Viral Marketing

Ted Mininni has dipped his hand in the proverbial hot pot that is coffee culture, all because of a successful McDonald's campaign which is challenging now "traditional" coffee culture.

Consider Mininni's reaction to a recent McDonald's ad,
A recent TV ad spot caught my eye, and I have to admit, it made me chuckle. Scene: two average guys are sitting in a highly cultured cafe savoring cappuccinos. One is poring over a book. He sports an arty goatee. The other has a dark turtleneck sweater on with a properly knotted scarf. Both are wearing glasses. This is gravitas. . .
Then, one friend asks the other: “Did you hear McDonald's has cappuccinos now?"
"McDonalds?" the other repeats.
"Yeah."
That's awesome.

Stan Schroeder of Mashable is suspicious: "I’ve been following the Christian-Bale-angry-rant meme very closely since the first time I heard of it, and something doesn’t feel right."

Basically, for Schroeder, everything fits too nicely. He wonders how there could be such high quality audio and video, dubbed video even, of this incident. Moreover, the event was then pored over by thousands on the myriad of social networking sites.

Schroeder adds that in the past, it was relatively easy to spot fabricated attempts at corporate viral marketing. But, is Christian Bale outburst this something better? He is not yet implicating Hollywood for this incident, but he is pointing out the strong possibility of such an occurrence in the future.

It's may seem a familiar platitude of late, but it remains ever true: "All media is social, all social is media."

We tell you this because Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion has provided some concrete numbers that help put this now commonplace analysis of the online media world into a quantitative perspective:

"Consider that in 2008 some 58 percent of newspapers featured some form of user-generated content on their sites, according to the Bivings Group. This is up from just 24 percent in 2007. The mix includes: user-generated photos (58 percent), homegrown video (18 percent) and articles (15 percent). Meanwhile, the number of newspaper sites that are allowing readers to comment on articles has more than doubled to 75 percent.

Financial Times columnist Emma Jacobs does not bemoan the fact that her fellow Britons are not creating an overabundance of "why-me" blogs. Jacobs realizes that where there may be a dearth of quantity, there is no shortage of quality.

The latest viral internet sensation in Britain is an anonymous letter written to Sir Richard Branson himself, chairman and czar of Virgin [and for the purposes of the letter, Virgin Atlantic Airways]. The hilarious note (read the letter here) complains about the utter lack of food quality on a Virgin Atlantic flight from Mumbai to London.

The first ever Voscars, or Virgin Mobile Oscars has deemed "In My Pants," a Saturday Night Live Justin Timberlake, Molly Simms & Jamie Lynn Sigler spoof the best viral video campaign of 2008.

Maybe it's just a "sign of the times" that viral videos are now graded with the same ceremonial intensity as actual feature length films.

We'd simply like to point out another clever WOMM campaign, this time from Puma who is celebrating their 60th anniversary. Great WOMM campaigns are as much about the consumer as they are about the product (if not that much more heavily weighted towards the consumer), and Puma understands this completely with their throwback to 60 years of bad hairstyles.

"Bowl cut or beehive?

WOMMA member company, House Party, conducted more than 50,000 parties across the country in 2008, and as a result, connected with more than 50 million consumers through direct and viral communication. House Party specializes in engaging select groups of consumer advocates to host in-home events, where a brand or product is at the center of the party.

Whopper lovers and Facebook freeloaders alike are mad as heck. Just eight days into the blogosphere-infamous "Whopper Sacrifice" campaign — in which Facebookers were encouraged to dump 10 "friends" for a free-Whopper coupon — the Burger King application unceremoniously ceased to function. To the dismay of Burger King, Facebook modified the "Whopper Sacrifice" application so that the dropped friends no longer received the memo that they’d been axed from a friend hoard in favor of fast food, thus leading Burger King to stop the app altogether.

First of all, we just need to point out that "I Get on the TTC," a piece by a rappers duo from Toronto about the venerated and oft-criticized transit system, is a great song.

Secondly, it's essential to add that in the past, many organizations like the TTC have responded to such "fan" videos terribly. Thankfully, the TTC did not miss the boat here, and did not issue a cease and desist letter, or try to invalidate the rappers in any way.

In fact, the duo even got a call from Toronto official and were honored by Toronto Mayor David Miller, along with January Metropasses.

In a recent plan submitted to Congress, GM stated that it would concentrate on "four core brands," Buick, GMC, Chevrolet, and Cadillac.

The hitch in the plan for many is this leaves out Pontiac, Saab, Hummer, and Saturn.

Not ready to roll over, Saturn fans have launched an online WOM campaign to save their favorite cars, replete with over 2,500 Saturn fanatics posting their vehicle photographs on SaturnFans.com. Their campaign seems to be working, as we found this article on CNN, and it even includes an audio slideshow with interviews with Saturn fans.

The Oakland Press of Oakland County, Michigan has announced the formation of The Oakland Press Institute for Citizen Journalism. In starting The Oakland Press Institute for Citizen Journalism, the paper is attempting to tap into the power of “participatory journalism” as a means of improving their bread-and-butter franchise of local news and sports coverage.

JCPenny's stunningly hilarious new advertisement for "staying out of the doghouse" is an official viral video success. We always prefer to show the reason why an online video became so popular, than to harp on the reasons why it did not.

With that in mind, we'll direct you towards Advertising Age's key points on why "The Doghouse" has becoming such a rousing viral triumph.

* "Hint: It's Not Because I Got a Press Release for It"
* "Note to agencies -- none of the e-mails from friends and acquaintances had the subject line 'New viral campaign launches next week.' "
* I actually was interested in seeing whose ad it was and what they were selling. That's not something that happens every day. But I certainly never expected JCPenney Jewelry to be the creator -- or to be so hip.

In 2008, more ad agencies, businesses, and non-profits used Web 2.0 tools as a way to build community and relationships, cross promote products and issues, and integrate their online and offline marketing strategies. But the topic everyone wants to know about is what will happen in 2009. So what should be on your Web 2.0 radar for 2009?

Several weeks ago David Armano of Critical Mass had his boyhood dream come true: a ride in the world-famous Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. According to Dave, we can all learn something from his cruise on the rolling sausage. It's an object that connects people, gets them talking and, more importantly, gets them sharing stories.

Tough economic situations call for the proverbial tightening of the marketing belt. With that in mind, we'd like to provide a helping hand and direct you to a digital library of video footage, available for free at Internet Archive. With everything from old concerts (the Grateful Dead graces the Internet Archive's homepage today), old movies and even audio recordings, the plethora of free media is sure to help reign in spending costs.