Viral marketing refers to a specific kind of marketing technique. It creates a situation where potential customers pass along some information about a company, services or products. It doesn't have to be precise information, it can be co-called building brand awareness i.e. creating desired associations with the company's name or logo.

Examples of viral marketing include: funny or intriguing video clips, advertising photos (often made to look like quasi-amateur photos) that the Internet users pass along. Additionally, one may use rumours or create some trends, urban legends that are spreading among potential customers to increase brand awareness and to create a symbolic product of high quality, a status of a symbol, or quite the opposite, they can ruin the product's reputation.

Another marketing trick is to give away valuable information which contains a more or less subtle advertising message. For example, a margarine producer may publish cookbooks with cake recipes in which an ingredient of every recipe will be the margarine produced by the publisher of the cookbook. aim of this is to encourage people to pass along the recipes ' unintentionally, with the name of the advertising producer.

It requires a lot of linguistic subtlety to coin such an advertising slogan, phrase or saying that in a provocative manner becomes part of the colloquial language (e.g. "Don't live a little, live a lotto", "I'M LOVIN' IT!", "Just do it", "Have a break have a kitkat").

Viral marketing may also rely on encouraging people to consciously inform their friends about certain products or services. Common methods include: putting appropriate scripts on the websites, "recommendation" competitions or rebates, etc.

The principles of viral marketing can be endless, also because one of them says: be original. Below you will find the most important rules.

Principle 1. Give your customer a good laugh.

There is something in people that they love being entertained. This tendency doesn't depend on age and is typical for the majority of people. When planning viral marketing, try to see your product in the funniest situation. The product itself doesn't have to be funny in order to be presented in a funny way. Think about situations when customers would like to use your service or product. If you managed to think up an entertaining absurd situation, you have the first candidate for your viral.

Principle 2. If you can, make use of pictures and sound.

Nowadays the copywriter has an effective tool in the form of the Internet. Once upon a time (which means not very long ago...) viral marketing was based mainly on gossip and stories spread by word of mouth. At present the role of the channel for information transmission was taken by the Internet. Apart from the content we may transfer pictures and sound. What do you need to create a video for viral's purposes? Just three things: a camera with USB cable to transfer your video to the computer, a computer with the appropriate software and the logins for websites allowing video presentation, such as YouTube.

Principle 3. Choose children, animals, attractive people or individuals to be your actors.

If in your viral marketing video there are to be actors, let it be children, animals, attractive people or people with a "characteristic" appearance. Children themselves can be sweet and funny, animals as well (dogs, cats), that's why the desired funny character of your video will be intensified by the actors.

Principle 4. Be shocking.

If you can't present something in an objective funny way, try to shock the person who receives your message. Bear in mind that the majority of people's activities cause fear. You may consider showing people what happens to those who don't make use of your products or services. These types of ideas are often used in advertisement concerning the promotion of road safety.

Principle 5. Pretend that the advertisement was made by the Internet users without you knowing about it.

If you have some official advertisements, try to make its "other versions" - more funny, more shocking, and put them on the net. At the same time, deny that you are the author of the videos.

Copyright (c) 2008 Adam Nowak