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Alex Lazaris
May 4, 2012
Viral Media 3342
Kim Knight
Viral Marketing Is Dead
Marketers today are plagued with the term ‘Viral Marketing’. Companies are constantly
coming to marketing and advertising agencies, asking for them to transform their product into
the next Old Spice Guy campaign. These companies misunderstand what is really necessary to
have a successful marketing campaign in the ‘Relationship Era’. The vagueness of the 'viral
marketing' definition, as well as the method of spreading and measuring success are why I
believe that the term 'viral marketing' is dead and a successful campaign should connect a brand
to their consumer and build a strong relationship.
The 'magic term' of 'Viral Marketing' is derived from the terms of viral media and
memes. We cannot strip the definition of viral media from the negative connotation of an
infection. By giving media a viral property, we assume that a consumer carries bits of
information and media across culture and networks, much like small pox and other diseases. As
Jenkins points out in his article on spreadable media, "The metaphor of 'infection' reduces
consumers to the involuntary 'hosts' of media viruses, while holding onto the idea that media
producers can design 'killer' texts which can ensure circulation by being injected directly into the
cultural and communicative processes." Jenkins explains that by giving media and marketing a
viral property, we encapsulate our understanding of how media is spread between consumers.
Jenkins expounds upon the circulation of media as "a complex system of social, technological,
textual and economic practices and relations."
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Jenkins states that we do not spread media like viruses in our culture, but more that our
media "relies on people to propel, develop and sustain it". He then goes on to talk about how
"The term 'culture' originates from the metaphors of agriculture: the analogy was of cultivating
the human mind mush as one cultivates the land. Culture thus represents the assertion of human
will and agency upon nature." This statement is significant because it shows us how we must no
longer look at the spread of media as a viral structure, but view the spread of material as a
conscious decision by the user to spread media, ideas and marketing material across our culture.
Not only is the name viral marketing hard to define because it covers many forms of media
ranging from word of mouth all the way to high production commercials, it is also hard to
measure the success of. Sam Ford, an expert blogger for Fast Company, shares how he views the
spread of media. His check list of decisions about sharing information is: "Do I want to look at
it? If I decide to, is it worth sharing with others? If it is worth sharing with others, what
combination of people I know would I want to share it with, depending on the content? What is
the context I am going to share it under?" He also writes about how he tends to read a story
differently when he knows someone that has passed it on to him. He looks for the "meaning of
how the author intended, but also why my colleagues sent it my way, thinking about what they
are trying to say through the story and what I should do to respond." These statements verify
that we do not become infected with media, ideas and marketing material, but instead we filter
out much of this content and then choose an appropriate response and redistribution of the
material. Much of the content that gets widespread viewings, hits a major media hub such as a
famous celebrity that tweets a video link, a mainstream media source, or gets routed in social
networking sites such as Facebook, Reddit, Google+. But in order for the content to spread
rapidly, it must be filtered countless times before it hits these hubs. Then after hitting the hubs,
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each viewer filters it and finally passes it on. This filtration process or 'crap detection' as Clay
Shirky calls it, shows us that we are moving away from "broadcast mentality" and we need to
focus on creating an atmosphere for a relationship between companies and consumers, where
consumers want to engage and share the content with others because of the emotional value.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt stated "Every two days now we create as much information as
we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003". This is an incredible statistic that shows
how much content is being created in this new era and how hard it is becoming to get widespread
attention. The success of a 'viral marketing campaign' is incredibly difficult to calculate. Any
attempts to quantify the success of a viral campaign only further the confusion of the definition.
If you took two companies, one a startup with a following of 100, and compare it to Coca-Cola,
which is a globally competitive company, and make both of them launch a 'viral marketing
campaign' how can you tell if one is more successful? If both companies do similar campaigns,
and the start up reaches 100,000 views and Coca-Cola reaches 1,000,000 views, which one is
more successful? We can attribute the views from Coca-Cola to their vast following across the
world, but the start up’s views are a whole new following and viewership. Both Coca Cola
retaining their views from existing consumers and gaining new ones are equally important when
trying to measure viewership. Even though getting views are important to any marketing
campaign, the most important aspect of a successful campaign is making a connection to inspire
the consumer to connect with your call of action. We are starting to see a transformation in
marketing, where views no longer equal a consumer base. This transformation is changing how
businesses need to relate to their consumers and how they build relationships in order to get their
business. I believe that both campaigns would be a successful if it achieved a connection with its
viewers and created a relationship base to build upon. A successful campaign in the new era of
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marketing is one that builds a powerful, long lasting relationship with their consumer, by having
a sustainable brand, a genuine purpose, and the desire to reach out to consumers.
Many associate the Old Spice Guy campaign as a massive success in the viral marketing
field. I declare it as a success, but also as a failure at the same time. The writers at Wieden and
Kennedy, an advertising agency, hit content gold when they dreamt up the Old Spice Guy. The
Old Spice Guy was able to bridge the gap between male and female consumers and also play on
the stereotypical masculine in a comedic way. Five months after the launch of the commercials,
The Old Spice campaign began their second launch as a resurrection of the campaign. The tactic
they implored was get users from all over the internet to ask the Old Spice Guy questions. To
get as much coverage as possible for this campaign they paid to promote their campaign across
Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Digg. The campaign cost a massive amount of money in the form of
production value, tracking mentions of old spice, and writing 200 scripts in response to all the
questions they received.
The Old Spice campaign did a fantastic job of getting attention in a
multitude of microlevel social groups, where attention is heavily focused, less costly to run, and
allows the campaign to tell new stories to a different audience.
The campaign generated an
increase of 55% in sales, and the Youtube channel reported more than 11 million views and over
160,000 subscribers. But where they went wrong is when they stopped the campaign. After they
stopped the campaign they immediately started losing their customer base. It appears that Old
Spice only cared about making a profit in the short term and not about stealing competitions
business for the long-term. Old Spice saw major spikes in brand awareness and sales, which is
the most expensive part about infiltrating a consumer base. What should have happened was that
Old Spice should have hired Wieden and Kennedy permanently to handle their account and pay a
microscopic fee for upkeep compared to the high cost of production that it will take to regain
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their consumer base, now that they have dropped of the consumer’s radar. The upkeep of
reaching out to their consumers like they did with the questions, but on a smaller scale would
have just as positive of a factor as a massive 200 question campaign that only lasted for two
days. By engaging, talking, and creating stories with consumers via social media, videos, and
other types of media, Old Spice would be able to create such a compelling and strong story for
the consumers. Old Spice builds an emotional and strong connection with their consumer. This
emotional tie to their product would leverage Old Spice over their competition. The viral
marketing approach of the Old Spice campaign left the campaign with a spike in sales, as well as
no strong relationships.
An example of a company understanding how to spread their media and message, but
also building a relationship with consumers is the Secret Deodorant campaign by the Dallas
based ad agency previously known as IMC2 (recently rebranded itself as MEplusYOU agency).
By staying away from the 'viral marketing' mentality, MEplusYOU focused on engaging
emotions and building a connection around a brand. With the Secret Deodorant campaign, we
saw a huge group of females that were at first timid about publically liking their antiperspirant.
MEplusYOU took Secret out of the Consumer Era and brought them into the Relationship Era,
by rebranding them according to what Secret’s long lasting goal has been, “giving women
confidence”. Together Secret and MEplusYou launched a campaign to make women skijumping an Olympic Event. All by creating a Facebook page, online petition, and a video, they
were able to get more than 700,000 views. Not to mention that Secret sales spiked up 85%. Not
only did they increase the sale of the deodorant, but in 2011 the International Olympic
Committee decided to include women’s ski-jumping in the 2014 Winter Games. Secret didn’t
just stop at that one campaign though, they have continued on to other campaigns including
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rallying support for Diana Nyad, age 61, to swim from Florida to Cuba, and also “Mean Stinks”
an anti-bullying campaign. Their campaigns are still continuing and their social presence online
is still incredibly strong, they continue to engage their consumer and keep up the emotional tie
that brought them so much success. This approach to marketing has generated great attention to
Secret and has created meaningful and powerful relationships with their consumers, rather a
fleeting “viral campaign”.
The misunderstood and over used phrase of “viral marketing” is just an accidental blimp
in the history of marketing as we move toward the new marketing era rightfully named as the
“Relationship Era”. We see how using tactics to spread your media have been wrongly named as
viral when they are a complex system of relationships between the consumers and their
networks. Once we breach these networks, we must keep the attention of the consumer much
like the Secret Campaign, and not fade into the history of marketing campaigns like the Old
Spice Guy Campaign. By building these ties to our consumers we will start to build a foundation
of a long lasting relationship in which a company grows with its consumer. The consumer has
grown tired of the mass produced marketing campaigns, and the only way to fully get a
consumers attention in the relationship era is by building an emotional tie and a tailored
experience to each consumer, not some mystic, unquantifiable viral marketing campaign.
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Works Cited
Borden, Mark. "The Team Who Made Old Spice Smell Good Again." The Team Who Made
Old Spice Smell Good Again Reveals What's Behind Mustafa's Towel | Fast Company.
Fast Company Magazine, 14 July 2010. Web. 05 May 2012.
<http://www.fastcompany.com/1670314/old-spice-youtube-videos-wieden>.
Ford, Sam. "A Cure for Viral Marketing." Spreadable Media: A Cure for Viral Marketing |
Fast Company. Fast Company Magazine, 21 Oct. 2009. Web. 04 May 2012.
<http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/sam-ford/conversation-convergence/spreadablemedia-cure-viral-marketing>.
Garfield, Bob, and Doug Levy. "Ignore the Human Element of Marketing at Your Own
Peril." Adage.com. Advertising Age, 02 Jan. 2012. Web. 04 May 2012.
<www.adage.com>.
Jenkins, Henry. "If It Doesn't Spread, It's Dead (Part One): Media Viruses and
Memes." Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Archives:. Confessions of an Aca-Fan, 11 Feb. 2009. Web.
05 May 2012. <http://henryjenkins.org/2009/02/if_it_doesnt_spread_its_dead_p.html>.
Rayport, Jeffrey. "The Virus of Marketing." FastCompany.com. Fastcompany.com, 31 Dec. 1996. Web.
24 Apr. 2012. <http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/virus.html>.
Vaynerchuk, Gary. "Old Spice Man Marketing." FastCompany.com. Fastcompany.com, 10 Mar. 2011.
Web. 24 Apr. 2012. <http://www.fastcompany.com/1737010/thank-you-economy-garyvaynerchuk-old-spice-man>.