Deconstructing a viral

Google’s Project Glass demo was the best product demo I’d ever seen. The sheer possibilities with such a device was amazing, but in essence, it was the theatrics that impressed. Everyone I shared it with shared it on.

It made me think of the concept of a viral. From many murmurs I have heard around me, “Let’s make a viral” has only evolved, not died. The question of what makes a content viral is also asked when 2 or more marketers/social media practitioners are present. I find it a bit ironic that sometimes when ‘virals’ are named, I can’t recollect them. I first thought this was just me, until I figured out otherwise from other blank looks. But that’s not surprising, considering our increasingly fragmented consumption patterns across media platforms.

I realised lately that if reach were the only parameter, then every TVC/newspaper ad, by sheer consumption, is a ‘viral’. So, a necessary caveat is that the reach has to be through peer sharing. But what good is an eminently enjoyable creative if it does zilch for the business? The viral is thus walking that exact balance between entertainment and brand objective. But would our current definition of a viral deem the Project Glass demo a candidate? I don’t think so. Nor would flipping on the Open Graph on a website and allowing multiple contextual actions to go across newsfeeds and Timelines.

And that’s where the evolution is interesting – because technology is slowly moving from being an ‘enabler’ (euphemism for cheap means of distribution – YouTube/Facebook, I always felt) to being the best tool to weave in the brand story, and an inherent part of the experience. It goes beyond just social platforms and into Augmented Reality, NFC and other legacy/new technologies. I saw quite a few examples (via) – Buy the World a Coke, Red Tomato Pizza’s fridge magnet, even Amex-Twitter and one of my favourites for quite a while now – Nike+. Would we call these virals? I don’t know, but they were shared, seen, and tied in neatly with the brand experience. So probably what needs to evolve now is the marketer’s mindset on what he/she defines as a viral. The opportunity and the challenge is that when everyone’s a publisher, the marketer’s real job is to make it more share-worthy – conceptually and practically. That hasn’t changed. 🙂

Since we’re on arguable territory here, do chime in.

until next time, viral ‘producting’ as opposed to viral marketing?