02 Dec, 2008
Advertising should be about fun and happiness again
Posted by: Bob Jansen In: advertising
Today Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten wrote an article where he questions the term ‘Viral Marketing’. Normally I’m not that big of a fan about terminology, because it’s something that comes and go. But this time there is a valid point.
The term tossed in by Boris is ‘Reverberating Marketing’. I don’t think it’s catchy or sticky enough. One of the commenter’s tosses in ‘Amplifying Marketing’. That sounds better to me.
It’s within our nature to do everything possible to avoid catching a virus. Besides getting sick when getting a virus, I can’t think of anything positive related to it. On top of that, a virus mutates itself to survive. Quite nasty. Why do marketeers still think that broadcasting is about pushing a message, instead of letting an audience tune in and watch, listen or read it.
In my point of view Marketeers should focus on creating messages that are worth sharing. From time to time we all tell about that one commercial to other people, for example at a party or at lunch. Sadly, good commercials are rare. So it doesn’t happen that often.
Don’t focus on old channels that take loads of your budget. Create a message that is worth sharing and make it available and shareable.
Sounds new? It’s not. Most people will remember sending e-mails with commercials to their friends. Nowadays people put them on YouTube, add them to their profile pages on Social Networks and share them on Twitter.
So use good messages that are sticky within your marketing. Then make them available and watch the crowd within the channel picking them up and amplify your message.
For example: This un-official Zune ‘commercial’ did so much more to me than any of their official commercials. I first saw it on The Next Weblog.
As an Apple enthusiast I never thought of putting anything up about the Zune. I already shared it twice. Now I did it again. Think about it.
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