Viral Research

I've noticed in the last week, two ads that have spent months online in the US have crept onto our TV screens. The VW Force and particularly the Skittles Touch ad have been in heavy rotation on UK tv.

At first I wondered why Skittles would air a US ad that is a couple of years old, and then I thought about it a bit more. The popularity of the ad online has acted like post-production research, gathering feedback and word of mouth spread.

Instead of risking budget on a new ad campaign, why not take something we know people in the UK like; but has never been shown on their TV screens?

Maybe this is the next level of using online video as campaign research; producing an ad, placing it online then using the success or failure to determine whether it is suitable for paid media spend. In theory this would allow brands to take more risks and produce more interesting work; because if it bombs it will never have any money other than production put behind it.

You might ask how this is different to now, and the answer is simple. Most agencies currently either:

Make a TV ad - run it on TV and place it online.

Or

Make an online video - spread it online

What I am talking about is making TV ads, but taking them online first; surely a much more reliable test than showing it to 8 people in a room?

Create like a man

I'll make no bones about it, the Old Spice video work online over the past day or two has been nothing short of staggering. The kind of quick, witty dialogue that defines the very best of what we can do as agencies online. The very definition of viral content. Well done W+K.

I do worry though that some agencies will take the wrong message from it; and start trying to imitate the style or end up bombarding people with bad content.

Here's my view on what Old Spice did right:

1. Get the tone of voice perfected, then perfect it some more

2. Be personal. Talk to individuals as well as the mass audience

3. Have a client with creative understanding that is prepared to let the agency develop 1+2

4. Have a damn good creative idea in the first place

5. If you get lots of contacts, make lots of replies

6. Go where people are, don't force them to come to you

7. Don't over complicate

8. Don't outstay your welcome

It's NOT a Viral

Most of us know by now, but there are still some people on both sides of the client / agency fence that haven't yet understood. For those people, there is this:

It's Not a Viral (version 1)

View more presentations from Rob Mortimer.

5 Rules of Blogging PR - Aka: How Not to Go Viral

1. Don't read my blog. When you get in touch, make sure it feels like you have never visited my site before. For example, I love it when you send me a link to a new ad in a campaign I've already slagged off saying "I think you'll really like this".

2. Ignore my location. The world is flat and although I mainly cover UK stuff, what I really want is 20 average campaigns from Canada and Mexico.

3. Timing doesn't matter. Sure you could encourage me to post by giving me something early, before it is released. But to be honest I'm happy to post about ads that everyone has seen, sites that everyone has been to, and content thats already been passed around. The more people have discussed it, the more likely I am to extend that conversation further.

4. Quality is irrelevant. I might be interested in the best work you have to put out there, but I am even more interested in churned out dross. Please send me at least 5 campaigns a week, all of which are shite.

5. I don't care if it works. Some people might say that sending an active, critical blogger a dead link, or a link to a site that doesn't work properly is foolish. Not me. I am happy to spend time going back and forth to your link to see if technical support has fixed it.

Image from http://www.brickmarketingconsulting.com

Terms of Endearment

As an industry, advertising and marketing is far too full of bullshit terms. Whilst I understand the need to simplify things for ease of use, often we end up screwing around with what these terms actually mean, which in turn affects how clients and others see these things.

What marketing terms are you fed up of? What do you think we should replace them with?

Here are some of my hated ones, plus a few I've heard being discussed:

Brand/s - This is one of those where it makes sense to have a word that describes that essence of what a company/product stands for and does. At uni brand was the buzz word thrown everywhere, and that I believe is why people hate it. Indeed there was a conscious movement by many bloggers not long ago to stop using it for a month.

Consumers - No. People in all their diversity and difference are not simply a category of mindless purchasing zombies. Again, its a useful word in describing people, but really we can do better. It sounds like a big evil corporate mantra that anti-brand (heh) types would have a field day picking apart. We have to engage people, and if we treat them like sheep we are never going to do that except by luck. Why not just say: People.

Social Media - Not one of mine. I think it's a reasonable description. It could be improved sure, and it is getting overused... but it does its job.

Viral - Viral is not a thing. Viral is what it does. You cannot make a viral, you can make some content for your brand (heh), put it up on social media (heh heh) and hope. But if it doesn't work, it's not a viral. If no one likes it, it's not a viral. If all 30,000 views come from agency and client staff, it's not a viral. Why not just say: Content. If you must... Content that we want to go viral.

Regional Agency - Been over this one before. A patronising term that insults the work and staff of every decent agency outside the M25. And there are plenty thank you very much. Why not just say: Agency, UK Agency. If you must: Agencies outside London.

Future Marketing Summit Day Two - Part 5

Next were Google and BBH to discuss the joint British Airways and Google Earth advertising.

The ads featured shots using Google earth, with cloud pricing. While the site was designed to let you view the destination, but with a cloud image with the BA price on!

One highly interesting point was on the net ads, Google intentionally asked BA to lower the Google branding and increase the BA branding on overlay ads because Google didn’t want to be associated with ads that get in the way of sites.


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Lastly, was Jon Hamm, the founder of Greenroom digital.

He discussed how this is an exciting time for agencies and clients, a time to take risks, to become even more creative.

He also mentioned how media consumption is becoming more and more chaotic, and how the power of social media is still increasing.

An interesting point he gave was about the nature of ‘viral’ distribution is moving to ‘resonate’ and ‘right place’ distribution. Its not just about putting a funny video up, its about putting it in the right place and making it resonate with the public.

One good point was how measuring views is not the only important metric anymore, it’s about how many people in the core audience viewed it, what did they say, and what sort of response it got.


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After all these interesting people, it was left to Douglas Broadley of Imagination to sum up. Here are his major points.

“Amazing!” – What an insight!

The gloss of Kevin Roberts words was appealing, but things are not always that glossy in real life.

The idea of owning a conversation is ridiculous…

Agencies forgot to make a plan B! Hence all the recent panic!

The continuing difficulty in finding people who can move between disciplines.

Those who are quick on their feet will succeed.

Integration should just happen, but people get in the way. Integration is not a ‘nice to have’, it has to be meaningful.

Meaning will engender greater belief, which will help engage.

We need to define what unites brands and corporate cultures.

Integration is about Integrity.

People talk when you are found not to be true to their meaning, you can no longer be dishonest, people will find out.

I think this guy knows his stuff. A good choice to sum up.

Future Marketing Summit Day Two - Part 4

Day Two continued:

Next was the Entertainment panel. Here are some of the key points:

This discussed the need for a reason for people to watch content, and the empowerment of new models of viewing.

40 thousand videos are uploaded to You Tube every single day, and 90% of it is crap. However, we have to remember that most of that 90% is not designed for everybody, its things for a small circle of friends.

Clients are starting to see the need for quality, and the need for entertainment. Though someone in the audience made a great point that sometimes content can be informative rather than entertaining.

Is engagement more important than entertainment?

There is apparently a huge difficulty in finding people who don’t think in terms of print or tv ads. Shall I wave?

Clients have to accept that control of their brands has slipped through their hands.

Another good point is how the system of peer to peer sending that drove much online/viral content is moving to a model of discussion. For example: One of the key things about You Tube is that each video has a discussion area below it, allowing debate to spark.

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Next up was Matt Smith of The Viral Factory. Here are some of his key points:

The internet is now a consumer channel just as much as it is a brand channel.

The ratio of good user generated content to shit is huge.

He spoke about the issue of brands wanting “to do viral” but having no understanding of how it works. The odds are for many brands that if people do care, they care in a negative way.

One problem of asking people to do UGC is that you can end up disappointing people who (despite putting effort in) produce crap content by not using it.

Don’t stake your campaign on viral, as he rightly points out; many people expect to put a video on You Tube and have it automatically get seen by 2 million people, but it simply doesn’t work like that.

Respect creators and consumers, they gave a good example of a great Samsung viral they did, and when someone created their own version they worked with them.


Viral Factory Samsung Viral



Consumer Generated Version