BRAND-E.BIZ: Getting the Viral to do the Job

By Simon Fuller

Viral veracity. Recently, we took a look at some of the branded virals that had appeared on the ad landscape in 2009, including those that really shook up the sector. But can we learn from what worked – and didn’t work?

Well, the Windows 7 launch party ad featuring that oh-so-corny bunch of ‘friends’ standing around the kitchen table, was either a creative disaster or a triumph for the pass-on factor.

It’s worth remembering… that when the campaign objective is to generate online buzz and viral pass-on, terrible videos have a habit of performing extremely well, says Sarah Wood, director at viral seeding outfit Unruly Media. The Windows 7 videos probably fall into this category the ‘so bad they’re good’ category, that is and I’m sure we’ll be seeing a few more of these in 2010.

Wood adds that the Twitter experiment conducted by Mars on behalf of their Skittles brand should be considered one of the viral failures of the year. The brand morphed its corporate homepage into its Twitter feed, with the ‘Friends’ section becoming the Facebook page. But though the idea initially proved highly successful in the viral stakes, with the site receiving hits galore, the concept backfired as the Skittles homepage was plagued with profane tweets. Experiment over.

Faring better was anything set in a train station. Take Piano Stairs for instance, from VW’s The Fun Theory, in which a set of musical stairs encouraged commuters to ditch the escalator in favour of the stairway.

This delightful installation and video for Volkswagen… demonstrated that the simplest ideas are often the most effective, says Wood.

And of course those folk did a lot dancing at London’s Liverpool Station.

So what can we say about the year? Josh Warner, president of video seeding specialists Feed Company, suggests that 2009’s biggest lesson for marketers was that viral ads really aren’t that different from other forms of entertainment. If there’s one lesson it is that virals have to be supported just like any other marketing vehicle, he says. You have to plan for virals. Don’t spend all your money in production or not budget at all. You have to put marketing behind independent films and music and any other form of entertainment, [so] why should this medium be any different?

Authenticity and creative genius were the big winners in 2009, with only the most engaging content making its mark on the viral landscape for the right reasons, says Wood.

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