Viral marketing

Viral marketing
Viral marketing refers to a specific kind of marketing
technique. It creates a situation where potential customers
pass along some information about a company, services or
products. It doesn't have to be precise information, it can
be co-called building brand awareness i.e. creating desired
associations with the company's name or logo.

Examples of viral marketing include: funny or intriguing
video clips, advertising photos (often made to look like
quasi-amateur photos) that the Internet users pass along.
Additionally, one may use rumours or create some trends,
urban legends that are spreading among potential customers
to increase brand awareness and to create a symbolic
product of high quality, a status of a symbol, or quite the
opposite, they can ruin the product's reputation.

Another marketing trick is to give away valuable
information which contains a more or less subtle
advertising message. For example, a margarine producer may
publish booklets with cake recipes in which an ingredient
of every recipe will be the margarine produced by the
publisher of the booklet. aim of this is to encourage
people to pass along the recipes ' unintentionally, with
the name of the advertising producer.

It requires a lot of linguistic subtlety to coin such an
advertising slogan, phrase or saying that in a provocative
manner becomes part of the colloquial language (e.g. "Don't
live a little, live a lotto", "I'M LOVIN' IT!", "Just do
it", "Have a break have a kitkat").

Viral marketing may also rely on encouraging people to
consciously inform their friends about certain products or
services. Common methods include: putting appropriate
scripts on the websites, "recommendation" competitions or
rebates, etc.

The principles of viral marketing can be endless, also
because one of them says: be original. The most important
rules are presented below.

Principle 1. Give your customer a good laugh.

There is something in people that they love being
entertained. This tendency doesn't depend on age and is
typical for the majority of people. When planning viral
marketing, try to see your product in the funniest
situation. The product itself doesn't have to be funny in
order to be presented in a funny way. Think about
situations when customers would like to use your service or
product. If you managed to think up an entertaining absurd
situation, you have the first candidate for your viral.

Principle 2. If you can, make use of pictures and sound.

Nowadays the copywriter has an effective tool in the form
of the Internet. Once upon a time (which means not so long
ago...) viral marketing was based mainly on gossip and
stories spread by word of mouth. At present the role of the
channel for information transmission was taken by the
Internet. Apart from the content we may transfer pictures
and sound. What do you need to create a video for viral's
purposes? Just three things: a camera with USB cable to
transfer your video to the computer, a computer with the
appropriate software and the logins for websites allowing
video presentation, such as YouTube.

Principle 3. Choose children, animals, attractive people or
individuals to be your actors.

If in your viral marketing video there are to be actors,
let it be children, animals, attractive people or people
with a "characteristic" appearance. Children themselves can
be sweet and funny, animals as well (dogs, cats), that's
why the desired funny character of your video will be
intensified by the actors.

Principle 4. Be shocking.

If you can't present something in an objective funny way,
try to shock the person who receives your message. Bear in
mind that the majority of people's activities cause fear.
You may consider showing people what happens to those who
don't make use of your products or services. These types of
ideas are often used in advertisement concerning the
promotion of road safety.

Principle 5. Pretend that the advertisement was made by the
Internet users without you knowing about it.

If you have some official advertisements, try to make its
"other versions" - more funny, more shocking, and put them
on the net. At the same time, deny that you are the author
of the videos.

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