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Sometimes you have to do something jarring or unusual to get noticed. Sometimes you can’t wait for something magical to happen. You have to take matters into your own hands and stage an event. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t:

7 Viral Videos You Didn’t Know Were Staged
This article exposes the truth about some well known viral videos. It has some great footage of how these “fake” videos were made.

Firefox Marketing Campaign Goes Too Far
During a recent viral marketing campaign Mozilla did a statistical comparison between Firefox and Internet Explorer users. Unfortunately, some of their stats tried to convince us that we’re less likely to get Cancer if we use Firefox.

To get noticed, marketers occasionally push the limits of widely accepted social standards. Sometimes, things backfire.

Although this footage of how Pauly Shore made his video is successful in its own right. Hmmm. That’s one way to give a campaign new legs.

Is ‘viral marketing’ just a fancy new way of saying ‘word of mouth’?

If you think that these two terms are interchangeable, you’re not alone. There are a lot of smart people that would back you up. However, there are also talented folks who would argue the other side.

In a recent blog entry, Seth Godin does a great job distinguishing between the two terms. If you’re not sure how these two concepts differ, his article should shed some light.

(photo credit: Franco Folini)

Are you having trouble coming up with a killer viral marketing campaign? Perhaps you can do what The Bargain Queen is doing. They are asking other people to do it for them.

If you think you have what it takes to create a winning viral marketing campaign, the Queen wants to hear from you. They are holding a contest to find the best viral marketing idea for their website. The prize is one funky new iPod Touch. Check it out

(via Crap Hammer)

Clarity is Key for Viral Activity
Here’s a great article on the importance of clarity when designing a viral marketing campaign. Sometimes, as marketers, we can get a bit too creative for our own good.

Photo credit: jeffhurlow

Pew Internet has released a study on how people view and share online videos. There’s some interesting statistics within this report. More than half of online video viewers share links with others and the average online video viewer consumed more than two video streams per day. Check it out

Whether you’re developing a microsite or a simple magazine ad there are three questions you should always ask your creative team/agency:

Why Stop
What’s going to make someone stop and look at the ad?

Why Continue
What’s going to make someone explore the ad?

Why Act
What’s going to make someone take action?

After asking these questions, don’t be afraid to act like a two year old and follow up with a “why”.

Photo credit: stevegatto2

Recently, CommunityNext held a viral marketing conference called Viral! From Zero to 10 Million Users.

I wasn’t able to attend this event; however, thanks to the Internet, I’ve been able to experience all the marketing goodness through other people’s blogs:

Emergence Media
Summarizes the conference’s themes and general information about widgets, Flickr, and 4 lessons from Keith Rabois.

Digital Musings
5 takeaway points from the “Online Communities To a Million and Beyond” session.

Meta Muse
9 takeaway point and a link to an article on why PR doesn’t work (conference session).

Lightspeed Venture Partners
5 lessons from the conference.

Daniela Barbosa
Numerous viral marketing tips and some insight from Dow Jones.

TINEyboppin
Christine Songco shares 4 things that she learned at the CommunityNext conference.

Let me know if you’ve blogged about this event, and I’ll add you to this list.

Photo credit: photo of Dave McClure taken by TedRheingold

AT&T recently launched a new service that allows people to send a live video from one cell phone to another.

This got me thinking. With cell phone subscriptions numbering in the billions, what would it take to launch the world’s first cell phone distributed viral video? Perhaps a cheaper rate plan?

Dare to dream!

Photo credit: Steven Wilke

A couple of days ago, Advertising Age published an article called What’s Plaguing Viral Marketing, which discusses professor Watts’ research on viral marketing. According to Watts, marketers and books like “The Tipping Point” rely too much on influencers to trigger big change.

Mr. Watts argues that influencers have little impact beyond their own immediate neighborhood. As a result, marketers should target large numbers of easily influenced people. He calls this technique big-seed marketing (the rest of us call it mass marketing).

Although, I still don’t see the need for a new term like big-seed marketing, I think Mr. Watts brought up a few interesting point worth exploring. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not the first person to say this, but I think it’s worth repeating. If your product or idea is not remarkable, don’t expect it to do remarkable things. You must find a way to stand out, be different and unique.

As marketers, we often tend to gravitate toward the familiar. We mimic and reproduce past examples of success. Why? It feels safer, reassuring, and comfortable; however, this seldom produces remarkable results.

The next time you develop a viral campaign, ask yourself if it is truly remarkable. Why is it viral worthy?

Photo by: CarbonNYC