Going viral to stay competitive

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Wanted: CEOs from India

: make sure your viral catches the attention of the search engines. Pay-per-click keyword campaigns can help here too.

Give up control

Lack of control is often cited as a problem with viral marketing. The marketer can’t control who sees the clip, or receives the product recommendation, or the context in which it is seen or recommended. As noted throughout this book, relinquishing control is something to which DigiMarketes have to get accustomed. Remember? The customer’s in charge.

It does mean that if you use viral marketing you had better have a scalable enterprise whose geographic coverage may grow in bizarre ways. Unlike a real-life virus, which is usually locally transmitted by touch or close contact, a viral ad can leap continents. If recipients send your clip to their friends in Afghanistan, will you be able to serve them? If you can’t, the communication may be wasted. Of course, the reach didn’t cost you anything, but it may create dissatisfaction in markets that you intend to enter in the future, or intrigue potential competitors and encourage imitations.

It’s viral times

The potency of viral video clips is hard to overestimate. The most viral of viral clips have tended to be non-commercial, intensely personal, and typically extremely embarrassing for the “star”. Supposedly the most viewed viral clip to date—The Star Wars Kid—has been seen 900 million times. Made in 2003, it features a teenager using a golf ball retriever in imitation of a Star Wars light saber. The “star” later took legal action against his classmates who distributed it.

Viral all seems to have gotten started with the John West Salmon Bear Fight. This was originally an award-winning television commercial in the UK in late 2000. It then escaped to the Internet and has now been viewed online some 350 million times. This seems to have given marketers the idea that viral could be big.

Burger King certainly scored with its Subservient Chicken site (www.subservientchicken.com). The site featured a person dressed in a chicken costume who would respond to typed comm-ands by visitors (or at least to most commands). The chicken character also has emerged in subsequent Burger King campaigns.

It wasn’t me

Spoofs and deniable virals, which play off the brand’s real communications—usually in a politically incorrect way—can lead brands to controversial positionings. Even if consumers create spoofs, it can also provide brands with additional exposure.