Thursday + Gregory Huffstutter = The Ad Man Answers
Q: I’ve heard marketing people use the term ‘viral advertising’… what exactly does that mean?
A: Viral advertising is not when a TV commercial is so bad that you start twitching and develop a rash. Although, if forced to repeatedly watch this one, I think I’d prefer a case of Dengue Fever.
According to Gregg Spiridellis, the co-founder of the design studio JibJab: “All viral means... is that you've created a message that people want to share. It's proof that your message is resonating. If people want to pass it along, that's what brand marketing is all about.”
The resident king of viral advertising is Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the creator of Burger King’s subservient chicken, which at its height attracted 8 million daily visitors.
CP+B followed up that success with:
- The Sith Sense (to access, type in username: bk
and password: int3rna1r3v13w) - Huckin’ Chicken (to access, type in username: bkadmin and password: awards01)
- Method’s “Come Clean” campaign
What do all these programs have in common? They’re fun, they’re irreverent, they encourage interaction, and they’re something you’d happily send to your friends and family. “The key to success is to do something that's naturally viral. And there is nothing more viral than jokes,” says Peter Fader, a marketing professor at Wharton.
The Subservient Chicken and Sith Sense spread through word-of-mouth and e-mail forwards – with only passing references to the burger franchise. Burger King was on the hook for the set-up and production costs, but otherwise, these wound up being relatively low-cost campaigns delivering subtle advertising messages (“we’re hip, we’re cool… oh by the way, come try our chicken sandwiches”).
Huckin’ Chicken was a little more blatant in that it encouraged people to pass it along to their friends in order to ‘unlock’ new videos of dangerous motorcycle stunts. And the Method “Come Clean” campaign was launched not just by word of mouth, but with paid online banner advertising in NYTimes.com, Onion.com, Epicurious.com, Salon.com, and Style.com to help drive initial awareness.
Viral campaigns will fail – and not justify their set-up costs – if they aren’t clever and engaging. Here’s two that make the leap from the digital world to your telephone (go ahead and try them on yourself):
Criss Angel’s “Freak Your Mind”
Samuel Jackson’s “Snakes On A Plane”
But viral campaigns don’t necessarily have to be that elaborate. Here’s one my current agency produced for less than $5,000. It’s a cheap gag, but designed to elicit enough of a chuckle that you’re willing to send it to a friend. Note how it never directly mentions the Suzuki Grand Vitara, but the vehicle is featured in every shot.
I believe Long John Silver cracked the code with their hilarious 2-minute “Shrimp Buddy” video – which included alternate endings and a road trip sweepstakes.
In the publishing world, more and more writers are relying on video trailers to increase awareness of their latest novel.
Before creating a trailer, however, authors should be asking themselves: “Why should anyone – beyond my family and hard-core fans – take time out of their day to watch this?” and “How can I make it entertaining enough that random people will want to send it to their friends?”
As I’ve previously noted, doing a trailer that re-creates scenes from your book can potentially ruin the experience for potential readers. That just leaves setting your blurbs to music, right?
Wrong. Here’s one from David Wellington’s “Thirteen Bullets” that doesn’t use jokes, doesn’t re-create book scenes, and doesn’t rely on blurbs. Other ideas… you could do a behind-the-scenes look at settings utilized in your novel. Or profile a historical figure you used as inspiration. Or create a skit around one of your characters. Or show the craziest thing a fan has ever done to meet you.
Bottom line, make it entertaining. And better yet, give people an additional reason to pass it along. For example, Wellington could leverage his “Thirteen Bullets” trailer to drive sign-ups to his mailing list by raffling off a free trip to a Vampire Film Festival – or something of that nature – to everyone that passes his trailer to 20 friends.
Finding some way to measure the success/failure of these viral programs is inherently difficult. Even if you can track how many people viewed your trailer on YouTube – or how many additional names you added to mailing list – it’s hard to know for sure how many of those people wound up purchasing your product.
The other downside of viral advertising is the lack of control. Once it proliferates, you could have people posting your link on their blog, talking about how much it sucks, or how you’re hastening society’s downfall.
But if you do it right, your message could become a pandemic… and you too could be saying “I spread a virus!”
Gregory Huffstutter has been punching Ad Agency timecards for the past decade, working on accounts like McDonald's, KIA Motors, and the San Diego Padres. He recently finished his first mystery, KATZ CRADLE. The first 100 pages of his novel are linked here. For general advertising questions, leave a comment or send e-mail to katz @ gregoryhuffstutter dot com with 'Ask The Ad Man' in the subject line.
It must work. I fell for the Snakes on the Plane telephone thing and then made one for my boss. It was such fun - and someone else was blamed for it, too.
Posted by: Mitzi | August 16, 2007 at 08:45 PM