skip to main |
skip to sidebar
A really important distinction passed on from Henry Jenkins:(via Joe Marchese in Mediapost's Online Spin)
People spread viruses by accident. It is not intentional to give someone a cold
When we ask people to spread things on behalf of brands, we aren't trying to trick them. But we need to make sure that they are getting something from it (other then the flu). If you think about telling a joke to your friends, the joke itself isn't important, it is the fact that you are making them laugh. People like to laugh, they look well on people who initiate it. And they re-tell the joke to generate the same social capital
So do we really want campaigns to get 'viral'? Or do we want to not leave it to chance, and create stuff that people want to share?
I've seen loads and loads of media packs over the years. Some I've even downloaded myself because I wanted to read them rather than having them turn up unannounced as an inbox clogging 7mb attachment.
So it was great to meet with GoViral last week and get a beautifully presented coffee table hardback book called The Social Media Metropolis, which didn't really try to sell me any of their services. To be honest, this in itself puts it in the top 1% of ways that media owners communicate with media agencies. When you read the content though, you see that it perfectly embodies what the brand is about, as it is basically an explanation of how the communications landscape has changed from Cluetrain onwards. It uses a few case studies from GoViral's clients, but it doesn't do hard sell. It just explains why. And it takes 120 pages of expensively designed hardback to do so.
And the result....I've read it from cloth covered cover to cloth covered cover. Over the weekend. And taken photos of it.
GoViral's business is all about creating purple cows - remarkable stuff, branded content so good that you want to spend time with it and to tell other people about it. And as they so clearly know what they are doing, they will be my first port of call next content campaign. Only takes one or two campaigns to pay for a hardback media pack.
Pretty bad hey! and to be fair, taken down as soon as CBS realised what had happened. And before the days of 5mb mobile cameras, that would have been that. But it isn't, that wasn't, and this pic became this morning's car crash email. And there's a cynical voice in my head imagining the brainstorm where someone thought they could get away with it all being an unlucky coincidence...."no, CBS rep please take it down as soon as possible it's terrible" (we sent a grad out last night to get a photo).
Result: publicity....
No, marketers aren't that cynical.....
