Month: April 2006

Viral marketing. If the term makes you cringe, you probably work in interactive media. Far too often these days, clients ask us to create campaigns that are “viral,” citing the popularity of applications that, frankly, have gotten old, and praising the apparent ease with which they generate consumer attention.
The more mainstream the concept of viral marketing becomes, the more misguided advertisers’ perception of it. This is largely because the majority of the applications they see weren’t designed for marketing purposes. There’s a lot more to viral success than slapping up a funny tool or glamorous microsite and waiting for it to become the next “Sith Sense”:http://sithsense.com. And there are many more poor attempts out there than worthy endeavours.

So when I come across an effort that is as clever as it is effective from a marketing standpoint, I immediately take note. Last week, I was turned onto Clorox Company of Canada’s new Brita Faucet Filtration System microsite, a companion piece to “the current ad campaign”:http://mail3.mediapost.com/otlbrita.html. Both are based on the concept that “you deserve better” — better water, that is — and remind us that the water we consume within our homes isn’t expressly reserved for this purpose.