At the Consumer 2.0 Conference last week I had the pleasure of spending some time with Steve Wax from Campfire. The firm was the subject of a really interesting Fast Company article in November 2006 and I found Steve’s ideas very refreshing.
Campfire – founded by Steve and a few of the guys behind the Blair Witch Project – does these really complex online events/games/virals like Art Of the Heist: Steve made me stop dead in my tracks when he said (roughly) “people have to stop saying they’re going to ‘make a viral video’ because you can’t decide whether it’s going to be viral or not. It’s the same as saying ‘I’m going to write a hit song’ or ‘produce a hit TV show’ – it just doesn’t make sense”.
I’ve always said that viral marketing was the conscious use of word-of-mouth as a marketing tool but I really see Steve’s point. You can try to be viral, but can you really say something “is viral” before it has in fact “gone viral”?
Agreed. It’s a little premature to call something viral before it takes off. We look at http://www.inkisit.com for Kodak as more of a grassroots effort – connecting with people on a more granular level in a fun way about an issue that they all generally feel to be true. They knew going into making Blair Witch that it was going to be a ‘smaller’ movie in terms of budget, scope, scale, etc. Clients use the “viral” moniker in a few ways though – t describe a more lo-fi look and feel and approach, but also to say that they want a grassroots, initially under the radar hit – like Blair Witch, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Little Miss Sunshine, or some of the more classic online ‘viral’ breakout hits. That said, not everything produced in a low-fi manner and distributed in a grassroots manner will become the breakout hit. Hopefully the gods will continue to shine favorably on http://www.inkisit.com for Kodak.
A very good point. From from a budgeting perspective, wouldn’t it be wise to assume that one has to pay for new customers (or whatever the goal look for a way to connect with people in such a way as to inspire word-of-mouth? Or is this being too conservative.