Are viral effects always effective?

Buzz marketing, permission marketing, viral marketing, one-to-one, word-of-mouth, open source, relationship marketing......All those words. All those concepts.

They are all poised to dethrone advertising from the number one position in marketing and reshape the world of communications. And, in many ways they do. A whole lot of campaigns today contain more than 30-minutes spots and print ads. Specialised buzz and viral consultancies are popping up like mushrooms. We have buzz agents endorsing products they are payed to promote.

In many ways this development is just great. It's time to teach media buyers that there is more than payed media to choose from. And that doesn't always mean publicity.

But. There is a huge misunderstanding to believe normal marketing techniques are dead. Because word-of-mouth isn't an alternative technique. It's an effect. And it's not new, it's older than any other media. The effects has been generated from, among other things, 30-seconds spots, print advertising and publicity. But, as it is word-of-mouth that pretty much always eventually has been what has affected the audience (and not the advertising and publicity directly) it has always taken so much longer time than what the campaign makers have expected. And that has opened up for more direct word-of-mouth techniques.

Moreover, just because people are talking about products, ideas and services doesn't mean they will end upp buying it. There is still difference between effective marketing and marketing that generates effects.

One of the most famous viral campaigns is the Subservient chicken from Burger King. Read Adweeks (Thanks, Constantinos for the link) effort to decide weather the viral success also lead to success in sales. If you don't have time to go through it and still want the answer: It probably was pretty effective.

Comments

[Constantinos]

very nicely said!
great post, let's keep in touch

constantinos