Viral needs to be interesting
by Katharina Scholtz
The idea of viral marketing is quite a sexy one. A company makes an ad, and instead of hiring a media planner to figure out where and when the ad will reach people, they can just set it free online to spread by itself. Ingenious.
What people forget is that a video has to be quite remarkable for people to really want to spread it on to their friends. (Although some other methods for making videos go viral have been discussed – resulting in some controversy about dodgy techniques back in November on TechCrunch).
So, this brings me to one of Uwe Gutschow’s posts, listing what were voted as some of the worst viral campaigns for 2007. One of them is a video by Agency.com, which they put together as part of a pitch process for Subway. Done in a ” The Apprentice” kind of style, they documented their idea generation process in order to show what they can do. The video ended up being pretty boring. Their “out the box” video has spread, but not for the reasons they would like. Another agency mocked them in this video, and a weird kind of remix has been posted here.
Another example, voted worst campaign by readers, involved HP paying bloggers to make videos about HP cameras. A woman made a clip that is, well, a little bizarre. (I’m still not sure whether or not her contribution is dripping with sarcasm).
So what lessons can we learn from these viral faux pas? In principal the idea of making branded content that’s so good that people want to spread it themselves is, well, amazing (and almost noble). The trick is in actually making content that’s that good - which is easier said than done.
The judgment that’s been passed on the Agency.com video is actually an example of the industry being tough on itself, which is an indication that standards have been set. These examples demonstrate that you could be held accountable for offering less than worthy content. So keep abreast of the good campaigns out there, and make sure you’re offering quality work.
On that note, take a look at this exceptional ad that I found on Dave Duarte's blog a couple of weeks ago.
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