EepyBird’s Sticky Note Experiment (Viral Marketing attempt?)

EepyBird’s Sticky Note experiment from Eepybird on Vimeo.

This is a pretty sweet video. At first I thought it was some type of art project on Vimeo, but at the end ads for Coke and Office Max show up. I wonder if they sponsored the production like Stride Gum sponsored Where The Hell is Matt?

Viral Marketing – Elasun Condoms and the Olympics

Wow, this isn’t subtle at all. Although the video isn’t the most creative ever made, Elasun’s marketing campaign to “hijack” everything Olympics without being a sponsor is pretty clever. Here’s an interesting article in UTalkMarketing.

Here are some of the ads, which are pretty good:

Photos from Stephen Hutcheon’s blog.

Viral Marketing – Response to Matt

Thanks for your kind words Matt! I decided to just post my response to you b/c I think it’s good to know.

I should let you know that I’m not an expert in viral marketing, or marketing for that matter. However, I have heard things from people in the business who know a lot more than me. Common themes have emerged, though, from all the conversations I’ve had in terms of V.M., such as:

-It’s hard to gauge what will become “viral” and what won’t, so unless you have some crazy gift that allows you know what will become “cool” or take hold among the audience, then it’s really impossible to plan.

-However, things that are interactive have seemed to work better, like the example I gave of Paltalk.  JibJab also produced one related to the election:

-Another option is looking for videos on YouTube that have become popular (those that relate to your product or company) and sponsor the creator, like what Dr. Pepper and Stride gum did:

This is sort of a quick response, but I hope it helps a little. If you do create something, send it over to me and I’ll post it here.

Viral Marketing – Diet Coke and Mentos Experiment

This VM campaign is an older one that many of you are probably familiar with; however, it’s still very entertaining. For those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s a video that was produced by Coke and uploaded to YouTube.

It currently has about 6.6 million views! Considering how cheap a vid like this cost to produce, the ROI is pretty clear. Just another example of the power of VM.

Viral Marketing – Monks’ record hits top 10 in U.K.

From Canada’s National Post:

There always seems to be an audience for retro-pop music, but a group of Austrian monks who sing Gregorian chants in Latin is the latest example of how viral marketing can launch even the most obscure musical group into commercial success.

The Cistercian monks’ CD “Chant — Music for Paradise” made the Top 10 of the pop charts in Great Britain and Germany because of viral marketing. They were initially discovered because of the video above that one of the monks had produced and released on YouTube.

This story really shows the power of viral marketing.

Viral Marketing – “Dimitri the Stud”

This is hilarious. It originally went around as a real message some guy left a girl he met in S.F. However, a bunch of bloggers are saying it’s a viral marketing campaign. It will be interesting to see if it actually is and who is behind it.

Viral Marketing – “Ball Girl”

A few newspapers have published stories about this viral marketing campaign, which was supposed to be scrapped. Apparently, Gatorade (or Pepsi) dropped the company who made the ad because they were dissatisfied with the work, but the ad was leaked online and became a big hit.

The ad was suppose to be aired on T.V., so I wonder if it would have had the same impact as it has had online if it were merely a television ad. I wonder if being online drives more interest to an ad. The thing is, when it’s online, people don’t necessarily know it’s a fake campaign. So perhaps that fact increases interest – the possibility that it might be a real video.

Here is a recent story from the Chicago Tribune. 

Viral Marketing

A new category: Viral Marketing

This series will feature, critique and solicit comments on various viral marketing campaigns I come across. Lately, I’ve become more and more intrigued about how companies and organizations use the technique and the metrics used to determine the campaigns’ successes and failures.

VS.

The first two campaign in this series are BMW’s “The Ramp” and Paltalk’s (video chat community) campaign that allows people to integrate a name into a video.

The latter is pretty creative and apparently a big hit. I personally sent it to about a dozen of my friends. BMW’s “Mockumentary” is unique, but it’s 30 minutes. The Wall Street Journal wrote a pretty good story about BMW’s campaign, as well as the risks involved when launching a campaign that essentially misleads target audiences.

As a viral marketing campaign, I think Paltalk’s is more effective because it integrates people into the process. Although I don’t necessarily think that that component will make or break a campaign, it doesn’t hurt to have people involved to increase interest and prompt the campaign’s distribution, which is the ultimate goal of such a campaign.

If you want to send out Paltalk’s campaign and trick your friends, you can either watch the link above — the form will appear at the end — or just click here 🙂