New Media Age, Opinion, 18 May, 2006

DMC discusses how old skool viral marketing has finally been embraced by mainstream marketers - just as the landscape is being transformed by consumer-driven, social networking sites. Very few marketers are keeping up with this revolution.

New Media Age, Opinion by DMC (unedited version) 18 May, 2006

Viral marketing is over 10 years old now and has finally been embraced with gusto by mainstream marketers, as noted in NMA (’Catching on’ 20 April, 2006).

As one of the first companies in the UK to specialise in the viral arena (six years ago), we find it somewhat ironic that, just as brands and their agencies have caught on to the fundamental usefulness of viral marketing, the landscape has been completely transformed by consumer-driven, social networking sites such as MySpace, YouTube, Google Video, etc.

It’s hardly a big surprise that consumers have moved on and found new ways to interconnect directly and share content that is increasingly their own. One reason for this transition is that the majority of agency or brand-originated viral creative material and seeding tactics is beginning to look very tired - if not comatose - after all this time.

However, few marketing practitioners appear to have kept up with the user-generated content and social networking revolution. Instead, brands are now throwing big money at their ad agencies for ‘old-skool’ viral ads, where sadly success still seems to be judged simply in terms of reach rather than tangible business benefits, such as shifting product, increasing brand advocacy, etc.

Take Fosters, which spent around £500,000 - (unofficially the figure is thought to be closer to £1 million) - promoting Carlton Draft through its ‘Big Ad’ viral campaign in Australia last year. The ad was seen by over 3 million people, of which 1 million were the brand’s target audience, and has been tipped for an award at the Cannes Ad Festival this year. Yet despite its viral ’success’, the campaign hasn’t resulted in increased sales for Carlton; figures have remained static since the start of the campaign last July. Rather dissatisfying for an ad that included the line “This ad better sell some bloody beer”!

Gone are the days when ’successful viral’ meant simply paying for creative work that people would talk about. Savvy marketers realise that there’s no bottom line benefit in how many views your viral ad or game gets, or how many marketing industry awards it wins. Who viewed it? How many consumers remembered that your brand made it? Did it increase brand advocacy rates? Did it increase your sales?

There’s another important old foe facing brands as the previously underground viral marketing approach gets embraced by the mainstream: how to stand out from the growing clutter of me-too viral campaigns churned out by the masses.

In response, some brands continue pushing the creative envelope - for example, commercialising underground techniques such as ‘mash-ups’ (re-mixes of disparate audio and/or video) to help generate a buzz.

Other brands are adopting a limited mainstream media-buying approach to viral marketing by paying to feature their typical viral fare prominently on entertainment sites. As ever, traditional media advertising models and habits die hard. You have to smile seeing these kinds of sites usurp the old model somewhat, charging thousands of pounds without providing independent traffic audits. Many marketers seem naively reassured if the ’scary’ viral beast is served up in a familiar guise; so much so that they are willing to limit their expectations of performance measurement in this ‘brave new world’. Maybe these brands just don’t care whether they are reaching the pocket money of a 13-year-old in Uzbekistan, or the disposable income of a 30-something in the UK.

Obviously, it’s not really fair to compare mainstream entertainment sites with social networking sites such as MySpace.com. The latter has not only more than 60 million users, but also much deeper pockets since its US$580 million acquisition by News Corp. Its users can be targeted geographically, and profiled in terms of how connected and influential they are within their respective communities.

Marketing campaigns that access MySpace-type social networks, to ignite positive conversations among their highly connected consumers, are playing a whole new ballgame.

The basic problem for brands that are only now catching on to ‘old-skool’ viral marketing is keeping up with the play. Both consumers and early-adopter brands have already moved on. Rather than simply ticking the viral box on the campaign activity list, marketers need to ensure that their viral marketing initiatives are professionally planned and better connected, if their objective is - as it should be - to help improve a brand’s bottom line.