Subway Ride' spawned copycats, Simon Houpt talks with Charlie Todd, the 32-year-old founder of Improv Everywhere and how advertisers can benefit from Mr. Todd's approach to surprising and engaging the public.


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In this week's Adhocracy column, Old brands and new bands: A love story, Simon Houpt looks at the ever evolving partnership between brand and band marketing. Which side is really rocking the benefits?


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In this week's Adhocracy column, "Doritos opens a grab bag of potential," The Globe's advertising and marketing reporter, Simon Houpt, focuses on a current contest launched by Doritos that spurs participant to rack up the most social media points by sending their amateur video into viral orbit.

For ad execs out there who may be wondering if this spells the beginning of the end for agency-produced spots, you need not be too concerned. Houpt analyzes in detail.



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BY DIANNE NICE
THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Krafty product integration
In a case of art imitating life, or something like that, the fictional town of Mercy from CBC's Little Mosque on the Prairie is joining hundreds of real towns vying to be named Kraft Hockeyville. On Monday's episode, Amaar and Reverend Thorne will create a video submission for the contest, which will award to the winning town $100,000 in arena upgrades, an NHL preseason game and a visit from CBC's Hockey Night in Canada. A Kraft spokesman said the point of integrating the contest into the show is to emphasize that all towns are eligible. The publicity for Kraft probably doesn't hurt, either.


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Ketchup maker to Heinz it up
You know ketchup is savoury, but did you know it's also a saviour? (For the ad world, that is.) Heinz said this week it will spend about $400-million (U.S.) on marketing during the current fiscal year, an increase of about 15 per cent from last year and almost 50 per cent more than five years ago. The company said the recession has eaten into profits because consumers are showing a preference for less expensive private label products over national brands. Are we the only ones thinking Heinz is missing an opportunity to remind people that, in tight times, they can always afford ketchup soup?

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Marketing magazine's doing a terrific job of covering the Canadian Marketing Association's second annual Marketing Week.

The trade mag reports that during viral video expert Kevin Nalty's keynote address, he "illustrated the cost-effectiveness of YouTube for marketers by referring to a recent effort for the TV recording system Tivo. The campaign generated one million views. Of those one million views, how many of those views needed to turn into sales for the campaign to break even, he asked the audience. The answer: 0.0035%.

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As a certified language fuddy duddy, I'm irked whenever I hear a newly launched online video described as "viral."

To my mind, a video (or a microsite or a widget or whatever) isn't viral until it spreads. Its creators may hope it goes viral but, to a certain extent, that's out of their hands.



After it's released into the digital ecosphere, a marketing effort might infect consumers' enthusiasm so much that they tell five friends about it, who in turn tell five friends, and so on. If it does, those responsible for the effort have a bona fide viral hit on their hands. If it doesn't, then carefully their thought-out program is just that: a carefully thought-out program.

Eric Swayne is someone who gets it. In opinion piece that showed up Tuesday on AdAge.com, Swayne argues that the best viral marketing isn't viral marketing at all--it's meme marketing.

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A unique exercise in product placement has backfired on 20th Century Fox.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the film studio paid a high school student to plug its movie I Love You, Beth Cooper by mirroring a scene in the flick.

"The movie opens with an unassuming valedictorian using his graduation speech to proclaim his feelings for the most popular girl in school. Fox and its consultants hatched the ruse to recreate the scene at a real high school before the film's July 10 opening, say people familiar with the matter, in hopes of creating online chatter about the way the movie supposedly
inspired copycats," the WSJ writes.

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As online media strategists and buyers, we spend the vast majority of our time planning the campaigns of others. Once a year, though, the time comes for us to turn our attention to ourselves. Whether they're last-minute efforts scheduled around client work, or elaborate endeavors for which planning starts as soon as the previous year's holidays are through, agency holiday greetings are among the most creative interactive media campaigns you're likely to find.



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