Because I started a business with literally no capital, i became intrigued by viral marketing. Other words for viral marketing are buzz marketing, word of mouth and/or word of mouse advertising. It is similar to network marketing (building and selling through a network), but without the building out of the network. Instead, word about buzzworthy things spreads hapharzadly. And although people like Malcolm Gladwell and Seth Godin have tried to point it out when it happens, define it, and explain it, noone has written a book on how to do it, yet.
A recent article (found via Jennifer Rice) defines viral marketing:
Viral marketing essentially takes advantage of the rapid multiplication effects of online social networks (through e-mail, chat rooms, IM, file-sharing networks, etc.) to help spread a commercial message on the cheap. Potential exists for exponential growth in message exposure that can far exceed what's achievable were similar budget spent on commercial media channels.
Jeniffer Rice, in her weblog, Brand Mantra, wrote about Sky High Airlines, a spoof airline website, that turns out to be an ad for Alaska Airlines. I've seen the site several times, as I seem to be on everybody's forward list for shit stuff like that. However, I never knew that it was intended to actually be an advertisement for Alaska Airlines.
Another example of a viral campaign is Burger King's recent Subservient Chicken and often games, quizzes and contests are considered viral marketing. However, things that spread virally online are most often non-commercial, anti-commercial or even rallying against one company, like fiendster, the obvious parody of friendster. Things that are anti-something spread virally in the political sphere also, like the bush sloganator (or the Kerry one, which is apparently still functioning and better funded).
I personally think that online viral marketing is the future of online advertising. Why pay for something (advertising exposure), when you can get it for free? Viral marketing hasn't really caught on though (it seems). Why?
Firstly, it isn't easy to create a viral marketing campaign that says what a marketer wants to say about their company or product, and actually becomes viral. In the case of Sky High, as Jennifer points out, the connection between the parody and the sponsor isn't that obvious. The subservient chicken is another example of a campaign, like Sky High Airlines, where it isn't obvious it is connected to the brand. (This may be intentional as the BK brand is very subdued on the page.) Further with the chicken, it isn't obvious how the chicken actually enforces the brand's message. Maybe they were just trying to transfer the attraction of a person dressed up in front of an actual fast food place to an online medium. Who knows. Regardless, all it delivered was some impressions and some good laughs when people tried to make it do obscene things.
A second reason why it hasn't taken off may be because "the experts" say that most people won't forward things (via this article):
The proportion of the online audience likely to participate is small. Jupiter Research's latest European consumer survey shows only 5 percent of the Internet population had forwarded an advertising message. Of respondents who said they had, 64 percent were under 34 years old and 56 percent were male.
Although viral marketing is challenging, figuring out how to repeat is something worthy of some study. Especially for me, since viral marketing is the basis for my company, WhizSpark. WhizSpark combines social networking with event promotion.
We learned several years ago, that events "get attended" by lots of people, when the key people in the social network that connect people have committed to attending in advance of the event. At most events, 5-10% of the people invited the majority of the others. These 5-10% of the people are the people-people. The people that did all the inviting, entertain us, make our connections, etc. They love people, socializing with people. They've figured out how to sell people things by helping people at the same time.
We've made it a point to network with these people and find out why they do what they do. All of these people do it because they love being social. Many of these people have managed to turn their passion for event planning, promotion and people into a business or supplemental income. We also wanted to figure out how its done.
We've focused mainly on marketing entertainment and social events. We've learned that people only attend places where they are comfortable, on subjects or with entertainment that they enjoy. We also learned that people really get juiced up about helping to promote events when they and there friends get rewarded by spreading the word or when they are engaged in the planning process.
I think this is a model for viral marketing in general. Engage people in the planning and production process (let go marketers, just let go), create a high quality product (ie event, service or product), seed the campaign by rewarding, bribing, paying, begging the key people, sit back and watch the message get out.
I am very interested in anyone else's ideas on this process. Feedback please!
I don't understand the connection between the Wizard of Oz and DJ Danny Howells. Does anyone know what it is? The dj and dance music community is a tight community with a lot of insider knowledge. Maybe there is some connection between the Wizard of Oz and DJ Danny Howells that an outsider, like myself, wouldn't understand. Please tell me if you know. 
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