We’re taking part in The World’s First Internet Baloon Race, courtesy of Orange. It’s another lovely little concept from the outstanding gentlemen of Poke. I think we have some kind of racoon. This seems to be following up on their Spot The Bull idea that they are re-working from last year.
It’s probably appropriate to begin by defining our terms. The concept of viral marketing represents a very broad church, commonly used to describe any marketing initiative (predominantly but not exclusively digital) designed to encourage our innate desire to share the things we find appealing; for the benefit and enjoyment of others, and to express something about ourselves as propagators.
Successful viral marketing campaigns create community distributed or propagated content. Online this could be imagery, a video, an application, a game, a story, a simple document or virtually any other piece of digital content. Generally speaking viral initiatives can be categorised as:
Pass along
Self-contained viral pieces, often video or imagery, but sometimes just text, that can be attached and forwarded peer-to-peer, primarily by email or MMS. Often these pieces are also seeded into community sites, viral archives, or across the blogsphere.
Hosted
Self-contained experiences that are hosted on a website or specially developed microsite. This approach avoids the inherent problems with pass along material, and allows a richer, more interactive experience.
Incentivised
A broad category, primarily hosted in structure, describing viral concepts that integrate a direct incentive for users to alert their peers to the piece. Often a part of a prize draw, competition or challenge mechanism.
When talking about viral marketing, we’re generally referring to intentional virals. It’s worth noting that some of the most widely distributed viral pieces are actually non-intentional, or at least non-commercial, primarily due to the power of YouTube and social networking sites. One video that consistently finds itself at the top of the viral charts is StarWars Kid, whose star has made a career of fighting to earn royalties from the est. 900m of impacts his stolen video performance has received.
Via Neatorama, via Dump Trumpet - a rather amusing chap from Brighton rapping about tea. Excellent.
There’s more delightful cuts on his MySpace page.
Not sure what this vid is for but it’s beautiful. It’s shot at a super high rate them slowed right down. Great technique. Shame they aren’t clowns or something.
Last night was the first ever live TV ad and it ran without a hitch. Take a look for yourself.
Honda are definitely living by their strapline ‘Impossible is nothing’ when they pulled this one out of the bag. It’s a wonderful ad, it’s got passion, determination and drama. It puts the recent trend in viral towards fakery a la Kobe Bryant to shame.
I can’t quite identify the brand on this one but it’s a wonderfully simple and racy little concept that I’m sure many can identify with. Not me of course.
I’ve noticed a trend towards very amusing blogs that point out failure and inadequacy in their subjects. Here’s a couple that have cropped up recently.
Really Good Images - All of the cheesiest stock photography you would never pay for. The kind of stuff they can’t give away.
The FAIL Blog - This has to be the funniest of them all. Simply put they are just photographs pointing out abject failures.
PhotoShop Disasters - Incredible feats of anatomical inaccuracy, it’s like a freak show
There’s a million more, I know there is. Add your cruel blogs to the comments.
Here’s something interesting if you’re of a planning persuasion. It’s called BrandTags and it take adjectives that relate to brands and displays them as a tag cloud. It’s a wonderful little idea based on the premise that brands are nothing but the words we use to describe them. It’s certainly the start of something every interesting. The way the chap has built it right now is just displaying them as tag clouds, which isn’t all that helpful given that you have to scroll for miles. I can very much see this being opened up with an API to allow people to build new and exciting interfaces for it such as bubble charts etc. I could also see him doing something like LoveMarks where it could become a kind of WikiPedia-for-brands-meets-Facebook. This information could even be connected to your Attention Profile in some manner.
They did that wicked video with Chachi from the Happy Days years ago. Well, they’ve pulled together all the greatest virals of the last few years and made a video. It’s on 4m views itself right now. Wonderful.
While on the subject of innovative videos, here’s one from Manchester band The Get Out Clause who performed their video in front of CCTV cameras around the city. They then wrote to the people responsible for the cameras for a copy under the Freedom of Information Act. Apparently they did it this way because they they couldn’t afford a camera. It’s amazing how creative you can become when you’re on the dole.
Ok, so if we’re going to talk about innovation, let’s talk about RATATAT. The tune is on repeat on my headphones and the video is an absolute delight.
Oh, what’s that? You say you want more innovation. Ok, this has nothing to do with bands and stuff but the execution on this one is ace plus the soundtrack is killer.
You want more? What!? Haven’t you got work to do? Ok, check this one out, it’s a demonstration at TED by Microsoft of their completely ridiculous technology that allows you to mash together thousands of photographs together into a 3d view while being completely lightweight. No doubt they wont ever release it because it is simply far too cool for normal people.
I’m not going to link to the video of Kobe Bryant jumping over a pool of snakes because it’s just plain stupid. Get back to work you.