Viral Marketing Handbook

“Viral marketing is free” Your campaign can achieve a lot of volume at no cost, but that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce, seed and track it.

LET US CLEAR UP SOME COMMON MISUNDERSTANDINGS

“Virals only work for sex and violence” Yes for people who are only looking for sex and violence.

“People spend lots of time on the net, so it’s OK if it’s long and complicated” 95% move on within 6 seconds if they aren’t entertained.

“My material will spread by itself” It happens – but not often.

“As a creative genius, I know what works” Prepare to be enlight-ened by online consumers.

“Viral marketing is risky and out of control” In the age of consumer rule, just being a brand is risky.

You can work with it or against it, but you can’t escape it.

“Viral marketing is unserious” We suggest calling the people at Skype to get their opinion.

“You can’t plan viral marketing” Have you tried it?

“Nobody can guarantee exposure” A seeding agency should provide a minimum guarantee.

If not, don’t launch the campaign.

W W W. G O V I R A L . C O M

“The client is king” The customer is king.

YOU DON’T NEED TO

READ THIS… unless you launch really great campaigns

TO TALK ABOUT

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GET INSPIRED BY THE LATEST RESEARCH AND CASES FROM THE WORLD OF VIRAL MARKETING AT OUR SEMINAR

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“Viral marketing works…pass it on.”

Bant Breen SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT AND INNOVATION THE INTERPUBLIC GROUP OF COMPANIES

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THE INTERNET IS COMING OF AGE. Broadband penetration is growing rapidly and most people surf the internet at their work on high-speed connections. They surf for a lot of different things including communications and entertainment. The commercially attractive 18- to 35-year-olds spend the most time online. They pay more attention to interactive channels and less to traditional top-down monologue channels.

This is why viral marketing is increasingly on the media plan and on the lips of advertisers. It is a way of communicating with your audience that really works – using the networked communications platforms people spend their time on today.

But viral marketing can be difficult to work with as it always depends on the creative material. You can put anything on TV, but a viral campaign needs to be really good to survive and prosper. That’s why we’ve created this booklet. It is for creative, media and production agencies that work with their clients to plan and create viral marketing campaigns. We work with people like you around the world everyday and know how important it is that you and your clients understand all the different aspects of this new medium. We understand the importance of knowing ‘how to’ on a very practical level. So we have assembled some practical information and tools that you can use when creating and launching fun and innovative viral marketing campaigns.

Keep up the good work.

GoViral

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“Push marketing and the old model of interruption is challenged. New ways of engaging consumers, whether with viral marketing or branded entertainment, should be considered key by any forward-thinking marketer.�

NICK BRIEN CEO UNIVERSAL MCCANN

WHAT IS VIRAL MARKETING? Viral marketing is consumer-driven marketing as opposed to traditional interruption marketing that is controlled and driven by the marketer. It is a planned initiative where you, as an advertiser or creative agency, develop and spread online marketing messages (viral agents) that have qualities that motivate the receiver to become a sender. It’s the marketing discipline of today’s consumercentric networked marketing landscape.

Viral marketing combines know-how, creativity and technical skills. A viral campaign builds on really excellent creative material that involves and engages users. However, equally important is the seeding and tracking of the campaign. With growing media clutter – also in digital channels – the seeding of your viral campaign material will be key to attracting attention. With good creative material and proper seeding, a viral campaign can generate millions of clicks and active viewers.

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“People were sharing stories and painting on walls long before they invented the wheel. Spreading ideas and gossip is human nature.

Viral is hard wired into our DNA.” Paul Kemp-Robertson EDITORIAL DIRECTOR CONTAGIOUS MAGAZINE

VIRAL SPREAD The viral spread of stories is an urge as old as humanity itself. It is by spreading stories that we have built and passed on cultures, traditions, religions and knowledge from generation to generation. It is not a new phenomenon, but, on the contrary, a very old need imbedded in human psychology to retell good stories.

The core of viral marketing is to know the mechanisms that get human beings to spread messages and stories and utilise this commercially. It is to start conversations. When done properly, the power of viral spread can be enormous, and if cultivated the right way in a commercial context, it can really set your campaign on fire.

Viral spread happens everyday, but often not on a large scale when it comes to commercial messages. Hardly any stories or campaigns spread overnight to the whole world. It is simply too difficult to create a commercial message that relevant or entertaining.

So, spreading a campaign throughout the entire pyramid is possible, but very seldom a reality. That’s why you need seeding.

MASSIVE VIRAL SPREAD IS A RARE PHENOMENON.

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“Consumers are not waiting around to be passively targeted. In today's world, markets are conversations and consumers need to be thought of as communication partners. Clever marketers don’t just talk at consumers, they let them talk together, play, share and have an active role in the communication.”

EDDIE D’SA MANAGING PARTNER FOR NORDICS AND CENTRAL/EASTERN EUROPE NAKED COMMUNICATIONS

SEED YOUR STORY AND LET IT GROW Seeding helps you break through the clutter. It’s the way to kick start and build initial volume in the viral campaign. Seeding is done by promoting, placing and endorsing campaign material in the content section of high-traffic connection points on the internet. Seeding is carried out on a combination of commercial and non-commercial connection points. The best way to build a global campaign is through local endorsement – by seeding on local sites in the local language. When seeding the campaign, you start further down in the pyramid instead of at the top. Most campaign material spreads only a few viral levels, so seeding helps ensure substantial uptake.

WHAT IS A CONNECTION POINT? AN ONLINE CONNECTION POINT IS A PLACE WHERE CONTENT IS EXCHANGED BETWEEN PEOPLE OR FROM EDITORS TO THEIR READERS. IT IS A PLACE ON THE INTERNET WHERE PEOPLE MEET, SHARE, DISCUSS AND ARE ENTERTAINED. THERE ARE MANY CONNECTION POINTS AND THEY POP UP, GROW AND DIE OUT RAPIDLY. TO WORK OPTIMALLY WITH CONNECTION POINTS, IT’S NECESSARY TO SYSTEMATICALLY SURVEY, IDENTIFY, CATALOGUE AND MEASURE THE QUALITY OF THE THOUSANDS OF POTENTIAL CONNECTION POINTS.

WHAT IS A SEEDER? SEEDERS ARE THE PEOPLE WHO SPREAD THE CAMPAIGN MATERIAL. A GOOD SEEDER IS A PERSON WHO CONTINUOUSLY WORKS ON MAINTAINING RELATIONS WITH A LARGER GROUP OF CONNECTION POINTS ON THE INTERNET. THE SEEDER INSPIRES ONLINE EDITORS AND INFLUENCERS WHO CONTROL ONLINE CONNECTION POINTS. HE OR SHE FEEDS THEM WITH GOOD STORIES, INCLUDING VIRAL CAMPAIGN MATERIAL, AND MAKES SURE THAT THE CAMPAIGN GETS FEATURED IN AS MANY RELEVANT PLACES AS POSSIBLE. A GOOD SEEDER HAS GREAT SOCIAL SKILLS, AND IS WITTY AND PERSUASIVE.

SEEDING AT HUNDREDS OR THOUSANDS OF CONNECTION POINTS ALLOWS YOU TO START AT THE BOTTOM OF THE VIRAL PYRAMID AND NOT AT THE TOP.

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“Brands need to find new ways to reconnect with consumers in a meaningful way.

Viral marketing is definitely one way to get back on track.”

MARTIN LINDSTROM AUTHOR AND BRANDING GURU

TRACKING TO JUSTIFY AND LEARN Tracking the viral campaign enables you to follow, evaluate and benchmark the campaign material. It’s the eyes of the campaign.

And, it’s necessary to have tracking in place to make viral campaigns as accountable as every other marketing channel.

The wonderful thing about the internet is that it is so traceable.

Where did the campaign go? How many sites picked it up? You can track everything about visits, views or interactions, from how many there were to when and where they took place. You can also track the conversations about your campaign and get qualitative insights into how your audience reacted and what they said.

It is a good idea to have a solid tracking platform in place when launching the campaign, and be prepared to hear the truth about how the market reacts to your campaign activity.

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“Every piece of research tells us what we already know: that advocacy – recommendation from a friend – is the most powerful and credible influence on consumers. Viral marketing is a very logical extension of this principle, and increasingly, we're putting it at the core of our strategic thinking.”

DAMIAN BLACKDEN EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC MARKETING TECHNOLOGIES UNIVERSAL MCCANN EMEA REGION

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JOHN: Ronaldinho swears that the scene is real…but I would assume it’s fake.

ANDREW: If it’s real, I’m sure the cameraman wouldn’t conveniently back away from the field like he did.

TIM: I have a friend who can do that.

CONVERSATIONS

In autumn 2005, Framfab Copenhagen launched a Nike spot with Ronaldinho. This is what some people said about it:

SONNY: The Celtic player Jimmy `Jinky´ Johnson was seen doing something very similar in the 1970s.

JOE: You guys obviously underestimate the skills that these players have…

Ronaldinho hits the crossbar four times in a row in the Nike spot. Was it real or not? That’s what millions of people discussed in the weeks and months following the launch of the spot. How many of last night’s advertising breaks did you discuss with your colleagues the following day?

None probably. Viral marketing is about starting conversations. Conversations engage people and this leads to even more involvement. It was brilliantly done by Nike – involving millions of people with a very simple, but universal, question we always ask when we see something extraordinary: was it real?

CREATE CONVERSATIONS.

“Many clients are saying ‘I want something that spreads by itself.

I don't want to pay for media.

It has to be interesting and entertaining. But it can't be rude, risky or edgy... Did I mention that I need it tomorrow?’

Somehow they figured out that ‘viral’ is the buzzword of the time. But they totally missed the essential parts... Viral is more risky.

Yet, it can be ever-more rewarding.”

NICKE BERGSTRÖM CO-FOUNDER AND CREATIVE DIRECTOR FARFAR

BUT I’M WORRIED Client: Can you guarantee that our film won’t appear on sites displaying obscene content?

GoViral: No. We can only provide guarantees for the sites we seed to – not for sites your material might spread to.

Client: Then I don’t think our customer will want to use it.

GoViral: The internet?

Client: Yeah. I mean no, distributing their material.

GoViral: Neither we nor your customer can control where it ends up.

Client: Who does, then?

GoViral: Internet users.

Client: Well you have to be able to control it!!!

GoViral: Yes and no. We can initiate a distribution, but you can’t control it.

Client: So what are you recommending?

GoViral: Work with the rules on the Internet, not against them.

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REMARKS

We know very well that it’s hard to let go. We have conversations like this every day. It’s a typical case of the old media world meeting the new. But we – the hundreds of millions of people who spend more time on the internet than watching TV – want to be the ones who decide what we see and were and when we see it.

“I guess we all can create ideas that have viral potential, but delivering the right positive message for the brand is the hardest part.”

LARS CORTSEN CREATIVE DIRECTOR FRAMFAB A/S

HOW TO MAKE A VIRAL BOMB? If you are used to saying “client is king” you are going to learn a new sentence. The client is NOT king. You are NOT king.

Customers are king! They decide what is good and what is bad.

What they want to talk about and what they find utterly boring.

What they want to propagate or not. You can put billions of dollars into your campaign, but if the users don’t like it, it’s dead. The core of a viral bomb is content people will love to talk about.

THE 7 INGREDIENTS OF A VIRAL BOMB

1 \ OUTSTANDING STORY 7 \ SEEDING HOOK

2 \ STICKYNESS

2 \ STICKINESS There are some people you always seem to forget. Even if you’ve worked at the same office for years, these people are out of mind the minute they’re out of sight.

In contrast, there are people you might only have shared a few fleeting seconds with, but that you’ll remember the rest of your life and think about often. You might call these people ‘stickies’. They stick in your mind like an evergreen hit, and are quite impossible to forget.

6 \ TIMING / ACTUALITY

3 \ RELEVANCE

5 \ SHAREABILITY

1 \ THE OUTSTANDING STORY All cultures reach some kind of consensus over what’s good and what’s bad. Like a line cutting right through the middle of the culture’s range of values. We don’t want to be too wasteful or stingy.

Hyperactive or overly passive. Boring or affected. We’d rather be somewhere between these extremes. That’s how it is with all human values, and we call this the axis of consensus. But the axis of consensus is also paradoxical. Despite the fact that we all want to be there, we also find it utterly boring! Who wants to read a book about a good, decent man who lives in the suburbs with his wife and their two children? Nobody. We want to see movies, read books and hear stories about people who are outstanding in some way. We are turned on by taboos, the unusual, the outrageous, the hilarious, the remarkable or when we get to peak into hidden secrets. These stories ignite conversations and open our eyes. It is outside the axis of consensus that you find outstanding campaign stories that are fuel for the viral spread.

4 \ PORTABILITY

When you assess the viral potential of a campaign, you have to ask how well the campaign or story manages to stick in the mind – or whether it will be forgotten after just a few minutes.

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“Viral Marketing is really coming of age right now, and clients in particular are waking up to its potential. With more marketing dollars pouring online and young consumers turning off the TV, viral provides a rich, exciting way of engaging with audiences. I predict an explosive growth in this type of activity over the next three years.�

MATTHEW SMITH CO-FOUNDER THE VIRAL FACTORY

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3 \ RELEVANCE “It’s amazing how many women are pregnant now – it’s almost like there’s a new baby boom on the way,” expecting parents will say again and again. How can that be? When birth rates throughout the Western world are falling or stagnant at best?

The answer lies in ourselves. In the way we perceive the world.

Pregnant women see babies and other pregnant women because that’s what is relevant to them at the moment. Not so in a year’s time, when perhaps a new home and a pram will be at the top of their mind. Relevance involves a combination of message, situation and timing.

4 \ PORTABILITY For about a year, the very humorous and embarrassing 1970s music video ‘Apache’ was available on the internet, but did not attract much of an audience. Then one autumn day in 2004, something unusual happened: in just a very few days, the video began to appear on countless blogs and websites, spreading like wildfire. It even started turning up on different television programmes around the world. Why the sudden popularity? What was it that brought the wonders of ‘Apache’ to the attention of the whole world within just a few weeks? What happened was that the video became ‘portable’. A blogger had taken the time to compress the original 40 MB video down to about 2.5 MB. The smaller size made the difference between success and fiasco. Technically, the radical compression reduced the quality of the film. But it also enable the clip to be sent quickly from blog to blog, from mailbox to mailbox. Portability is about being free. Free of physical, technical and human barriers. Free to reach an audience wherever the audience may be.

1 \ OUTSTANDING STORY 7 \ SEEDING HOOK

2 \ STICKYNESS

6 \ TIMING / ACTUALITY

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3 \ RELEVANCE

5 \ SHAREABILITY

4 \ PORTABILITY

“We’re now in a business where content is currency.

It’s always been king. Now it’s being traded. The best possible thing any brand can do is create content that is of value – content that is wanted by the consumer. From that point on, watch it fly. From podcasts to PSPs, MySpace to mobiles, people want great content and they’ll take it everywhere.”

MARK CHALMERS CREATIVE DIRECTOR/PARTNER STRAWBERRYFROG AMSTERDAM

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5 \ SHAREABILITY People spend oceans of time and energy keeping their network of friends and acquaintances together. We share all kinds of things with those around us – often without even thinking about it! Just ask yourself: What do you eat when you’re alone? And when you’re together with others? What do you prefer – going to the cinema alone or with a friend? Most people would probably much rather share even the smallest experiences with someone else. And the evidence suggests that the sharing is often more important than the experience itself. That’s because it helps us maintain our network, and cement our relationships. According to sociologists such as Alain de Botton, the worst thing that can happen to a person is to be without a network. A person can suffer a complete breakdown in just a few days if nobody around wishes to talk with him.

This notion of sharing stories is a crucial driving force, and viral campaigns should focus on the value of networks. Shareability - if the recipient can use a viral campaign to help cement her network, its potential is nothing short of explosive.

6 \ TIMING/ACTUALITY There is nothing harder than trying to sell a Christmas tree in January. Some stories are very dependent on the time they are published. If you’re able to add actuality to the viral campaign material or the seeding hook, it is possible to create extra momentum. The manipulated photo of George Bush Sr. fishing with George Bush Jr. in the flooded streets of New Orleans was published a day or two after the catastrophe. Within a few days it had reached millions of mailboxes all over the world. A month or two later it stopped circulating – it was no longer current.

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7 \ SEEDING HOOKS A seeding hook is the one liner that catches your attention – the unexpected, witty angle to the story. Seeding hooks help the campaign material be absorbed into connection points and consumer’s conversations. A successful seeding hook is essential, and sometimes it can be more important than the campaign material itself. The same viral agent can have several seeding hooks depending on the context.

1 \ OUTSTANDING STORY 7 \ SEEDING HOOK

2 \ STICKYNESS

6 \ TIMING / ACTUALITY

3 \ RELEVANCE

5 \ SHAREABILITY

4 \ PORTABILITY

“It's really just about sharing great content, isn't it? There's nothing new under the sun. Whenever you read a fantastic book, you wanted all your friends to read it, just as you wanted everybody in the world to love that new song as much as you did, so you put it first on the mixtape. Viral's the same thing – just instantaneous and on a global scale."

LARS BASTHOLM EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR AKQA, NEW YORK

GOODYEAR: SEEDING FIVE COUNTRIES IN SIX DAYS, REACHING FOUR MILLION PEOPLE Goodyear launched a Europe-wide viral campaign in March 2006.

Consisting of three viral clips produced by Leagas Delaney, London, the campaign was launched in nine different languages with active seeding in five selected markets: Germany, France, the UK, Sweden and Denmark. It was seeded on 600 sites in approximately a week using both high-volume entertainment seed routes and targeted car sites and forums. The result: one million tracked views in the first week and 4.5 million tracked views after two months (one million of these were in the UK).

As we write there is no sign of the campaign wearing out. It demonstrates the power of viral spread when seeding in several territories at the same time. It has appeared on more than 2,000 websites and blogs, and can be seen at :

www.3x3m.com/files/goodyear

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GOODYEAR

THEY’VE DONE IT

“We love viral marketing – it allows us to do crazy things with our brands that we would never dream of doing with mainstream media.”

JENS JERMIIN COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER COCA-COLA NORDIC

VIDEO BANNER VERSUS SEEDING 1600

VIRAL VIDEOS BEAT VIDEO BANNERS The media agency Initiative Universal McCann conducted a benchmark test comparing the viral seeding of a video clip to video banner advertising. Both channels launched the same content, with the same budget.

SEEDING

1400

THE RESULT: viral seeding drove 14 times more views than video banners.

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The optimal way to activate high-quality campaign material on the internet is through seeding the campaign material as content on connection points. Booking banner-ad space is nothing more than applying the old-world push-marketing paradigm to a different medium – one defined by interaction and pull.

1000 VIEWS

WHY? People don’t expect anything good from banners. In fact, they usually see them as disturbing. This means that, when the content is good, banner advertising is at the best a mediocre channel.

Banners don’t generate the clicks or the involvement that can be created when the material is set free among users.

800

600

400

200 VIDEO BANNER INDEX 100 0

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“One of the wonderful things about the new era of marketing is that companies are forced to think more about their consumers than themselves.”

MALTHE SIGGURDSSON CREATIVE DIRECTOR SKYPE

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“We were working with ‘GoViral’ even before ‘viral’ was included in the vocabulary of the advertising business. They are one of the pioneers of this ‘new way of spreading messages’. Their local approach and extremely creative thinking keeps them at the top of the list. They are the perfect partners to utilise preexisting social networks and to produce exponential increases in brand awareness.”

CRISTIAN JOFRE SVP GLOBAL CREATIVE DIRECTOR MTV

VIRAL MEDIA PLANNING The process of planning, creating and launching viral marketing campaigns is similar to other campaign activities. A media agency creates a strategy, then plans and budgets the campaign. The campaign idea is developed by a creative agency, and produced by a production agency. Even the seeding phase resembles traditional media placement, even though it is different in nature.

The main difference compared to other campaigns is the qualitative element. For the campaign to work, it is imperative to have strong creative material with the right viral qualities. This forces the media agencies to adopt a qualitative focus that is not required in other campaign activities, and pressurises the creative and production agencies to deliver something unique and innovative.

It is a good idea, therefore, to honestly scrutinise and screen the campaign to ensure that it will actually spread among consumers.

Ask yourself: Is this really, really good? Would I send it to any of my peers? Is it truly relevant or entertaining for the target group?

By not asking these questions, you run the risk of developing campaign material that does not have the right quality, and so can’t be seeded – which happens all too often.

THE VIRAL VALUE CHAIN SEEDING AGENCY

STRATEGY

CREATIVE

PRODUCTION

EVALUATION / FEEDBACK

SEEDING

TRACKING

GoViral is a viral seeding agency.

We launch (seeds) viral marketing campaigns for leading creative agencies, media agencies and advertisers worldwide.

Our global Seed&Track™ solution helps marketers reach people in 27 countries.

In all countries, we seed in local languages, on local sites and with local seeders. We bring marketing materials, such as commercials, games, applications and stories, to the places where people meet on the internet – creating high-volume, targeted and cost-effective viral marketing campaigns.

SEED SPREAD TRACK WWW.GOVIRAL.COM

LONDON – COPENHAGEN – STOCKHOLM – HAMBURG

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