Brands Still Struggling To Find That Viral Magic Sauce

from the you-mean-it's-not-that-easy? dept

Mon, Feb 16th 2009 5:01pm — Carlo Longino

Viral marketing continues to vex plenty of big brands who don't seem to understand that merely having a "viral" campaign (or just saying your campaign is viral) won't make it successful. The WSJ has a nice post on one recent viral miss from Trident gum for a new product that is supposed to strengthen and rebuild teeth. The campaign involved fake web videos being exposed as fake on a fake TV show -- a concept which sounds much more confusing than compelling. But perhaps the problem is that the company and its marketers went into the exercise set on creating a viral campaign, and treated it as such, even trying to seed it by sending emails to dental hygienists and posting in online dental forums. Compare that to the comments from the creator of some of Burger King's successful viral campaigns, like the Subservient Chicken: "People go into brainstorming viral, and you can’t go into it with that intention. What you can go into it with, though, is the idea of making a great ad. If you do make a great ad, people will talk about it. The viral part will sort of be a consequence." Marketers have to understand that, perhaps even more so than in other types of ads, the content of viral campaigns has to be able to stand on its own as content. The focus has to be on making great content; if the content sucks, all the viral intentions in the world won't help.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: viral marketing
Companies: trident

2 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Jesse, 16 Feb 2009 @ 6:40pm

I found the magic viral sauce:

http://www.wikiality.com/Stephen_Colbert%27s_Formula_401
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Roger Harris, 16 Feb 2009 @ 6:51pm

Compelling content
Brands that try viral have to get that compelling content is key. People have to want to share the offer. If not, it will flop. It's not enough just to do a couple of focus groups. Deep research and understanding of the target audience within the context of a broad strategy is essential. Sometimes, another approach entirely may be warranted: a brand ambassador program, or thought leadership blog. Tactics without strategy is like throwing a dice. Sometimes it will come up sixes, more often, it won't.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]