Last week's column discussed new viral techniques that offer a world of opportunity for branding. The discussion continues this week with human motivations and behavior patterns.
Viral marketers leverage common human motivations and behavior patterns. For example, one human need – practically the most motivating one of all – is to love and be loved. Friendster.com recently built upon this human desire to communicate by designing a networking community that encourages users to sign up their friends. They can chat online openly with friends of friends who they've never met before, simply based on trust through association.
Another powerful human motivator is fame. “Cool seekers” – those people under age 30 with influence who work in high-exposure fields like art, music, graphic design, fashion, competitive sports and advertising – constantly search for ways to prove their trend spotting ability; they want friends to benefit from the new offer as much as they want to prove to friends that they spotted it first.
In last month’s Time Magazine article, Lev Grossman noted, “Now trends spread virally, via email and instant messaging, with professional trend spotters snapping at their heels, hurrying them onward ever faster.”
By tapping into this intense desire to pass along messages to as many people as possible, brands will be taken to the so-called next level.
Exploit Users’ Resources
Whether through close relationships with loved ones, informal networks with colleagues and friends, or ideas, an effective campaign will exploit and offer to enhance users’ resources and communications networks. By positioning a message into existing communications between people, the message is guaranteed to spread.
Take Meetup.com for example, a Web community that allows users to schedule both online and face-to-face meetings based on a certain topic.
“Viral marketing as a way to build brand awareness is stronger than ever,” says Myles Weissleder, vice president of communications for Meetup.com. “We’ve never spent a dime on advertising and we already have almost one million registered users.”
Political candidates in particular have been attracted to Meetup.com for its grassroots campaign generation and ability for everyone to sign up for free.
How does the company earn revenue?
It charges fees to establishments that are listed as Meetup venues, organizations that seek specific services and users that sign up for a specialized service that enables users to create a “notebook” (a personal Web page for introducing oneself and sharing on-going notes and pictures).
For example, candidates can pay for services ranging from $2,500 to $10,000 that provide more information (such as links and postings), allow customization of content on the Meetup.com Website and in emails, suggest agenda topics and create reports indicating when and where supporters signed. Republican presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich’s campaign officially signed up for Meetup+ in August and quickly realized events in more than 200 distinct locales nationwide.
Meetup.com’s success is due in part to its direct approach – content is customized from a list of more than 2,000 available topics. Although its users may initially meet online, the real value is in reconnecting people with their physical communities.
Hottest Emerging Trends
A concept that is powerful but has received little media attention is the connection between content and brand. As consumers become more reliant on the ever-expanding World Wide Web as a source for information, it will become increasingly important for companies to provide relevant and compelling content, and understand how their target customers interact with this content.
Compelling content works in two ways: it creates incentive to share the content and acts as a vehicle for the brand to be shared.
“Website content presents a fantastic vehicle for any organization to use to virally spread its brand,” says Noah Logan, vice president of marketing for Clickability, an online publishing solutions provider known for its EMAIL THIS tool. “The better your content, the more people will email it, the more people will link to it, and the higher it will show in search results.”
By placing Clickability’s "EMAIL THIS" button on content pages of choice, online marketers increase site interactivity and traffic. Users benefit too – they can email links to certain pages without disrupting their surfing flow or having their attention diverted from a site.
The hottest emerging trend in viral marketing practice is focused on a behavior pattern characterized by consumers’ passion for pre-view/pre-launch campaigns. Online media is now used to create buzz for a new campaign even before it is launched through TV or print. This shows a significant shift in timing and use of the online medium, which previously took a backseat as a second-tier supporter to traditional launches.
For its latest European pre-launch for the Mazda2, Mazda Motors UK decided to use online viral marketing through a film that takes an amusing look at male and female parking capabilities. It has already struck a major chord with online users sparking debate on Weblogs and forums.
Michael Davey, CRM manager for Mazda Motors UK, reports that in just one month, the campaign had “already delivered an astounding measurable response from over 1 million Web users.”
The company employed Digital Media Communications (DMC) for the 2003 Mazda2 and 2002 Mazda6 launches. The agency’s online tracking system is providing real time accountability of all the films' downloads, views and hotlinks in order to quantify the impact they have on brand awareness. The UK has developed advanced viral marketing techniques.
“What's interesting to us is how viral marketing hasn't seemed to have been picked up as much in the United States as it has in the UK and Europe,” says Justin Kirby, mManaging director of DMC. “Our Diesel, Levi's, MTV, Sony Ericsson, Virgin and Xbox campaigns have been driven out of our UK and Europe offices, even though many of these were international campaigns with American headquarters.”
Indeed, a search for viral marketing campaigns through Google will retrieve small and focused shops, mostly based in the UK. Large ad agencies still avoid getting involved in this niche.
Overcoming a Bad Reputation
What has perhaps given the viral technique a bad reputation is the fear that promotional messages will turn inaccurate or even destructive when passed via the Internet and out of control of the corporate team. Another concern is that consumers will associate a brand with spam.
To overcome these negative associations, marketers must research and analyze the quality of their customers’ networks.
A viral campaign in today’s environment should not exist as an island. A common mistake made by campaign leaders is to use email marketing as a stand-alone marketing tactic with the focus on the material itself.
Too often, poor quality images, online games and digital video clips have been forwarded along in a “hit or miss” fashion. Without a strategic component, the technique most likely fails. Mediocre viral material floods inboxes daily, challenging high quality campaigns to prove their value to consumers. After all, the “refer-a-friend” technique works only as well as the people on the receiving end are convinced.
An online campaign with a sound viral email component has the potential to ignite a wildfire of awareness and create leverage for traditional advertising spending. Simply attracting traffic to a Website is not the end game – consumers must be nurtured over time.
Managers should evaluate performance by analyzing pass-along, click-through and conversion rates. By separating the click-through and conversion rates by original customers from referrals, which customers drive the highest return on investment can be determined.
Value investing may not be a hot new financial concept, but it is a proven strategy in any economic environment. The same is true for online viral marketing: A trusted recommendation is timeless and transcends all demographics and lifestyles.
Rebecca Weeks currently directs business development and account management for The Brand Architect Group, a strategic marketing consultancy for consumer businesses. She is known for her exceptional research and trend-spotting skills for both the corporate and agency side.