Years ago a militant group of Palestinians injected 5 Israeli oranges with Mercury.
Then they took those oranges and placed them in different supermarkets around the UK.
Word spread like wildfire.
People stopped buying Israeli oranges.
Nobody wanted to take the chance of giving their family an orange laced with mercury.
The result was out of all proportion to the stimulus.
The economy of Israel was seriously affected.
Oranges were a major export.
It was a viral campaign, created by word of mouth.
Years before the expression ‘viral campaign’ existed.
Similarly, I once heard a joke from an American friend.
“A tramp goes into the park and sits next to an elderly, prim, matronly lady.
He takes a swig of his bottle of booze, and says, “Wanna drink?”
She shudders and moves further away, along the bench.
He picks up a half eaten sandwich off the floor.
He says, “Wanna bite.”
She grimaces, gets up and walks away.
The tramp says, “I suppose a fuck’s out of the question?”
It was funny joke so I told some other people.
They told some other people, and so on.
Pretty soon everyone knew this joke.
And although the joke itself was too rude to be repeated in the mass media, the endline crops up everywhere.
TV, radio, newspapers, films, conversations.
“I suppose a (fill in the blank) is out of the question.”
That’s how a viral campaign works.
Word of mouth.
In advertising, how you always know you’ve got a good slogan is when it gets into the language.
Each time that happens it’s free advertising.
The best ads work like that, generating free OTS.
You actually use the paid-for media to trigger lots of word-of-mouth advertising you aren’t paying for.
That’s what a great advertising line like “DOES EXACTLY WHAT IT SAYS ON THE TIN” can do
It can get into the language.
You can turn the population of the UK into little units that repeat your message, and pass it on.
Advertising was truly viral, decades before the term was coined.
One advertising slogan I remember from when I was a little kid in East London.
It was for a brand of orange squash called Jubbly.
It was sold in tetrapack cartons from the fridge in everyone’s local sweetshop.
The advertising slogan was “Lubbly Jubbly”
Ring any bells?
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100% with on this one Mr. Dave,
Being a “digital creative myself” we do get clients that ask for virals and we have to tell them that virals are only viral if we just do some great work so let us go crazy!
More often than not though they just go “oh, can we have a banner instead then?”
Clients get the “viral” work they deserve in my oppinion. If you’re willing to be beautiful, progressive or outrageous you’ll do well. You can’t put your TV ad on the internet and expect it to go viral (unless your Sony).
Or clients ask for a ‘viral’ when actually what they’re after is a cheap TV ad for the Internet with a tiny budget.
Mais oui.
@freelancer
so what’s the problem. give them it.
get a man to go into a comedy club and recite product benefits as jokes and see if he can provke them into violence. film it
or
set up a shop offering FREE I-PHONES, get them to queue up and then when they are all in, lock the doors and fuck off. film the reactions.
or
show Gordon Brown having a wank.
To be honest, I would love it if a client asked me that. No bacc, and the budget limitations would just focus the mind more.
But surely the logical conclusion there is that all advertising needs to be viral?
Just because it’s on TV doesn’t mean you can feel OK about it being dull and unexciting.
This is not a digital vs. traditional question, it’s a good vs. bad question.
The only difference is that as an email attachment, the poorness of your ads can’t be covered up with frequency and reach data.
totally agree with craig.
why is this ‘viral thingy’ all of a sudden such a big word when it’s doing what ads are suppose to do for hundred years?
Viral isn’t a thing or a strategy or a tactic and it’s not a fucking noun - it’s simply what happens when something strikes a universal chord, more often than not by accident. Let’s get it out of the marketing lexicon.
Actually it’s as stupid as telling a client what he needs is a best selling novel - right - one best seller coming up
Simon — excellent metaphor for what it’d take to create a successful/memorable viral campaign. I think sometimes clients assume we have some type of simple chart tacked up in each creative’s space titled “5 Easy Steps to Doing Something Sensational the Whole World Will Adore on Deadline and Under Budget!”
agree once more dave.
there is so much crap talked about “viral” in our industry. usually by people who have never had one. a viral is just a hit, isn’t it. something that is literally irresistible in some way.
expecting something to “go viral” is probably the fastest way of ensuring that it won’t.
@ Robbie
Those ideas don’t sound that viral to me. To this day one of the most succesful internet viral films was the song bravia balls TV ad that got put online and sent around. It wasn’t meant to be a viral on the net but it because it was great.
A good viral can still convey a brand message like colour like.no.other otherwise it’s just been a fun film that anyone could have made.
quite similar to what Craig Davis, Creative Chief, JWT Worldwide said not long ago: the internet didn’t invent interactivity: any great ad will move people and get them involved in it.
viral & interactivity are the latest in creative jargon that everyone likes to bandy about
another one is ‘Customer Relationship Management’; that’s good old-fashioned Direct Marketing
Interesting stories Dave. The one thing that I would remark is technologies ability to enable ideas to go viral.
I can now forward a funny link instead of remembering to tell someone about it.
I can now take pictures with my phone of a cool display instead of trying to describe it to people.
I can now blog and reach out to thousands of people instead of just talking to my friends.
Christian. I take your point.
Definitely technology enables us to make our ideas more viral.
My point was that nowadays people think technology will automatically make an idea viral in the first place.
I don’t agree with that.
I think technology is “as well as” not “instead of”.
Bingo Dave.
I’ve worked for “through the line” shops.
And many of the people seem to think technology such as the internet has made things totally different.
I don’t think so.
Even digital work needs ideas.
So, it seems to me, in the end, it is still about ideas.
It’s just where the ideas run on.
Instead of ideas that run on print and TV, the ideas now work digitally.
Many interactive/digital CDs talk about doing great work.
But ask them to name 3 great digital campaigns and the choice seems very limited.
Most of the award-winning digital work seems to have more to do with design/look and feel rather than ideas.
Although that also seems to be where press is heading.
Comments, please.
the point Dave is making:
sure, technology will help an idea to spread faster. But if it’s a dumb idea even technolgy cannot help it; and if it’s a damn good idea it will get around even without the help of technology.
so Christian, u’re right, you can blog and reach thousands of people, but if your blog is insipid don’t expect technology to get those thousands to read it.
what Dave is probably saying: the idea is superior to technology
and for all of us who think that technology is the fatest, easiest and cheapest way to get information around, try beating a ‘ rumour ‘ using the internet
The Viral Factory hath spoken! have always been a big fan of the the viral factory. they live the dream.
the diesel XXX sfw porn nvite was genius. and of course traditional ad folk immediately questioned the originality of the idea. oy.