Search results matching tag 'viral marketing'

Abouttimeboardgame.com goes live

273167 — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:07:00 GMT

We made it - the new About Time website and e-shop are now live and we hope people like it. Of course we are also working on a viral campaign to create awareness and interest in the game and pull people to the site. The work on that is underway now and should show fruit in a month or so.

The death of Patrick Swayze has brought back memories of his most famous role, in Dirty Dancing. It's no secret that the film was hugely popular with female audiences. I personally remember him most in two other great movies - Point Break, the Kathryn Bigelow directed adrenalin classic in which he starred as the leader of the surfer bank robbers, the ex-Presidents - an ultimately cool role. He also played a drag queen in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. Then, a dcade later, he appeared in Donnie Darko in a very uncool role, as the motivational speaker who (warning - spoiler coming) is exposed as a paedophile. That was surely a very brave role to take, and in stark contrast to his early heart throb and action hero roles, before he somewhat disappeared while fighting alcoholism and recovering from a serious riding injury.

BP's creative trickery revealed

2228399 — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:38:00 GMT

The guys at Ogilvy London have just released this new making-of video, showing the behind the scenes trickery involved in their latest viral campaign for BP Ultimate.

Having worked on helping seed the campaign over the last few weeks it was a real eye-opener to get an insight in to how exactly they did manage to shoot a group of people carrying a car across a city (Cape Town to be specific). I particularly love the interviews with the kids involved in the shoot who are not the most articulate interviewees!

If you haven't seen the viral campaign already, you can check out the film here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILPBWQzC5x0

and the teaser clip here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3xZNrIJWe0

Handle 'Forward To A Friend' Campaigns Carefully Or You'll Get In Hot Water.

809378 — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:44:00 GMT

I've had my email since 1996 and I'm subjected to a torrent of spam. Friends have said to me that I should just get a new email address and be done with it but to my mind that indicates defeat. Of course, the work email has spam software but it only acts as a series of breakwaters over which the relentless surge of mindless drivel will eventually find a way. Frequently, at the end of a day I'll have a look at my spam folder to find over 3,000 junk messages from that day alone. Importantly, whilst I could be driven to the point of insanity by having to delete swarms of spam emails I am also interested in some of the messages that come my way, for example when friends complete a form at a website that generates an email campaign that is sent to me.

As a business, we look after over 1.5 million customers for leading brands. All the brands are now using 'Forward to a friend' strategies to organically grow their database (a friend recommended is the most likely type to convert to being a real customer), combine this with the number of ongoing campaigns and the recognition that you really don't want to turn possible customers into enemies through spamming them and you have a tinderbox to handle.

Brand Republic recently commissioned Eversheds (the law firm) to review a recent landmark ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority (http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/910951/new-rules-viral-marketing/). The ASA objected to a forward to a friend campaign for a film called Shifty, the email address of someone was provided to the campaign site by a friend without the consent of the recipient. The campaign site sent an email to the friend saying that they were at risk of criminal prosecution for drug use following a tip off. They were directed to follow a link which open a website saying that they had been 'stitched up' .

Marketers are responsible for any unsolicited marketing messages they send which do not comply with the data protection rules. Guidance from the Information Commissioner stresses that the customer who passes a friend's details to the advertiser must confirm that they have the friends consent to do so. Marketers should also check that the friend is not already on a marketing suppression list and should tell the friend how they got their details. If the friend objects they should be able to have their email address suppressed for future campaigns.

It's also important to note that if the campaign is marketing led (i.e. it has a creative or hidden element to generate interest) it is important that it is clear what it's purpose is and that it is truthful in it's delivery.

When compared to other forms of database growth, the viral engine of forward to a friend campaigns show excellent low cost returns. However, they need to be handled carefully and correctly to ensure that they don't result in potential customers disliking the brand before they've even tried it.

Taking viral further

2228399 — Fri, 22 May 2009 08:11:00 GMT

This week's viral of the week in Media Week is BP Ultimate's latest campaign "Takes you further". Some might question why a viral video campaign for a big brand like BP is worthy of such an accolade and I'd argue it's based on the appreciation of the matching of well thought out planning with strong creative.

BP's creative team (Ogilvy) recognised that they (apologies for the pun) needed to take their viral further than most, and rather than simply produce a one off viral hit, create some kind of online narrative around the campaign over a lengthier period.

The strategy behind this was based around rolling out a range of unbranded teaser clips, to generate an initial buzz and general feeling of "what's going on" (or in YouTube land WTF!), followed by a main "reveal" viral clip - to help make sense of the campaign, and hit home the key messages of the campaign.

The campaign so far seems to be bubbling away nicely. The initial teaser clips have had 50,000+ views, and the main viral clip is starting to pick up nicely too - with some nice comments too. Importantly if you look at the comments and conversations they seem to be largely positive, which is largely linked (I'd argue) to the seeding strategy - as existing communities had been warmed to the campaign by the teasers, with the reveal then helping make sense of what had gone before.

Simon Cowell's ITV buzz machine

2228399 — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 22:13:00 GMT

The other day Simon Cowell did a touching thing - he publicly announced that he'd take a pay cut from ITV. At first I thought this was Cowell's attempt to jump on the credit crunch bandwagon to come across all in-touch-with-reality as a cunning pre-emptive PR tack. However, watching what's happened with the Susan "the badger" Boyle phenomenon in the last week, Cowell's move now all makes a lot of sense.

Cowell needs ITV just as much (if not more) than ITV needs Cowell. This is because Cowell's new media model is firmly reliant on ITV. Cowell has cunningly devised a buzz-generating / fame-making model which relies on the symbiotic relationship of mainstream media (TV and press) and social media. A relationship where his TV show feeds YouTube / social media which feeds mainstream news media which feeds YouTube / social media which feeds mainstream media etc. etc.

It's not by luck that 3 of the most highly viewed clips on YouTube are linked to him: Leona Lewis, Paul Potts and Susan Boyle, whose videos (between them) have been viewed over 200 million times.

The big question is - would Cowell be able to generate such levels of buzz if his shows weren't prime time ITV? The answer to that is a clear no. And Cowell knows it - hence how he's so heart-warmingly offered to take a pay cut from ITV. The other option is of course to join Richard and Judy and their 6,000 viewers on UKTV . . .

Don't let the recession be your edit crunch!

2525894 — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:30:55 GMT

Hi guys,

I've just finished having a series of Viral video adverts made by a company called KWIKVID based in Kent.

I wanted to let you all know that this is really the way forward to drive traffic, and to seriously reduce bounce. I've been posting my virals ALL over the place and my SEO has gone throught the roof.

Jump on board!

Regards,

Andy

Twitter = Delicious + Cute birdy

2228399 — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 21:09:00 GMT

It’s interesting to see how people are using Twitter - and how it fits into the history of social media. It can’t be more than 3 years ago now that people (including Yahoo) were getting all hot and bothered about a new internet phenomenon called Delicious. Apparently we were all going to turn into a social search engine - where people usurped technology and instead of relying on other Google finding the good stuff, we’d rely on our friends to do it instead.

Well, fast-forward 3 years, and we seem to have a case of history repeating itself. Given that most people now use Twitter as a link sharing platform, Twitter has basically become the son-of-Delicious. The only difference is that instead of the dour geeky feel and positioning of Delicious, we have the cute birdy-based Twitter, with its clever positioning and simple user-experience.

And don’t Google know it - hence why the guys from the Googleplex have become Sylvester-like in their keeness to get their hands on the Tweety-Bird, and turn it into some kind of real-time user-recommended social searchy system . . .

London AdLand T*ssers

2228399 — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:32:00 GMT

Errr, well this is certainly an interesting way of launching a brand into a new territory. 42Below have a pop at the UK ad industry - with some nice cameo appearances for Hyper, the Tea Building (Home to Glue et al) and uber-planner Faris Yacob. It's cheeky - but will it work???? Well, it's got our office talking . . .

Thanks to Digital Prolixity for the heads up.

Marketing hoax backlash brewing down under

2371004 — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 14:30:00 GMT

A purportedly genuine Cinderella story, about a distressed Aussie damsel who met the man of her dreams in a Sydney café, and tried to track him down using YouTube and local media outlets, has been revealed to be an apparent marketing hoax.

The story, which was meekly covered by Sydney's Daily Telegraph yesterday, follows a young blonde who met a man in a café ("their eyes met over scrambled eggs," barf) after a waiter had mixed up their orders.

Bang, sparks, love, etc.

However, the man then leaves, and without taking his cracking black dinner jacket, which the young blonde confiscates for her own keeping, and through a soppy YouTube video, dedicated email address and a series of racy photographs, tries to track down The Man In The Jacket.

The video itself has received over 100,000 views and was witness to almost immediate scepticism.

One day later, thanks in no small part by those damn clever YouTube commenters, the story has been revealed to be a viral campaign for an Australian fashion label.

The Daily Telegraph updated their story, taking a closer look at the label on the jacket, and found it read Witchery, a womenswear line.

However, Witchery is rumoured to be launching in imminent line of menswear.

Witchery denies the claim, but the public, that being the YouTube community, isn't waiting for the jury, and is staging an unprecedented revolt.

Some commenters go as far to call the young blonde a "cheap, lying, hussy" and "there is such a thing as bad publicity - its called infamy. Naked Communications and Witchery will certainly see the backlash."

Naked Communications is the marketing group which has been associated with the campaign through an unattributed publicist.

Jonathan Pease, the presenter for Australia's Next Top Model is apparently the executive of ideas for Naked Communications, but he denied any knowledge of any campaign.

Watch the video for yourself, that is if you can make it all the way through (it is rather cringe-inducing), and decide if it's a hoax or not. YouTube "body language experts" (oh, God) are saying it's obviously an act, and I would have to agree.

Drug mule dogs and speaking baggies

2228399 — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:51:00 GMT

FRANK, the drugs information and advice service, has launched a campaign raising awareness about the risks of cocaine use with a bang.

This year a fully integrated on & offline campaign incorporates a whole host of digital content, featuring videos narrated by, amongst others, a fatally wounded drug mule dog called Pablo and a talking bag of cocaine.

Our team's been tasked with distributing this online content to drive high-levels of awareness across the net amongst FRANK's target for this campaign of 15 to 18 year olds.

In total there are four pieces of content to seed: two specially commissioned online clips - a cryptic teaser and a viral - which complement the TV spot and another film highlighting the darker side of cocaine.

We've gone for a two stage strategy. We kicked the campaign off earlier this week with an exclusive pre-launch preview of the teaser and viral films to a discrete audience of culturally relevant bloggers (e.g. DJ / music blogs), and then yesterday, as the full campaign officially launched, we pushed the button on a blanket seeding strategy intended to generate high-levels of awareness quickly.

So far the strategy seems to be working with some good early advocacy for the campaign amongst the blogger community, and a good early surge in views of the campaign videos.

See the viral here: Baggie

and catch all the other pieces of content here: FRANK Cocaine YouTube channel