INTRODUCTION
Viral Marketing is the method of advertising that utilizes
users as the main method of spreading awareness about an
experience created to promote a brand or product. Unlike
other marketing methods which rely on traditional media to
spread its’ message, viral marketing commonly uses new
media and its users to spread its’ message. This can be
accomplished through word of mouth, emails, text messages,
instant messages, or social networking sites such as
Facebook or MySpace. Although the main attribute of viral
marketing is its delivery methods and the contagious nature
of its message there are several other common factors.
Among some of these commonalities are humor, take-aways,
customizability, incentive to return, user-generated
content and sex appeal to name a few.
GOAL
The goal of this project is to create a viral marketing
campaign to raise awareness of RIT’s New Media program.
This is targeted towards high school students who will be
or currently are looking at potential colleges for design,
art or interactive programs. By looking at other viral
marketing campaigns and examining what makes a campaign
successful we will be able to construct a viral campaign
that works best for the New Media program. Various aspects
of new media can be explored such as websites, games and
videos depending the needs of the project.
Niche
Research layouts, technologies, media and subject areas
used by similar markets and/or organizations.
While researching our Niche we have identified several
commonalities between all viral marketing campaigns.
Although the nature of each campaign is different some of
the layouts, technologies, mediums and subject areas that
the campaigns dealt with are similar. One hole we did find
in our research is that we found no other schools that are
using viral marketing as a promotional tool for either
their college or majors within their college. As a result
we focused our attention on viral marketing campaigns as a
whole.
Layouts
The two most common layouts found within the viral arena
are modular and environmental.
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MODULAR: A layout based on individual section
that creates an entire site. This layout provides
a common navigation structure that allows the
user to gather information quickly and
efficiently.
o One possible reason that this is popular
format is because most videos on the
Internet are rectangular. Using a modular
format allows the design to easily and
dynamically works around the video being
presented.
ENVIRONMENTAL: A layout that is immersive by
nature. This layout allows the user become part
of world in which the products brand is ever
present. It is a much more organic way to present
information. Navigation often becomes much more
exploratory rather than a certain standard
structure.
o This is a commonly used format because it
keeps bringing people back to explore it
more. Some drawbacks this layout presents is
that it can be harder to implement, less
dynamic, confusing, and load times can be
greater.
Technologies
The number of Internet technologies used for viral
marketing is numerous. The advent of Web 2.0 had made
social interactions over the web a commonality. Viral
marketing has moved forward with this development adapting
to technologies like Facebook, YouTube and MySpace as a way
of promoting their product. Viral’s move into this arena
has made viral easier in that it is easier to tell friends
about websites, videos and products, however younger
generations have adapted to the multitudes of advertising
messages around them and have become extremely well versed
at filtering their messages out.
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Flash
Social Networks
Social Media (Digg)
HTML/CSS
Databases (mySQL)
PHP
AJAX
FlashComm
Media
A multimedia approach is often taken for viral marketing
campaigns. Having multiple mediums allows the campaign to
reach out to different groups of people rather than just a
group that predominantly uses the Internet such as GenY.
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Video
Guerrilla Marketing
o Stickers around campus
o Graffiti
Print Media
o Take aways such as printable sticker pdfs
Subject Areas
Subject Areas we encountered were vast. The ranged from
politics, everyday office humor, slapstick, education of
children, physical attributes (bad breath, enhanced
featured), man v. nature, special interest communities
(football fans), poverty, social networking, comedy.
CREATIVE
Research creative solutions used to represent materials,
concepts, or imagery similar to your goal. These do not
have to be organizationally related to your project.
By looking at several other viral marketing campaigns we
have pinpointed several solutions used to spread the
message of the campaign.
1.Takeaways
 Screensavers
 Avatars
 Wallpapers
 Videos
 Print-offs
Examples :
Simpsons the movie offered a lot of takeaways to the
users who went to experience their viral campaign.
These included, for example, screensavers, avatars,
wallpapers, trailers, print-out tattoos, icons, mobile
images/ringtones/screensavers, etc. Take-aways such as
these provided a reminder of the movie outside of the
website’s experience, allowing the brand to transend
the boundaries of the browser window.
2. Sharing
 Embedded urls
 Rss feeds
 Tell a friend links
 Creating a takeaway that is sent to a friend
Examples:
Tattoo Santa offered an interactive experience that
allowed the user to create a custom message on a
tattoo for Santa and send the custom message to a
friend, much like an e-card.
Freak Your Mind also similar to the above, but created
a custom prank to pass along to your friend. (Case
Study 5)
3. Emotion
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shock value
humor
uncomfortable
Examples:
The Homeless Awareness campaign created a depressing
mood, mysterious mood, constantly prompting the user
to do something in order to gain more information in
hopes that viewers would respond in a sympathetic
manner.
Freak Your Mind as mentioned before, created a prank
to shock your friend. (Case Study 5)
John West Salmon Ad was a commercial that combined
shock value with humor. The bear defending his fish
in a personified role is out of the ordinary, yet
funny. (Case Study 1)
4. Visual Styles
 Video Compositing
 2d/3d/Video
 Vector/Raster
 Abstract, Realistic, Surrealistic
 Metaphors
Examples:
Freak Your Mind, once again, is a campaign that took
the viewers expectations of a video website, like
YouTube, and manipulated it along with video
compositing to create the elaborate prank. (Case Study
5)
The ‘Get the Glass’ board game created for ‘Got Milk?’
used an impressive 3d cartoony style. By creating
something that is fun for the user to look at and use,
the user was more apt to be hooked by the game.
5. Adding Value
 Add to playlist
 Embed in profile
 Add to favorites
Examples:
By creating content that can be used/viewed on a
social networking site such as Facebook the user can
allow the campaigns content to add value to their
profile. For example, if a viewer on YouTube likes the
BMW ads they could add that to their favorites giving
viewers of their profile an indicatior to their taste
in comedy, celebrities and of course cars.
FUNCTIONAL
Research functional and technical solutions used by other
projects in controlling or visualizing information.
While there is some element of luck in becoming viral there
is definitely a direction marketers can push their
campaigns in order to increase their likelyhood of becoming
viral. Once a campaign reaches viral proportions marketers
also have considerations as to maintain the campaign,
increasing visitor loyalty.
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Content should be in small bite sized chunks
o The Terry Tate Office Linebacker concept could
have been an entire movie if the creators wanted,
instead content was broken up into bite size
pieces that allowed the viewer to be easily
entertained and understand the point of the ad
quickly. People today are busy, the campaign
should value their time and understand that it is
limited. (See Case Study 7)
Campaign should be scalable
o See Case Study 6
o Server should be able to handle the traffic if
site does reach viral status.
o Content should also be able to scale, if users
like what they see, why not give them more of it.
Take advantage of existing resourses
o See Case Study 6
o Social Networking and Social Media sites are
great places to promote stuff, since they pretty
much exist with an underlying intention to
promote stuff, why not use them?
Provide Free Services
o People love things that are free. Hotmail’s
‘viral’ campaign offering free email accounts to
users helped them reach 12 million users at the
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end of 2 years.
Effortless to pass along
o FreakYourMind.com is a great example of this. A
user can play a prank on a friend in two easy
steps, it requires minimal effort from the users
but delivers maximum output. (See Case Study 5)
Simple and Easy to Use
o Users don’t want to go through a long and
outdrawn registration process just to get to your
content. Websites should be bug free and have
stellar usability so that the user’s experience
is consistent, flawless, and not stressful. Since
the user is not nearly as invested in a viral
campaign site as the might be in Facebook (for
example) they are less likely to forgive any
errors the encounter or spend extra time figuring
out a complicated user interface.
o (See Case Study 5, 6)
CASE STUDIES
1.) John West Salmon Ad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljsX3I7xUu0&NR=1
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5n4xXc25wPE
In this ad, the main attractor is the humor. They take two
natural situations and combine them into a very unnatural
event. A fisherman and a bear both fishing for fish.
However, the twist is that the fisherman waits for the bear
to catch a good salmon, then goes in to steal it. The
setting looks very real as bears roam on the edge of the
field peering into water looking for their meal. The viewer
hasn’t the slightest idea it is people in bear suits. As
the fisher man comes yelling the bear stands and they being
to fight. There is a slight shock value when the bear turns
and stands to face the fisherman. After believing the bears
were real, it is a nice twist. At the end of the video the
company name and logo is presented. There is also more than
one video, which is what people want to see, especially on
youtube.com. Once people see a video they like, they
usually will see if there is more to follow up on. People
tend to react better to the videos if there is a series of
them.
2.)
Marc Ecko – StillFree.com
http://youtube.com/watch?v=HwU2t3BJtiM
This video is a fantastic viral video. It holds a slight
shock value as well as leaving people questioning whether
or not it is real. Marc Ecko, founder of Ecko clothing
released a video of himself breaking into an air base and
tagging the president’s plane, Air Force One. The video
looks so real that it is hard to go against saying he
actually tagged the plane. Leaving people questioning if
the event really occurred is a great way for them to ‘take
the bait’ and follow up on the video. The entire length of
the video, a url ‘stillfree.com’ is shown. A viewer easily
knows to type in that address to learn more about the
tagging of Air Force One.
Once at the site the user is immediately presented with
four videos. One of which being the once just seen. The
next one is titled ‘why I tagged Air Force One’. When
watching the video, the user is shown major headline news
talking about this stunt making every second of it seem
real. Mentioning how two people jumped a fence and tagged
the plane and how the FBI put a full investigation into it.
As the video nears an end, the tides turn as they confirm
that the whole tagging of the plane as in fact a hoax. Marc
Ecko rented a Boeing 747 jet, painted one side of the
plane, and staged the whole event.
3.)
Trojan Olympics
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vuZ47hsn6Z0
http://youtube.com/watch?v=yLKizQoejuw&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=67lnwPawANw&feature=related
This video is clever. Not only does it have humor, but
obvious sex appeal as well. Using the ‘hot girl’ technique,
this video has a Ukrainian woman come into the scene with
nothing on but a shirt. With the camera staring directly at
her bottom, she slaps it with chalk. That alone is a reason
for some people to share the video. The end of the video
the man is holding the woman on his erection, this is the
obvious humor twist.
Another video has to judo fighters fighting to get the
other on the mat, with the end result getting into a sex
position. Just like the Marc Ecko video, the entire length
of this video has the url ‘www.trojangames.com.uk’ on the
bottom, leaving the user to visit the site once the video
is done. This is a series of videos as well, leaving people
to watch more if they like them.
4.)
UFO Haiti
http://youtube.com/watch?v=up5jmbSjWkw
Unfortunately this video does not have any ‘hooks’ to bring
the user anywhere after they view the video. Despite that
fact, this is another great example of using shock value.
The 3D spaceships are well made and composited into the
video very well. All leaving the viewer to ponder whether
or not the video is real or a hoax. The great thing about
the video however, is although there are no links, logos,
etc, people converse and argue over the videos. Trying to
prove that they are in fact real or without a doubt fake.
5.) Freakyourmind.com
Launched: Mid-May 2007
Peaked: Mid-June 2007
Avg Number of Visitors per week: 274,911
Creator: EVB
Client: A&E
Interactive site that allows user to type in a friend’s
name and phone number then send a personalized video to
their friend that ‘predicts’ their name and phone number.
Shortly after receiving the message the friend would
receive a phone call from Criss Angel himself reminding
them to watch the show. The virtual experience was promoted
further by banner advertisements.
By using ‘send to a friend’ and supporting the site with a
strong concept and banner ads as well as an actualization
in real life of what occurred virtually by making a phone
call the user is taken back, wanting to trick more friends
into believing the trick is real.
While Freakyourmind.com didn’t become nearly as popular as
other campaigns such as elf Yourself, it is an interesting
way of using technology and user generated content to
‘freak someone out’. Simplicity is a key element in this,
the user has to do virtually no leg work in order to freak
out their friend. Even the ‘Send Email’ link takes you
directly to your email client so that you can use your
address book to find their email. The fact that the
experience is pulled out of the computer is intriguing as
well. Getting a phone call is a feature few sites have and
most definitely sets this site apart from the others.
6.) Elfyourself.com
Launched: November 2006
Peaked: December 2006 & December 2007
Stats: In December 2007 more than 65 million visitors created 41
million elves, in 2006 between Nov 27 & New Years users created 11
Million elves.
Creator: EVB & ToyNY
Client: OfficeMax
A simple and cute website that allows user to elf
themselves by cutting out their head and placing it on the
body of a dancing elf then sending it to a friend. The site
made it easy and fun for anyone to under-go an
elfmorphisis. It is also billed as one of the better viral
campaigns of the last two years. This year ToyNY and EVB
made a shoot off site called ScroogeYourself.com, which was
similar in principle but essentially created a dancing
scrooge proving that the concept itself as well as the
original were scalable. The original site was part of an
entire series of Christmas games created for OfficeMax. Elf
Yourself was the site that took off.
The site was spread by word of mouth, blogosphere, and
social networks and social media like Facebook, mySpace,
digg and flickr. Later it was picked up by major media
agencies like CNN, USAToday, GoodMorning America, Yahoo!
News.
7.)
Terry Tate Office Linebacker
Launched: 2003
Client: Reebok
This is one of the original viral videos, so while the
tactics to make the videos become viral probably wouldn’t
work today the concept is something that remains constant.
The first Terry Tate ad was aired during the Super Bowl
2003. It was also a winner of the Cannes Lion International
Advertising Festival “Golden Lion Award”. The end of each
ad directed viewers to a site where they could download
videos that featured Terry Tate. There was also a
sweepstakes to Take Terry to Work.