JSJD2: Research into viral ads

Research into viral ads

Viral advertising spreads messages, ideas and associations about a brand quickly, commonly using digital technology – in many ways viral advertising relies on the consumer to pass on information with the producer either seeding videos via YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or on many other interactive digital platforms with the consumer at the point, knowingly or unknowingly spreading the communication – viral advertising spreads like a cold virus, often quickly and efficiently affecting a large number of people. With advertising, even a negative reaction to a brand communication is considered to be impacting on a potential consumer in as much they have remembered the brand. I can remember many awful adverts from years ago for brands whose name I can remember, the visual images of which I can still see in my minds eye I the same way I can remember many of the viral ‘mash-ups’ of the Cadbury’s Gorilla advert from 2007.

Viral marketing creates ‘excitement’ and anticipation using spontaneous peer-to-peer brand marketing and can also include SMS text messages, email as well as an integrated interactive online campaign. Typically viral advertising has lower production values than traditional, ‘above the line’ audio-visual and print advertising but must look credible enough to establish connotations of brand identity through house style e.g. use of characters, typography and font, diegetic and non diegetic sound, graphics etc. Viral advertising is seen as highly profitable because it has lower production values and can reach a wide audience in a very short space of time – it can also be focused and easily controllable in terms of platforms and timescales. Often viral advertising is also used to kick start a campaign with ideas about a brand spread, deliberately with the intention of creating narrative enigmas – consumers that do not understand what they see and question in terms of content are that little bit nearer to being consumers of the brand, as in the Compare the Market long running advertising campaign. This early content can be planted in blogs, articles or message board postings for example to generate ‘buzz’ and are rarely focused on the brand itself, more the ‘product image’.

Product image are the associations consumers (or potential consumers) make with a piece of creative advertising, however abstract e.g. using the examples above, what has a gorilla and a meerkat directly got to do with a chocolate bar or an insurance price comparison website? Creativity and simplicity is the key on behalf of the advertiser (producer) to obtaining success – get the message across swiftly. Famously in 2000 Hotmail went from next to nobody to 30 million users with the viral email advert: “Get your own free email at hotmail.com” in the early days of internet digital technology. Market research into viral advertising suggests that the top 5 reasons for passing a communication on is: