Phelps beats Obama in Facebook race

It's official, Michael Phelps is now the most popular person on Facebook, with 1,483,568 fans, knocking Barrack Obama off his long-held top spot.

Obama closely trails Phelps with 1,421,221 fans - which is a along way ahead of his Presidential opponent John McCain, who weighs in with a very slim looking 225,413 fans.

If the results of our Opinion Tracking of the London Mayoral elections is anything to go by, then McCain is in for a real beating in the upcoming election.  Given the existing Facebook stakes, maybe the Republicans should ditch McCain, and back Phelps for President . . .

Come and see a nice shiny new beta

Over the next few months, our team will be helping launch Channel 4's new animation site 4mations.tv.

The strategy behind the campaign launch is based around viral / social media marketing, so as this is a blog about viral marketing I thought I'd write an ongoing commentary about our work - to give you a behind the scenes tour of the ins and outs of running viral / social media campaigns.

As a starter, you can you check out the beta version of the soon-to-be world's best animation site here.

If you want to become a member of the 4mations 400, you can add your exclusive badge to your blog from our rabbit hole .

Anyone up for Flu Camp?

Has anyone noticed the ads on the tube at the moment for Flu Camp? Yes, that’s right Flu Camp www.flucamp.com .

This takes viral marketing to a whole new level – their logo is even a friendly 2.0 looking little virus.

Just as ‘glamping’ is the new camping, ‘medical-experiments-which-run-the-risk-of-turning-you-into-the-Elephant-
Man-and-amputating-all-your-fingers’ is now “an opportunity to make friends and meet new people in a new environment”.

H5N1 anyone? 

What's wrong with India?

This hasn't got anything to viral marketing, but why are India coming 40th in the Olympics (with 1 gold), when they have a population of over 1 billion?  Mumbai 2016 anyone? 

Fiat and the Angry Trampolines

A few months ago  Matt  came back from  Bug 05  raving about a few films he had seen. One of which was the brilliantly simple, visually stunning and richly detailed  zZz Grip . The brief: Shoot a live sequence to open a short film festival in Holland Nederclips - One take, no special effects, loads of hidden conceits/ jokes and a great soundtrack …Inspirational stuff indeed.

Until this . Shame on you Fiat, your agency and all those who agreed this would be a good idea! Apart from totally missing the elegance and subtlety of the original, it is yet another case of advertising underestimating viral influence and the proliferation of digital content.

I am not naïve enough to think the advertising has never ‘borrowed from’ the ‘art’ of others, and at times I am even prepared to stick up for the advertiser – Guinness Eskimo, Honda Cog and Sony Bravia Balls are all great examples of that. But when someone thinks they've seen something that they can just regurgitate to a ‘broadcast audience’ on the assumption that the latter hasn't seen the original, it smacks of utter laziness and worse, contempt.

I appreciate that Fiat and their agency must have got permission from the original filmmakers, so hopefully no-one's been ripped off here and no-one's got hurt. But it's a great shame when you see something that you thought was exceptional being degraded and one would have thought by now advertisers would know that the truth will out immediately.

It's an even bigger shame when the offending brand is actually making exceptional products – the gorgeous Fiat 500 and Fiat Punto (Europe's best selling car) – and still can't think of a single original thing to say about them.

(Original blog post of this can be found on the Rubber Republic blog written by Rubber Rory)

Free sweets = viral?

Following on from my blog posts from a few weeks back re: ingredients for virality, here's another stab:

Funny animation + free sweets offer = viral

See the results here:

www.naturalconfectionery.co.uk/

I think this is a blinding little opening campaign for a new sweet brand.  It intrigued me, it made me laugh, it made me click and then it made me give away my personal details.  Genius.

Well, nearly genius.   I didn't actually sign up in the end, as I spotted in the small print that rather than being a quaint indy company (the kind I love to back and shop at), it was actually a Cadbury sub-brand.  i.e. Natural Confectionery was Goliath not David.

This of course is no fault of the bigger campaign creative, however maybe they could have dealt with the Cadbury corporate thing a little bit better.  I know this is a super small detail, however it's details like this that split the Cadbury's from the Innocent's . . .