Posted by Jason Harling on Wednesday 28 January 2009
Viral marketing
I'm intrigued this week to see that some of my contacts on Facebook have been joining groups to become fans of the latest Cadbury's ad, the Eyebrow dance. Here's the link, http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0SchmcLXMQ just in case you hadn't already seen it.
Cadbury have become masterful in their memorable advertising strategy, from the original and well-loved Gorilla to the airport trucks. All of these have created enormous chatter value, not just amongst the marketing community (who often have nothing better to do with their time anyway), but more importantly with the world at large. Their strategy to engage with their audience in this manner has been highly successful, and a true reflection of the power of the elusive viral marketing campaign. If you look on youtube today, there are any number of posts for the Cadbury gorilla advert, including a huge number of recreated versions of the ad. As we all know, imitation is the greatest form of flattery.
However the success rate for viral campaigns is mixed. So often companies or more importantly individuals think they have found their nugget of gold, only to discover that the campaign stops at an audience of x-1. Hotmail achieved their success by including an invite to every out-going email that was sent, inviting the recipient to join, demonstrating that often it is still the simplest ideas that are the most successful. Things may have moved on since those early days of digital viral activity, but I have to say the campaign that still tickles my fancy is the subservient chicken from Burger King http://subservientchicken.com/. Enjoy.