Insights on Viral Marketing

INTRODUCTION

This post is designed for the marketing generalist that is considering viral marketing as a component of a digital marketing strategy for their brand. The goal is to help marketers to:

1. Better understand the definition of viral marketing
2. Cultivate an understanding of the various types of viral marketing and dispersion strategies
3. Postulate some key success factors for viral marketing efforts based upon an examination of past viral efforts that have proven successful.
3. Provide guidelines for reasonable goals and expectations for planning purposes
4. Offer tools and insights to decide if viral marketing is for them

There are very few large brands that have not, at one point or another, identified viral marketing as a possible approach to leveraging digital media in support of business objectives. The temptations are often too strong NOT to consider viral:

1. Campaigns that go viral are, by definition, efforts for which consumers demonstrate deep and abiding connections with brands. There are few marketers that aren’t seeking ways to drive that kind of connection.
2. The distribution of a viral message relies on personal initiative rather than paid impressions. The result can be extremely high levels of consumer impressions and impact for little more than the cost of the creative or the technology behind an idea.
3. Viral campaigns get noticed, both by consumers and by the organizations that field them.

One of the dirty little secrets of viral, however, is that for every giant viral campaign there are dozens that fail in the marketplace. The reasons for these failures are varied, and naturally marketers wish to improve the overall odds of success for their viral efforts.

SO WHAT IS VIRAL MARKETING?

The key difference between viral and traditional marketing efforts is in the method of distribution. In traditional marketing, distribution is a paid proposition. The marketer pays to air or print or position a message in a place where an audience will see it. The marketer is paying for the access to consumers.

In viral, the distribution is driven by the strength of the idea and the extent to which consumers are willing to spread it to their personal social networks. Consumers choose to distribute a viral message, at least to some extent.

In marketing, the cost of producing a brand message is almost always far lower than the cost of distributing it. Even the most expensive TV ad – let’s say it cost $2Million to produce -- will likely be supported with media that costs far more than that production cost. To use a more realistic example, an ad airing in a highly rated Prime Time show can cost more to run ONCE than it did to produce
.
In fact, companies used to talk about dollar splits between the cost of production (what they referred to as “nonworking” media, with the cost of media placements (“working media.”) Companies often targeted a ratio of 8%-15% for the percentage of marketing spend that went into production.

By contrast, in viral marketing, the nonworking costs of production generally make up 75% or more of the total program cost. Companies may spend a little money to seed a viral concept into the marketplace, but the whole premise of viral is that the consumer takes the time and effort to distribute the message rather than the brand paying for that distribution.

Sounds good, right? Paid distribution naturally costs more than consumer initiated distribution. But the googly of viral is that consumers need to choose to distribute it. They can do so or not do so – it is entirely their prerogative.

What this means is that IF your viral idea captures the hearts and minds of consumers sufficiently to get them to distribute the message, you get a highly cost effective marketing tool. But if they choose not to, you may find yourself having paid a lot of money for production of an item that no one sees.


PASSIVE VERSUS ACTIVE VIRAL

One thing that many people overlook in discussions of viral is that there are really two types of viral programs – ones that require that consumers actively choose to distribute a message, and ones where, though their regular online uses and behaviors, they passively distribute a message virally.

The classic example of a passive viral was actually one of the most effective marketing strategies in the history of digital. As part of its effort to drive rapid growth in the web based email category, Hotmail appended short text ads to the bottom of every email that their users sent from Hotmail servers. I am sure you have seen these ads:

---------
Fast, free email from anywhere
Get your account
www.hotmail.com

This and dozens of other messages were distributed by the billions not because consumers choose to reward Hotmail with largesse but rather because they were simply a part of using the free Hotmail service. The massive awareness these ads drove helped propel Hotmail to the number one web based email provider, at least for a time. So successful was this effort that other major web based email providers followed suit, most notably Yahoo Mail.


WHAT DO PEOPLE LIKE TO VIRAL?

The team at Catalyst:SF has conducted extensive research into the popularity of different viral concepts for several years, and based upon this analysis has formulated a list of hypotheses for “what works” in viral in terms of both:

· Target Factors
· Conceptual Factors
· Executional Factors
· Brandedness Factors

To conduct this research, we needed to develop a system whereby we rated the popularity of different concepts. Because many concepts reside on short lived urls or sub urls, we cannot be certain about the actual number of visits that are made to every viral concept, so we developed a surrogate solution to measure effectiveness: links/mentions.

The idea behind this is that a viral concept that receives a lot of links and mentions was more popular than a concept with few links – or rather that there is a high degree of likelihood that such a concept was popular. I fully admit it is not a perfect system, but it seems directionally sensible.

Note that the research was conducted against minisite viral concepts, rather than viral videos. But based upon a cursory analysis of the videos available today, the conceptual factors appear to be sound.

Based upon this method, and a subsequent content analysis of both popular and unpopular concepts, the following are some of the general guidelines that make one idea more viral than another:


TARGET FACTORS

There is a distinct profile for a person that is more likely to viral. The best piece of research I have found on the topic comes from Kontraband, a UK marketing agency. Their 2006 study pointed that viral consumers are somewhat more likely to be male and under 50 (especially under 30.) Interestingly, however, the study also showed that what they call “superspreaders” are more likely to be female.

We can also surmise that targets that spend more time online also have greater viral potential. Additionally, because virality relies on the strength of personal networks in order to gain the broadest possible distribution, groups with larger personal networks (on average) are going to be more likely to spread a message.

Each year, however, the breadth of the viraling public appears to broaden. So none of this is to say that a viral effort targeted to women 60+ won’t work, just that it is less likely to than a program aimed at teens, for example.
Intuitively, the extent to which your target has free time can also be an important factor. Teens, for example, appear to have a much higher propensity to viral than, say, new Moms.


CONCEPTUAL FACTORS

1. Humor: Most brand viral concepts that get a great deal of distribution are funny. From BK’s “Subservient Chicken” to Sega’s “My Big Ball” to Mini’s “Ave a Word”, humor generally drives some of the highest viral rates.

2. Sexuality: While clearly not appropriate for a lot of brands, particularly in the US where standards of propriety tend to be rather high, sexuality can be a key driver of distribution. Brands like Axe, Maxim, Budweiser, a host of video game titles, and many others have effectively leveraged sexuality for a male target. There are also, incidentally examples of leveraging sexuality for a female target. Brawny Towels “Brawny Man; and I Can’t believe It’s Not Butter’s Fabio themed efforts are just two examples. Overseas, using sexuality for getting women to respond to viral messaging is more common. .In the US, sexuality generally works better with a male audience.

3. Interactivity: Yes, there are examples of funny brand photos and videos driving a viral response. But GENERALLY, viral concepts that allow consumers to participate and somehow interact with the content viral better. In particular, concepts that enable a customized experience based upon user inputs tend to viral better.

4. Live Action: Generally, live action concepts do better than animated ones.

5. Sight, Sound, and Motion: Usually, video or other concepts that offer a multimedia component viral better than text or still photo based ideas.

6. Originality: Copycat concepts tend not to viral well. For example, when McDonald’s followed BK’s Subservient Chicken with Lincoln Fry, a parody site that showcased people who found a French fry that looked like Abraham Lincoln, the concept bombed. Viral seems to require an element of surprise and novelty that copycat concepts simply cannot deliver.



FUNCTIONAL FACTORS

1. Flawless Technical Execution: Concepts that take a long time to load or only work on certain browsers suffer in distribution.

2. Multiple Email Distribution: Many great concepts suffer because they only allow a consumer to email the application or video or web link to one person at a time. Remember, the easier you make it for the consumer to distribute your idea, the more likely it will be to occur.

So for example, let’s say you offer a viral ecard or MadLibs style application. If you develop an interface that only allows someone to send it to a single person at a time, chances are it will only be sent to one person. Consumers are not going to make a major effort to restart the application to distribute your idea broadly.

If, however, you allow consumers to input ten email addresses, or indeed unlimited email addresses, far more consumers will end up receiving the message.

Think about it in terms of the 80/20 rule – that 80% of your distribution is delivered by just 200% or recipients. You want to make sure that the super spreaders – the people that will as a matter of course send a great idea to 20 or 50 or 763 people at once are given the opportunity to do so.

3: Single Session Concepts: To be successful, a viral concept has to provide a positive experience within a single session. The more complicated viral becomes, the less likely people are to have the full experience and care enough to forward it. That is not to say that an experience that is serialized cannot work – it’s just that each episode of the series should offer a complete and satisfying experience.

4. Couple of Minutes – Or Less: A number of attempts have been made to create profoundly deep viral experiences – web pages of dozens of pages, long form video, etc. In general, these appear to be less effective than short, telegraphic experiences. There are exceptions, however.


MESSAGES/BRANDEDNESS FACTORS

Perhaps the biggest challenge of making viral content for a brand is the conundrum of balancing brand messages with the entertainment value that is necessary to drive free distribution. Many brands have erroneously believed that they could drive viral distribution by adding send to a friend functionality to basic brand messages.

Trouble is, unless the ad is entertaining and emotive, the likelihood of virality is low. Consider the following two ads – both highly effective at moving sales, but having very different viral potentials. Budweiser has assumed the mantle of King of Beers in part because they have so strongly connected the brand to universals like love of country and appreciation of a soldier’s sacrifices. Olive Garden has managed quarter over quarter growth for more than two decades partly because their advertising delivers a product and ambiance story that makes the brand unique and distinctive for the target. Few would doubt the virality of the first ad – indeed it is proven with millions of views on YouTube. Similarly, few would expect virality from the Olive Garden ad. It is persuasive, but not something friends would appreciate receiving in their inboxes.

Budweiser: Soldiers



Olive Garden: Chicken Specials



There’s no mathematical model that will predict the viral potential of your brand advertising. Your best bet is to assume your standard ads are NOT viral. Most aren’t. Some brands have developed campaigns that truly captivate viewers -- such programs may have executions that could prove viral. But if your ad takes a traditional approach, and particularly if it is an ad intended for the US market where product info is traditionally given quite directly, you will likely find that it does not viral well.

But that doesn’t mean that a message from your brand cannot viral. There is probably a viral idea out there that you can associate with your brand. The question for the marketer in such a case is whether the extent to which that idea is thematically tied to the brand message is acceptable to them.

The Dove brand offers a case in point Dove has had enormous success in the viral area with videos that point out the absurdity of the beauty industry. It’s all part of their “campaign for real beauty.” People are very willing to viral messages like these:







But you’ll note there is very little hard product info in these. If that is something you can live with, viral may work for you.


VIRAL EXAMPLES

I recently posted an extensive list of viral examples that you can find here.

Thanks for reading, and don't forget to write.