mad.co.uk, 11 January 2006

DMC’s MD argues that the ASA’s decision to ban a recent viral ad was short-sighted - and will serve only to promote copycat behaviour.

mad.co.uk, Opinion by DMC 11 January 2006

Exploiting consumer thirst for restricted or forbidden things by riding the thin line between censorship and acceptability is nothing new for the ad industry. Limited edition products and shocking TV, print and poster ads have been purposely developed for years. But this phenomenon has an altogether different twist when it comes to online viral marketing.

Last month, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ordered Midway Games to pull an online viral ad promoting their ‘Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks’ title, because the ad depicts extreme acts of violence.

Ironically, if unsurprisingly, the ASA’s action, far from removing the ad from the public eye as intended, simply increased interest in it.

The clip was initially made available to internet users via private, third-party entertainment sites, including TTR2.com. The ASA believes viral ads fall within its remit when they appear on third-party sites, however the site owners refused to recognise the ASA’s authority over their content and rejected the attempted ban. TTR2 for example posted a defiant message flouting the ASA’s finding: “Banning Viral Content - They Can Try!” And the ad has become the latest cause celebre of the blogosphere, gaining widespread support and attention simply because of the ban, rather than for any particular creative merit.

Midway Games no doubt couldn’t believe its luck when the ad was banned. It is very difficult for games companies to reach beyond their core gamer target market. Getting an ad banned on the grounds of overly violent content helps give the related brand or product a higher profile and credibility with a much wider, more desirable audience brought up on a media diet of Celebrity Death Match, South Park, Jackass, et al.

Midway may have failed to appreciate fully the opportunity the ASA handed them on a plate, otherwise they would have exploited the ban at the appropriate time. However, they now know what a few switched-on brands have discovered before: that inviting censure online is a very rewarding tactic for creating a lot of noise.

There are two problems for the ASA - or any other regulatory body for that matter - when it comes to attempting to ban viral material.

Firstly, regulatory models used for traditional, commercially-backed media cannot be applied to underground viral web sites. There’s a big difference between online media owners such as MSN, Yahoo, Lycos, etc. and the huge and growing number of private, user-generated online media such as blogs and forums. For the latter, the huge spike in traffic that bans bring is a major benefit, particularly to smaller sites. ‘Cease and desist’ notices and bans are also seen as rites of passage or merit badges to be worn with pride.

From a purely logistical viewpoint, while you can more easily enforce bans with commercially-backed sites that feature paid-for advertising content, anything that has been released digitally is impossible to recall fully, especially if it is being spread freely from private site to private user ad infinitum under their own volition.

The second problem for the ASA is that it has failed to understand the purpose and value of viral marketing. It’s a means of igniting consumer conversations about campaign material, brands and products, rather than simply compelling people to view campaign material.

For the brands involved, no matter what their public statements may be, a ban that fuels widespread debate is ultimately one of the tick boxes of campaign success, rather than an embarrassment. Of course, the risk/reward ratio needs to be carefully weighed up. However, if you have a tired brand or unremarkable product what better way to breathe new life into it than by repositioning it as cool and edgy on the back of a ban?

So this latest ASA action in calling for a ban on the Mortal Kombat viral ad could be seen as a schoolboy error, which has simply raised the profile of the online ‘publish and be banned’ tactic among marketers, fuelling the likelihood of copycat behaviour designed to incite further bans.

There’s nothing wrong per se in trying to set up guidelines for any form of marketing, but regulators need to understand the nature of the user-generated media beast if they are going to have any success in the viral arena. You can’t apply the same rules to viral marketing that have been written to regulate traditional advertising techniques. This is a space where the most active exponents are not members of traditional adland bodies, nor would they want to be.

One possible solution is for the ASA to set up a consultation process that involves expert viral, buzz and word-of-mouth marketing practitioners and the private web site owners who are most active in featuring viral material. With a collaborative rather than dictatorial approach, the would-be regulators are more likely to achieve their aims, rather than face further embarrassment as their censorship attempts are ignored, ridiculed, or cheekily used to further the success of the very content they are trying to ban.