To assemble a new campaign, Bacardi reaches out to fellow Viral + Buzz Marketing Association members.

When Bacardi decided to venture into the unfamiliar territory of viral marketing, the company asked for pitches from three top viral shops: cdp-travissully, Digital Media Communications and The Viral Factory. All three got the job.

"They phoned us up and said, 'The bad news is, we haven't chosen your creative. The good news is, you're going to be doing the job anyway,'" says Matt Smith, managing director of The Viral Factory. Bacardi wanted cdp-travissully to act in the traditional agency role for creative development, but had apparently been impressed by DMC's and Viral Factory's presentations as well.

Going against the current trend toward greater agency consolidation and integration, this would be an unusual arrangement involving at least five separate entities -- the client company, the three agencies named above, and even an academic presence in the form of Dr. Paul Marsden of the London School of Economics -- all acting in concert. All five have at least three qualities in common: belief in the power of viral marketing techniques, strong track records in their respective fields, and, not coincidentally, membership in the fast-growing Viral + Buzz Marketing Association (VBMA).

In fact, this kind of multi-agency team effort is the VBMA's very reason for being. According to Justin Kirby, association co-founder and managing director of Digital Media Communications, "One of the association's original remits was to try and form international collaborations so that companies within the association could work together to pitch for larger projects." Bacardi's new "Planet Party" campaign -- a multi-channel, long-term project for a major international brand -- certainly comes under that heading.

Making ideas contagious

Unlike traditional advertising where clients with deep enough pockets can simply buy their way to ubiquity, viral methods rely on consumers to do the talking to each other. The trick? Unless the message is compelling enough to spark a desire to pass it on, it will simply disappear into the ether. Viral campaigns can target a range of different objectives: reaching a new audience, starting conversations about a brand, or, as with the Bacardi campaign, taking a first step toward cultivating relationships with certain influential consumers.

In mid-December, netizens got their first glimpse of Planet Party in the form of a 45-second video clip depicting a typical-seeming nightclub crowd scene -- typical, that is, until the woman at the bar sends out a vacuum-like appendage to swallow an unfortunate fellow clubber whole. The clip then directs viewers to www.planet-party.net,  where "you never know who you'll meet."

While such a campaign may look simple enough on its face, launching one is anything but. Which is why Bacardi hired so many fellow VBMA members to help make Planet Party a hit. They are, in order of appearance:

1) The Professor

As co-chair of the VBMA's Academic Network and author of articles with such titles as "Mental Epidemics" and "Contagion Psychology," Dr. Paul Marsden knows a bit about the spread of infectious ideas. Which is why Bacardi executives sought his advice even before hiring an ad agency.

Says Marsden, "My role … was to get Bacardi to think of the campaign as a means, not an end in itself: using it as a recruitment vehicle for Bacardi word-of-mouth advocates." That is to say, while the video clip is designed to drive visitors to the Planet Party Web site, the site itself is designed to identify "trendsetting opinion leaders" and, hopefully, begin a dialogue with them. Marsden advised Bacardi on how to identify those opinion leaders using a "questionnaire, based on the 'strength of personality test,' which has been shown to be highly correlated" to a propensity for influencing the tastes of one's peers and loved ones.

2) The Agency

Agency cdp-travissully, probably best known for last year's racy Agent Provocateur lingerie spot featuring Kylie Minogue, handled the campaign's creative development, including writing the video script. Though designed to be entertaining in its own right, the video is mainly intended to drive traffic to the Planet Party microsite (also developed by the agency).

The campaign's concept -- that aliens do indeed dwell among us, primarily because Earth is the only planet that produces Bacardi rum -- is more fully realized at the site, a virtual intergalactic nightclub where visitors can download another video, learn how aliens fit in on Earth and engage in other activities meant to promote further interaction with the Bacardi brand. (They can also, via a prominent "Profile" link at the bottom of the landing page, fill out Dr. Marsden's questionnaire.)

3) The Production Company

The Viral Factory, themselves no strangers to award-winning and highly controversial viral video campaigns, handled the production duties for the two video clips.

Though more accustomed to acting as an agency, The Viral Company had no trouble assuming the role of production company, says managing director Matt Smith. "It was very much coordinated through the agency. It was quite well managed, so there wasn't this sort of feeling that everyone's getting involved and everyone's got their opinion."

4) Johnny Appleseed

However entertaining, no viral video will go far unless it is distributed (or "seeded") through the proper channels. That's where distribution and tracking experts Digital Media Communications come in, by sending the clip to bloggers and Web publishers who are likely to be interested, and likely to share their interests with others.

According to DMC Managing Director Justin Kirby, "Often, in the end, it's really the creative component that determines how far something actually spreads. But our job is to lift its head above the crowd at the initial stage." (Though Kirby declines to name his distribution channels, calling them only "certain people on the Web whom I'd rather keep as a trade secret," examples of the types of sites often used as a starting point for such clips can be viewed here and here.)

DMC is also responsible for tracking the spread of the clip, a step crucial for establishing benchmarks and measuring the success of future campaigns.

Outbreak

As the brainchild of such a viral marketing all-star team, has Planet Party generated the intended result?

"Given the timing [of launching during the holidays] it's been pretty exceptional," says Kirby, declining to quote specific metrics on the basis of client confidentiality. "We're really trying to see whether the momentum can be maintained." If so, it will bode well for the Viral + Buzz Marketing Association -- and for future collaboration between its members.

Justin Anderson is an integrated marketing copywriter living in Chicago, where he works for 141 Worldwide, a WPP agency.  Read full bio.