Viral Ads: Effective or Just a Waste of Time and Money?

February 12th, 2008 - Stuart Lisonbee, Content Director

At my previous job, I spent a few years working for a company’s in-house marketing department. I still have a strong interest in marketing, so I tend to try and keep my finger on the pulse of the marketing world. Uh… that and I also work for an online marketing company.

I watch the marketing world closely enough that I actually know some of the various big ad agencies and who they do commercials for. For example, how many people know that it was Crispin, Porter & Bogusky that brought back the Burger King, or that TBWA is the one that makes those whacky Skittles commercials? Well, I do.

Recently Advertising Age, one of the many marketing publications I subscribe to, asked the following in a recent survey:

Do you think viewers remember which brands are advertised in which Super Bowl spots?

I was only allowed to answer yes or no to the question, even though I feel that there are more factors determining whether a commercial is remembered or not than if it airs during the Super Bowl.

Nonetheless, I answered “yes” because I think that if a commercial is done right, even the wackiest Super Bowl ad will strengthen a company’s brand and consumers will remember who the ad is for. My thinking seems to have been in the majority, but only barely. Survey respondents were split nearly straight down the middle.

Although I answered “yes” to this poll, I’ll be among the first to point out that Super Bowl commercials are more likely to have the advertiser forgotten than “regular” commercials. Why?

Well, the Super Bowl has long been celebrated as the most watched event in America, and therefore commands the most expensive airtime for advertisers. As such, advertisers go all out to ensure that their ad stands out from the rest. This has more and more meant creating the craziest, wackiest, most eccentrically zany commercial in an effort to cement a message within the brains of those who view it.

Marketers thus become so involved in creating what they think will be a memorable ad, or trying to create buzz, they forget that the purpose of an ad is to increase sales or strengthen one’s brand. Thus the most memorable part of the ad should be the brand.

Now, if you have a very strong brand you can usually get away with paying less attention to it. Strong brands are already cemented in our minds. That’s why we don’t go to the video rental store, we go to Blockbuster. In the South, people ask for a Coke instead of a soda. We Xerox documents instead of making photocopies. When we bleed we don’t go looking for a bandage, we break out a Band Aid. We blow our noses into a Kleenex, not tissue paper.

Nike can show their swoosh, Intel can play their jingle, Wiley Publishing can flash the black and yellow cover of one of their For Dummies books and consumers will know instantly who the advertiser is.

So what are the rest of us to do if we don’t have that kind of strong brand recognition? When it comes to viral marketing, whether you’re making a game (Burger King’s Sneak King), a video (the Diet Coke and Mentos Experiment), or interactive program (Office Max’s dancing elves), the key is to make sure that you make whatever it is you’re selling the star.

To read a quick case study of Office Max’s viral Christmas elves and to get a few tips for your own viral marketing, read Advertising Age’s They’re the Little Elves That Could.

And don’t forget: one of the best ways to make something viral is to make it fun and zany, but the purpose to viral marketing is to make sales or strengthen your brand.

Agree with me? Disagree? Let your voice be heard.

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