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A guest entry this week, courtsey of our new New Business manager, Stephanie Collier. Enoy!
Looking at viral marketing campaigns this week, which have increasingly been seen as the holy grail when it comes to generating large amounts of PR at often a very low cost; great when you get them right, but get it wrong and they can so easily miss the mark and fall speedily into oblivion or worse even have the potential to significantly damage your brand reputation. According to Wikipedia, the goal of marketers interested in creating successful viral marketing programs is to identify individuals with high Social Networking Potential and create Viral Messages that appeal to this segment of the population (with a view to it gaining momentum and being passed on). All very well, but how do you create content that your average person will not only engage with but crucially pass on? Bringing a little bit of festive spirit to our Friday email, below are some interesting examples of where this had been achieved for brands at Christmas time – a little something for everyone hopefully.
Beyonce and Brad the loveable Christmas Turkeys
The campaign is on behalf of Christmas Farms, a newly-launched farm run by two friends who used to work at Nat Mags and BrandHouse. The two would-be Christmas lunches have been named Beyonce and Brad and can be voted for on the site. The winner will stay on the farm while the other will become acquainted with cranberry sauce. My money’s on Brad!
A Dancing Elf
An oldie but a goody. A hit originally for US Retailer OfficeMax back in 2007 (over a six week period, the site received more than 193 million visits), this Christmas viral marketing game has popped back up every Christmas since. The ElfYourself.com site lets users upload photos of up to five f their friends and family, sticking them on the body of one of Santa’s elves and then making them do a silly dance with added social networking functions letting users share their creations on Twitter and Facebook. It really is that simple, but if you have some free time next week, the Hip Hop dance is definitely worth ten minutes viewing time.
Do One Thing For Nature
BBC Learning has created a comic wildlife film encouraging people to consider nature this Christmas. A simple youtube video, the message is “Do One Thing For Nature” as they urge people to remember the wildlife that shares our environment at this time of year, and the impact we can have on their survival. Ahh!!!
So perhaps an answer to the question, how do you make content that becomes attractive enough to pass on, could be as simple as you just make something either very funny, very rude (I didn’t think my first week was the best time to include any of these as examples sorry!) or you add a few cute animals into the mix. Or maybe just a tad more strategic thinking might be involved…