Long time the words 'viral marketing' had become a buzzword, Management consultants McKinsey & Co. estimate that twothirds
of the US economy is driven by word of mouth. After Ponzi sheme and MLM which already negatively perceived, the concept deals with how to ignite people to pass on the message from one to another self willingly, not just create word of mouth what more important is that to getting a message out with little time, minimal budgets, and maximum impact.
To create such condition the credo of 'Content is a King' is really true. The content which people like to share, because if people like to pass it along thats what really about. So it is important to create and execute an idea that's intriguing enough to get consumers to interact. Viruses do not spread by chance. They let the high-frequency behaviors of their hosts carry them into new territories.
One of the successfull content strategy which already become a classic case was 'The Hire' movie created for BMW brand. This campaign was made after eight short film being made by eight well known director among them are Ang Lee, Guy Ritchie...the story highlighted the performance aspects of various BMW automobiles, and the end results were staggering: the series had been viewed over 100 million times in four years and had changed the way products were advertised. Several companies attempted to capitalize on the success of BMW's film series. In 2002, the Nissan car company produced their own short film featuring their newly reintroduced 350Z. Entitled The Run.
Yes ! high quality movie was the huge content for viral marketing, but The Hire campaign was suspended because the cost was so high. There are several tactical booster which can be add to amplify cheaper media presence. One of the idea was to create leak.
The release of the 2007 concept album Year Zero by Nine Inch Nails involved a leaking tactics, including the band leaving USB drives at concerts. This was followed up with a series of interlinked websites revealing clues and information about the dystopian future in which the album is set.
Other booster was rumors spreaded through gossip show, here in Indonesia the highest occupier of air wave are infotainment, one gossip show can ignite the first blow, and the tipping point will be reached after the artist become a centerpoint of the crowd with mic and camera, chasing their statement. Not long before people start to talk about the issue as the object of mind control.
For personal brand gossip media can be used, but it is too difficult to control how the perception will be created after control is under the media not the object. Media relation strategy can be applied to deal with such turbulence. The advanced form of it was when Richard Branson made headlines by appearing to jump naked into New York's Times Square to promote his company's new cell-phone service.
I have a silly idea that rather than advertise a serial of campaigns on Free calls, mobile operator may facilitate such manufactured leak that their service can be used for free if people use some secret code, this type of underground campaign will spread through social networks, people will send email, quoted in chat room even passed on from one group to another. People will talk about it, an information being leveraged as important tips, and those tips will spreaded as rumors. At the end of the day the operator can fill the air wave with concluded Ad that their brand is truly free, the secret code become common code, and another case sealed by success.
Viruses do not become epidemics until they reach the tipping point and those creature are smarter: They find a way into the host under the guise of another.
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