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Digital Communication
Week 4: Viral Marketing
Dr Charlotte Carey
• Memes
• Viral Marketing
• Gurialla
Perhaps it’s all in a meme
"an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person
within a culture”
“A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea,
that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to
another.”
[Shortening (modeled on gene) of mimeme, from Greek mimma,
something imitated, from mimeisthai, to imitate; see mimesis.].”
An Internet Meme is a concept that spreads via the internet
What are Internet memes?
The idea may take the form of a hyperlink, video,
picture, website, hashtag, or just a word or phrase,
such as intentionally misspelling the word "more" as
"moar" or "the" as "teh".
Example
• Lolcats – Icanhazcheezburger.com
• Founded by Eric Nakagawa and Kari Unebasami in
2007
• Bought by Pet holdings 2008 (run by a young
journalist/entrepreneur
• Cheezburger got an average of about 500,000
pageviews
• Went to 5.5 million daily pageviews – when bought
• One of Web's most popular blog networks.
(Farhad Manjoo 2009)
Beyonce meme
Feb 2015 #TheDress
A recent meme
• #snoutrage, #hameron and #piggate
• Proving no one is above this type of PR issue and it
still persists
Internet Memes as a method
have been heavily adopted by
Advertising, PR and Marketing!
Often in terms of Viral and Guerrilla Marketing
Charities seem to be particularly good at this!
#nomakeupselfie
Cancer Research £8M
#icebucketchallenge
• Raised £60 Million!
• The ALS Society’s UK and Scottish equivalents, the
Motor Neurone Disease Association and MND
Scotland also cashed in, as did cancer charity
Macmillan – which initially faced charges of
“muscling in” on the craze.
• Research by the Charities Aid Foundation found
one-sixth of Britons participated!
(Source: Third Force News http://thirdforcenews.org.uk/lists/fundraising-ideas-that-rocked-theworld#qiGQfw0pWpyE0gC0.99)
What is a viral?
• May take the form: of a hyperlink, video, picture,
website, #hashtag or just a word or phrase
“An image, video, advertisement, etc. that is circulated
rapidly on the Internet.”
(Dictionary.com, 2012)
Activity
• In groups
• Based on discussion within your group, identify
some ‘virals’ that you have come across (10-15
mins)
• Make a list of the characteristics that you feel made
them have that viral quality.
• i.e Medium, length of time? Type of humour?
Content?
• Feedback be prepared to provide examples
What makes a good viral
video?
According to Dan Ackerman Greenberg (2008):
• Make it short: 15-30 seconds is ideal; break down long stories into bite-sized
clips
• Design for remixing: create a video that is simple enough to be remixed over
and over again by others. Ex: “Dramatic Hamster”
• Don’t make an outright ad: if a video feels like an ad, viewers won’t share it
unless it’s really amazing. Ex: Sony Bravia John Lewis
• Make it shocking: give a viewer no choice but to investigate further. Ex: “UFO
Haiti”
• Use fake headlines: make the viewer say, “Holy shit, did that actually happen?!”
Ex: “Stolen Nascar”
• Appeal to sex: if all else fails, hire the most attractive women available to be in
the video.
Examples
YouTube partnership where ads are placed within their YouTube
channel.
Fenton
What about marketing and advertising examples:
Dove
The McDonalds
#
McFail?
"When u make something
w/pride, people can taste it," McD potato supplier
#McDStories
Viral business models
• Hotmail – 1997
• "P.S. Get your free email
at Hotmail”
• First mover advantage
• Pinterest
• inside of network
• Slow initial growth
• Originally was invite only
• Word of mouth
• Instagram – outside of
network viral
• Sleep talking man
• HONY
• Me at the zoo
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YouTube
YouTube is the second biggest search engine (Buisnessinsider, 2008)
“Still, YouTube hasn’t become a profitable business.” (Wall Street Journal, 2015)
A move towards more professional content – attempts at generating content
Hard to sell advertising around most content
Advertisers seeking out where they want to advertise (e.g around famous YouTubers)
‘Instream Ads’ provide some revenue but largely ignored
If you skip an ad no revenue is made and no cost to advertiser
You can make money from YouTube by becoming a partner:
• You create original videos suitable for online streaming.
• You own or have express permission to use and monetise all audio and video content that you
upload—no exceptions.
• You regularly upload videos that are viewed by thousands of YouTube users, or you publish popular or
commercially successful videos in other ways (such as DVDs sold online).
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(source: youtube, 2012)
• YouTubers – content creators and their influence
• YouTube new services pay for ad opt out
How much money are they
making??
Viral and Guerrilla
Marketing
• Guerrilla marketing uses unconventional means to promote
goods & services includes:
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publicity stunts,
urinal ads,
business cards tossed in the air at sports events,
DIY roadside billboards, blimps, workplace signs, mouse pads, pens,
the good old - sandwich board.
• Often captured and seeded online
• Viral marketing aims to persuade initial targets to pass the
promotion on to others thru e.g. email, chain letters, funny
video clips, chat rooms, forums & blogs in MySpace etc.
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Guerilla Marketing
Alternative, unconventional tactics & media
• build awareness & interest
• maximum results from minimal resources.
• being original, breaking the rules
• matching wits > matching budgets
• low cost
But is it mainstream or is it
limited to peripheral, niche,
• innovative
small target segment marketing
• less clutter
communications only ?
• less reach
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Guerrilla Marketing
examples
• Reverse Graffiti –(grime writing)
remove dirt from a surface e.g ‘Wash
me‘. Urban, no paint.
• Viral marketing - through social
networks
• Grassroots marketing - tap into
collective efforts of brand enthusiasts
• Wild Posting Campaigns
• Buzz marketing - word of mouth,
seeding chat & Fan sites & News
groups
• Undercover marketing -- subtle
product placement
• Experiential Marketing – connecting
audience with a brand thru
participation in memorable
encounters
• Campaigns and social marketing
particularly good at this type of covert
activity
Viral Marketing –
arguments for:
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Effortless transfer to others
Scale-able - small to large
Triggers common motivations & behaviours
Uses
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existing communication & social networks
the resources of others
Give away products/services, incentives e.g. vouchers
Don't consider the “referral” as an “opt-in”
Personalize the referral email or sms
Track & analyze results
Promote friendly referrals continually
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Seeding and building an audience
• Aim to get video to
‘most viewed list’
• Blogs
• Social media platforms
• Forums
• Embedding everywhere
• Friends?
• Email lists
• Optimise title
• Optimise thumbnail
• Make both compelling
• Be strategic with key
words (tagging)
• Refresh tags
• Influential and A-list
bloggers/YouTubers
• Linking to a strong
central idea
• Linking to real world
• Replicated
• Realtime responses
• Snowballing activity
• Video responses to
tweets
Activity
• In groups of 3-4 of you
• Devise and storyboard a video and/or Guerrilla marketing campaign that
will have digital reach and potential for the following:
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Client: Birmingham Half-Marathon
Target group: 18-25 year old demographic
To encourage more entries from this age group to participate in the 2016 half marathon
Consider:
• What is compelling?
• How will the idea be seeded?
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Story board on a sheet of A4
Be prepared to pitch your idea
Please legal, clean etc..
If a video aim for 30 seconds long
Summary
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From the idea of internet memes
Viral can take many forms
Some key ingredients
New business models and opportunities
How does the viral link to other activity
Can’t sit in insolation
Seeding and customer journey
Potentially drawing upon guerrilla activity to help
develop content that’s funny/shocking/compelling to
pass on.