This is another answer split in two. This time the question was "Can you give a few notable examples of a virally powerful message that you’ve seen or heard?" from an interview I did with AllBusiness.com's Chris Bjorkland on The Importance of Viral Marketing. The first part of this answer can be found in Part 4 of this arc.
You'll need to see Thong Ad 1 and Thong Ad 2 to understand what follows (my response is in italics).
Can you give a few notable examples of a virally powerful message that you’ve seen or heard?(continued...) Not just these two ads but the entire sequence and the responses to it are phenomenal examples of how subjective WOM is. I’ve written about the concepts of “Towards” and “AwayFrom” in marketing (see Using Sound and Music on Websites), how certain people psychologically move “towards” a brand, a goal, an offering, whatever, and others psychologically move “away from” these things. WOM is a better demonstration of how closely these two psychologies are than anywhere else, and especially as they manifest on the web because the web is still a solitary experience.
We’re still a culture that defines itself by its bonds, by its tribal and group identities within the greater populaton. Marketers know this as demographics but the people inside those demographics know it as “we’re all Harvard grads” or “I’m a Southern California kind of guy” or “You need to be a workaholic to get ahead here”. There are few people who don’t think of themselves as some element or part of a larger group. These groups can be ethnic, religious, educational, age, gender, or product. (more to follow)
Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.
Links for this post:
- 3 Rules for Creating Buzz
- AllBusiness.com's Chris Bjorklund interviews viral marketing expert Joseph Carrabis, founder of NextStage Evolution, Part 1
- AllBusiness.com's Chris Bjorklund interviews viral marketing expert Joseph Carrabis, founder of NextStage Evolution, Part 2
- AllBusiness.com's Chris Bjorklund interviews viral marketing expert Joseph Carrabis, founder of NextStage Evolution, Part 3
- AllBusiness.com's Chris Bjorklund interviews viral marketing expert Joseph Carrabis, founder of NextStage Evolution, Part 3a
- AllBusiness.com's Chris Bjorklund interviews viral marketing expert Joseph Carrabis, founder of NextStage Evolution, Part 4
- Holmes&Watsons
- Social Networks and Viral Marketing
- Viral Marketing blog posts
- Why Some Viral Marketing Doesn't Work
- Yes, You Can Predict Viral Marketing
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