Digital media is the most fascinating thing. Moving so fast that no one can keep up, yet being so ubiquitous – and so essential to modern business – that no one can afford to admit they don’t really get it.
Some claim that digital media (we can’t really call it ‘new’ any longer) has revolutionised marketing, while others note that it’s just another platform and the fundamentals remain unchanged.
Whatever the truth, there can be little doubt that the parameters have shifted and that marketers are presented with greater opportunities to reach their audience, greater ways in which to track campaigns and greater difficulty in keeping ahead of the game.
In all of this furore, businesses are struggling to keep up with developments. SMS, MMS, Mpg, Jpg, WAP, 3G, Bluetooth, Podcasts, Blogs, email marketing, banner ads, clickthrough rates, stickiness, hover-time, dwell time… chances are that you recognise most of these terms, chances are you think you understand them, chances are you don’t. Or, at least, your assumptions differ from those of your colleagues.
The same is true of viral marketing.
Simple concept
In its most basic sense, viral is easy to understand. After all, we all understand how a virus works.
Much like the common cold, a viral marketing campaign is self-propagating. It exploits existing communities and networks to increase itself exponentially; spreading its message rapidly and as as quickly as possible.
In marketing terms, the carrier of the virus is word-of-mouth. The speed and accessibility of the Internet, email and digital communication creates the ideal climate in which these viral campaigns can spread.
But start to drill down and there are fundamental differences of opinion as to how viral can work in B2B. Even with such a nascent technique, or perhaps because it is so new, there is little agreement as to the application, the execution and the effectiveness of viral campaigns.
Application of viral
As with most new trends and techniques, it was the bigger budgets and aspirational brands of B2C that first took to viral. In 2000, John West Tuna had a viral hit on its hands when its ‘Bear’ advert went online at www.adcritic.com and received in the region of 15 million hits.
This wasn’t the first example of viral techniques being used, but it was one of the highest profile and most successful. Since then numerous B2C executions have appeared and almost all follow the same basic idea: create a hook using either humour, fun or a compelling offer that is so unique or exciting that people will want to send it on to their friends, thus creating widespread exposure.
However, despite the apparent success of B2C, uptake has not followed in B2B. “You get the feeling that B2B brands are still feeling their way,” says Tim Gibbon, director of Elemental PR. “I really can’t think of any good examples of viral in B2B.”
Richard Bush, director at Base One, agrees. When pushed to recall just one viral campaign executed by a B2B brand, he fails. “I’m a senior decision maker and yet I have never seen one campaign in my inbox. That says a lot.”
Bush thinks his experience is borne out across the sector. “I imagine that if we were to survey other senior decisions makers, they would report the same. That shows the potential opportunity. If just one B2B brand would take the plunge and be brave they would get noticed.”
Here’s the first conundrum of viral marketing. Agencies love it. They extol the virtues of viral, claiming it enables cost effective marketing, can offer great brand exposure, is trackable and easily measured. So why the lukewarm response from B2B brands?
Fear to tread
One of the barriers appears to be viral’s dependence on humour, shock tactics, or as Matt Butterworth, director at Folk, prefers, ‘the unexpected.’ These are the words that get B2B brands worried.
“I think viral has to be unexpected, rather than just humourous. If it’s funny, that’s great, but what relevance does it have?” asks Butterworth. The question of relevance is key. Many B2B brands are inherently more conservative than their B2C cousins and feel the use of ‘the unexpected’ does not sit well with their core values.
“As an agency working with B2B clients, we feel this tension between our clients’ brand values and the use of viral,” says Sarah Charlton, creative director at Moonfish. “Clients are worried about the risk, but I would never advocate my clients play it safe. You’re trying to reach someone at work but they still have a life. Brands should try to entertain, provide something with cut through. Irrespective of whether they’re at work or not, people will still find things funny.”
How great a risk does viral really pose? Why should the prospect of a self-propagating campaign be any more buttock-clenching than DM, print or sponsorship?
“Viral campaigns are like betting,” says Bush. “The more you gamble and the higher the odds, the more you stand to win. But there’s also the potential to lose big. This is why so few B2B brands have done it wholeheartedly and therefore haven’t seen the benefits.”
But the risks Bush talks about are only evident if a successful campaign (ie. one that spreads like the plague) isn’t targeted and doesn’t fit with the brand values.
Imagine if the RNIB sent around an Mpeg of a blind person walking into a lamppost. It might be funny and have shock value and therefore be spread widely, but it won’t do the RNIB any favours.
However, if the campaign is targeted, relevant and fits brand values, any harm is minimised. If your campaign works, lots of people get to see a relevant message. If it fails, no one passes it on, no one sees it, and your brand has been exposed to minimal danger.
Balancing act
The hardest thing to nail when executing a viral campaign is achieving the right balance between brand profile and effective hook.
By its very nature, viral has to feel less like a corporate message than something compelling and worth sending to friends and colleagues. A funny clip, a great offer, an addictive game are all well and good, but you’re unlikely to pass it on if it’s heavily tattooed with the corporate logo.
Push the brand too hard, and the viral campaign crumples beneath its weight. Be subtle with the branding, have a killer hook, and the brand risks being submerged. This is never more apparent than when peddling humour.
“One of the biggest dangers in viral is that the hook can be so effective, the humour so funny, that you remember the execution but not the brand,” claims Butterworth.
But humour isn’t the only hook by which a viral campaign can work. In fact humour is what those B2C boys like to use – it’s easy to see why, humour often more closely fits FMCG and aspirational brands – but that doesn’t mean it’s always right for B2B.
What is it good for?
But all of this is to assume that B2B brands should be using viral techniques in the first place. And the jury’s still out on that issue.
For starters, there is disagreement as to what ends viral best serves: Brand building? Lead generation? Building databases? Product launches?Equally, is viral most effective as a standalone or as part of a larger, integrated campaign?
Charlton argues for the use of viral as part of an integrated campaign. “If we’re creating something quite tactical, where we’re looking to influence the bottom line, we would always advocate integrating viral into a bigger campaign. I suppose doing a standalone is perfectly fine when launching a product.”
Conversely, Bush sees greater results from viral as a standalone. “Often viral only works by itself. Because of the way in which you put the message across in a viral campaign, it simply wouldn’t work in a print ad or a DM piece. This is unique to B2B, because I actually think when you’re working with B2C brands, viral work is a very effective extension to the larger strategy.”
Bush reckons viral is ill suited for lead generation, “best suited for brand recognition” and less effective at recall, due to recipients “passing the message on so quickly”.
Butterworth is even more focused: “Within B2B, viral is all about brand building. It’s not about anything else.”
Square pegs, round holes
Bush claims there are many B2B brands that are simply unsuited to viral. “One of our clients is the London Stock Exchange. You wouldn’t expect them to run a viral campaign, it just wouldn’t work. Brands are more conservative in B2B and are less likely to feel comfortable with viral’s techniques. The consumers of these brands are also less likely to be comfortable with such work.”
Butterworth is unrepentant though and argues with conviction that – so long as care is taken with the brand – viral can work for anyone. “B2B just hasn’t got it, the marketers always take so long to cotton on. They’re not getting the basic point, that we’re all consumers regardless of what it is we’re consuming. B2B just focuses on product all the time, never the aspirational value of what the product might deliver.”
This debate about the fundamental nature of B2B brands aside, Bush also points out that the size and scope of a B2B brand’s target audience causes serious problems for a viral campaign.
Down but not out
Despite the difficult terrain in which viral currently exists, and the fact that for each person questioned there is a differently take on the subject, viral still has a future.
What these debates – and apparent contradictions – demonstrate is that viral is still in its infancy. It hasn’t been taken up by B2B brands in any significant way and therefore it hasn’t bared its teeth, flexed its muscles and shown what it is capable of.
“What needs to happen for viral to evolve at all is for there to be a few groundbreaking and very successful campaigns that are talked about,” argues Bush. Charlton is cautiously optimistic that viral will tough it out. She agrees that there needs to be some trail-blazing work, and is critical of agencies peddling the line that viral enables everything to be tracked, analysed, tweaked, finely tuned and reported back to the bottom line.
“I think digital makes a rod for its own back,” she says. “It’s given the impression that you can track everything; everything is accountable at every stage. I don’t know that clients can always see clear ROI with viral and that’s what worries them. In B2B tracking through to a sale can be incredibly difficult. There could be a six-month buying cycle, or they may not sell online. Proving viral works can be very tough.”
Viral undoubtedly offers potential for B2B brands, but for it to breakthrough in B2B as it has in B2C, marketers need to step around the hype, tone down the zealous early adopter approach and start demonstrating its power.
As Gibbon says, “to ignore this development is really dangerous. If you’re not already interacting with it you have to make sure you are at least understanding it and getting to grips with how it works.”
Case study: Microsoft’s first viral campaign
OneNote is a note-taking application from Microsoft that allows users to organise and share notes easily on a laptop, desktop or tablet PC. Microsoft appointed MRM Partners to create awareness and desire for OneNote, and to encourage potential customers to download a free trial version.
The challenge was that no-one thinks they need OneNote and that merely selling the benefits of another Microsoft application – however useful – simply wouldn’t work. So the agency decided to dramatise the idea that pen and paper are just not up to the job through the proposition ‘stationery is bad’.
To reach the target audience in their own environment, the first ever Microsoft viral campaign was created – three unbranded, humourous office-based films that vividly demonstrated the point. Viewers were directed to a microsite where OneNote was revealed as the solution, and they were prompted to try OneNote for themselves through a free trial.
The campaign broke new ground for Microsoft and for virals, with its three layers of action rewarding repeat viewing and encouraging forwarding with comments like ‘funny video – watch people in the background, too’, and ‘you’ll never guess who’s at the address at the end!’ Each viral was viewed by an estimated 1.5 million people within a week (100 per cent above the norm). All three went straight to No.1 in the Kontraband chart and received an average 87 per cent rating on boreme.com. Hits to the website were well in excess of target, and 14 per cent of visitors downloaded the trial version.
