RE: UKNM: Viral Marketing

[Ben Hunt]

>> But 'self-perpetuating' IS the definition of viral.

>> It's the whole point of the Meme bit of 'The Selfish Gene'  [Tim]


Aye - it also <reproduces>


With an ad campaign, you know how many people will probably see the ad,

there are stats to tell you how many motorists will notice a billboard, how

many copies of a publication are purchased month by month, how many viewers

will sit through an ad slot in a TV programme, how many impressions a banner

ad will get on a particular site.... and you pay for the numbers. It's nice.

You know what you're getting, and you pay accordingly.


With a direct mail publication/CD-ROM/leaflet/magazine/branded rubber

toy/mousemat/etc., you know how many you are making and more or less how

many people will get it. And you pay accordingly.


With a web site or email, you don't know in advance how many people will

experience your product, they reproduce, in slightly different ways.


An email message is reproducing because it gets sent from person to person

to group.


A web site can be viewed by almost any number of people from thousands of

different audiences, it's not broadcast like TV or fixed distribution like

publications/printed things. The way people view it is by a)guessing the

URL, or far more often b)following a link.

Links are reproducible. I follow maybe 15 links contained in email messages

per day, I ignore maybe 3 ICQ links to porn (or equivalent) sites per week,

I follow maybe a hundred links between web sites a week. There's almost no

limit to the propagation of links. That's how web sites reproduce, cos they

don't have a solid form and are not time-based, they're only in existence

when they're *viewed*. So when I see an interesting site and email/ICQ the

URL to our teams and colleagues in other agencies, I'm propagating the life

cycle of a web site. Every viewing of a page is a new instance of it, that

can co-exist in time and space with other instances. M'kay?


So, when you release a 'viral marketing campaign', you unleash an object

that you may (or may not) expect to reproduce. It will follow a lifecycle.

First, it will spread through the most suitable and eager population

(sub-cultures, particular social groups). Then it will rage through

densely-populated communities of similar hosts (similar

interests/culture/technology), the general public. Eventually, it will reach

more remote, slow-moving populations, and may survive there for a while,

possibly undergoing occasional revivals when it has more or less died out in

its other environments, once it's expired from 'my cool links' or been

archived on the email server. Duh, it's a virus.


: )b


Ben Hunt

Producer of Occasional Bollocks

Poulternet

ben [dot] huntpoulternet [dot] com

www.poulternet.com

0113 383 4200

direct: 285 6469



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