Tag: Viral

  • 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?

  • Branded Spikes

    While waiting for the cognitive teardown of the immensely viral Kolaveri (like this Angry Birds one) in the form of either ‘What we can learn from’ or ‘How to craft videos like’ posts and also wondering how long it would take my Twitter timeline to move back from RIP to make-fun-of when a celebrity dies, I read this very interesting post titled “The New Patterns of Culture: Slow, Fast & Spiky” (via)

    It offers fantastic perspectives on creation and consumption patterns of culture, and digital’s weighty role in the changes being wrought. The limited ‘spotlight’ options of an earlier era (mainstream media) now have to co-exist with platforms and mechanisms that are open to most. ‘Scale is no longer a guarantee of stability.‘ Consequently, attention is the more coveted prize. Another related phenomenon is that ‘Change no longer happens all at once for everyone‘. I remembered ‘IsItOld‘ when I read this. 🙂 I sense quite a few concepts agglomerating here. Small ideas, which I haven’t written about for a while now, and transmedia storytelling, for starters, and a reversal of polarity. (the last via Neil Perkins post, linked to earlier)

    Brands have always been using popular culture. One brand that I can immediately think of is Amul, and yet, I almost missed their Kolaveri ad. (via) Yes, not the greatest, but decent. The point here is that while they got the creation right, the distribution is still iffy. And that’s another challenge. Popular culture is more complex than ever before. With the abundance of content and platforms, keeping a watch on the long tail of culture, prioritising according to the audience-fit and then distributing it is not going to be an easy task.

    I have always liked (and hence, borrowed with credit in presentations) the analogy of bonfires and fireworks to social media and advertising. (respectively) The implications of this are not just in standard brand advertising but also in branded content. Brands now have to think of how the long-term story and the spikes can work together and ideally, complement each other, even while figuring out what role advertising and branded content play in each. Despite the seeming fit of social media to spikes, I wonder whether we will, in the medium term, see a role reversal – ‘mass’ media providing spikes and the internet dealing with the long term story, before settling into shared roles.

    until next time, get a spike mike

  • Fooling around

    Other than the regular dose of pranks that say, the print medium does, the digital medium is also becoming quite a treasure trove. The stuff thats being done on print is becoming quite stale which its bound to be since people are expecting a prank, so its really a creativity or more aptly an imagination issue, and since today’s papers leave very little to it……. (Incidentally, Bangalore Times attempted a Saif-Bebo marriage prank, which, during the day became a confirmed fact. To asli fool kaun hain?)Before we get to the point, here are a few links –  this is a very good take and this and this, i’m sure are pranks, though one can never be sure with these guys.

    Now, i got mails from two digital entities on this auspicious day. One was from Contests2Win and the other from Times Jobs. Going by past records, I would’ve expected C2W’s efforts to easily upstage those of Times, who except for the ‘upload CV directly from the banner’ ad have not done anything spectacular. But i was in for a surprise, but I’ll let you judge. This is the C2W video – Ravan ki Kahani, and this is from the Times – Foolmaal.

    Ravan ki Kahani took potshots at everyone’s favourite target – Rakhi. It was exactly what they wished – a very stupid April Fool’s day, though i wonder if they really wished for that. The problem was that there was no context, perfectly valid on the day, if the work itself attempted to fool you, and the end result was the context, but this was just an almost funny video, but yes, they did make an effort, there are loads of entities who didn’t even attempt. Incidentally it is also “Today’s Top Video” on Rediff’s iShare. Definitely not bad publicity 🙂

    Foolmaal is based on the old Golmaal *ing Utpal Dutt and Amol Palekar. In this take UD tries to fool AP in many ways on April 1st using income tax raids, throwing a belt and screaming ‘snake’ among other things. AP doesn’t fall for any, and when UD screams at him in frustration, he shows him his salary cheque and says ‘what to do, sir, ever since i’ve started working in your organisation, being a fool has become a habit’. The execution has been done very well with the voices and character expressions mimicked very well. More importantly, it ties in extremely well with the ‘Stuck in a low paying job’ communication line that Times Jobs is following. The context is there, the humour is good, and the characters are ones which have already stayed in your memory for sometime. Even if you are not Bollywood lovers, and dont know the characters, the humour still works, though at a layer lower. But for a nation obsessed with Bollywood, its a safe bet. And thats why i think its a great effort from Times Jobs.

    until next time, foolfilled 🙂

  • Knowing the Pulse

    Saw the new Bajaj Pulsar ad? I did too, and exept for the music, it didn’t do too much to me. So i asked a few guys who like bikes how they felt about the ad. And they all seemed to love it, and hence the post.

    Pulsar will never get my attention, only because i am not interested in bikes, but for its target audience, I think it has done a remarkable job. I did a quick google for their website, and found it quite easily, the video is available for download. Good. But what’s great is that they have loaded the video on YouTube and has (the last time i checked) got almost a lakh views.

    Why is it great? Because these are not people who are forced to see it on television because they couldn’t find the remote in time (or are too lazy to flip the channel), these are people who have actively searched for it and then, maybe even forwarded it to their friends. There will also be people like me who went to see where that neat soundtrack came from.

    So, the cynic asks, will it actually sell more bikes, especially if the crowd is made up of people like me you who go there to get a soundtrack. Yeah, i still wouldn’t buy it, but I’d rave about the ad to a dozen friends, I will post about it here (even though this is hardly read 🙂 ), and the bikers who don’t know about this will know about it, and when they consider a bike change (maybe this will make them), they will remember the ad. The price, the mileage, the chips inside, all can be shared through the brochure, but not the soul and passion, and thats where I think, the ad scores. Because the rest have become a commodity, that creates a differentiation. Its a good lesson on how social media/web 2.0 can work for ‘even’ bike companies.

    And they are right, this is how virals get made, sorry happen.

    until next time, pulsating

  • Kkyunki Everyone is Doing It

    So if I’m a good brand manager, I should be doing a viral too, that seems to be the rationale behind virals these days. I’d written about it a few days back.

    What provoked this post was the latest viral from (nah, you go see it and come back, then we’ll talk). Ok, lazybones, i know you didnt click, now how is the damn viral supposed to work if you don’t!!!

    Anyway, Bingo and i share a dislike for the same thing, the thing which has joined the elite club that until now only had Bollywood and Cricket – Balaji Productions. I got to know of this viral through a mail from Ekta Kopper with a subject line ‘Kyunki is Bache ka Baap kaun hai”. And before you do my character assassination mentally, I dont like oats, wild or otherwise. But it was still a neat hook 🙂

    And thus it was that i landed up at this c2w creation, which is a spoof on any of the gazillion soaps from Ek Tha Kapoor, complete with a five digit episode number, bahus and a tulsi lookalike. (damn, i let it slip that i watch the soaps :|) . The good part is that the spoof is done well, and the funda of the flavor (achaari masti) has a synergy with that of the TVC – i.e. best way to confirm pregnancy, but…..

    It has a predictable ending albeit a cute one, but more importantly, does it make the viral cut? Only time will tell. I admit its way more VFM than shooting a 30 lakh TVC, but then they’re doing a TVC anyway. Meanwhile, full marks to the Bingo guys for trying. Even their ‘Mad Angles’ TVCs actually broke the clutter, me thinks. Also, they’re genuine in their web efforts (this was an earlier one- http://www.bingeonbingo.com/login/login.asp)

    until next time, what’s the programme now? 😉