Archive for the ‘Viral Marketing’ Category

It’s sad really, that anyone even considered for a second that Larry Flynt might be serious when he discussed the government bailing out the porn industry. Despite the ridiculous bail out mania that we seem to be in, even our almost useless congress (with an approval rating hovering below 15%) would not be moronic enough to approve that sort of thing. Flynt knew that he never had even the slightest shred of hope that he would see any money from the government. His intent wasn’t to get a hand out, even though he still claims that he’s serious. It was to generate massive publicity without spending much money, and at that, he was massively successful. As soon as the story began spreading around, everyone took it at face value, including reporters (who seem reluctant to actually check facts...

Viral marketing is a term that describes a form of marketing that grows exponentially, much like a virus. Examples of this can be seen in Hotmail? and Napster? who’s early (and very passionate) users told people about the service, who in turn told more people about the service. This continued, resulting in explosive growth for both of these companies. For a marketing technique to grow with viral characteristics it has to be something that people would be willing, or more importantly, passionate about telling other people about. It can take the form of humor, as seen in the rapid exposure created by JibJab’s animated movies , controversy as seen in the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, or even by providing a free service as seen in Google’s Blogger , a free blog hosting service.