Speed Dial: 60-Second Marketing Insight Newsletter

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Pomegranates and Roller Babies How Catchy Is Viral Marketing? By Marie Elwood, Marketing Strategy Consultant  March 30, 2010 - Speed Dial Issue 25

So you're busily rubbing your computer mouse when suddenly, POOF: out pops a Vacation Genie who offers you a trip to anywhere in the world. Wow! Where are you going to go?   

Who leapt to the top of their desk cheering, "Magic Vacation Genie, sweep me away to NOVA SCOTIA!" 

I'm guessing the vacation genie isn't getting a lot of frequent flyer miles on that one. The good folks of Nova Scotia know this as well, so rather than woo you to their fair province with glossy photos of shorelines, sheep, & snow, they did this: www.pomegranatephone.com. 

Quirky, off-beat, and clever, wasn't it? If you're not on the first flight to Halifax, you may have grinned & passed it along to a few friends (as Jennifer Christianson did to me). Maybe those friends will forward it on to their friends... and their friends... and before you know it, everyone will be jet-setting to the Canadian Riviera.

As wonderful as that would be, viral marketing doesn't seem to be working. According to "Viral Complexity", a March 28, 2010 article in Brandweek, "the evidence is thin that any viral video, no matter how successful, is likely to... convince consumers to buy a product." 

In 2009, Evian's roller babies ad was viewed 100 million times, became the 5th most popular video on YouTube, and was crowned the year's best ad by Time- - but Evian  lost market share in the US.* Badly. 

The people behind such campaigns argue that even though they don't deliver cold hard cash, they build brand awareness, make headlines, and increase web traffic. As you can imagine, there's ongoing debate as to whether that's an acceptable marketing ROI. 

I have two hypotheses as to why viral ads aren't sales superstars.  

First, viral marketing attracts lots of attention from the wrong people: it's untargeted, scattershot, & ad hoc. People pass along ads for entertainment value, not because the product/service fits them. Will it be right for someone else down the line? Maybe, but it's a crap shoot from a marketing standpoint. Humor often has mass appeal; successful products & services require clearly defined target audiences. 

My second hypothesis is that these ads are so focused on being clever that they don't communicate points of difference, benefits & features, or a meaningful 'reason-to-be.' As a result, they're high on recall and low on persuasion, capturing attention but failing to inspire action. 

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