OCTOBER 2001
VOLUME 1, NUMBER 2

HOME
ARCHIVES
SUBSCRIBE
EMAIL EDITOR
SEND TO FRIEND

VIRAL NEWS: Who Gets It & Why Playing Games, By The Numbers Who Gets It & Why Godin gets it. Our industry has fawned over his every word for some time now, so him getting it is not particularly ground breaking news. Yet the degree to which he has gotten it this time is worth a closer look. And also very telling. Realizing a treatise on Viral Marketing should be viral in and of itself, Godin dared the medium to put up or shut up with his free download offering of Unleashing the Ideavirus. Traditional marketers shudder at the thought of selling a physical item alongside its free electronic counterpart. Linear thought demands the free version renders the pay for paper counterpart obsolete. One million downloads later, Godin has shown that it is linear thought that is obsolete in online marketing. Alongside the downloads, the $40 hardback version of the book is #5 on the Amazon bestseller list and foreign rights have been sold in 12 different countries. So why would anyone who has the free digital version want to spend $40 for the hardback version? This is a linear question. The linear answer would be that probably nobody who has the free digital version would want to spend $40 for the hardback version. But we know now this isn't true. The problem with linear thought in online marketing is that it can't properly account for variables like velocity of interest. With every free download Godin isn't giving away a free book as much as he is increasing the velocity of interest in his product for sale, the hardcover book. Velocity of interest exponentially multiplies as the free download is talked about and shared by downloaders themselves on innumerable forums within popular portals as well as through e-mails of recommendation. Such buzz finds its way into news media as blurbs about it begin appearing on trade and affinity portals very popular within their own verticals. The very nature of a download requires a link for it to be downloaded in the first place, so as all these links begin to self-propagate across the internet Godin begins to gain the edge on the search engines as well. Search engines actually account for velocity of interest, although they call it link popularity. The download becomes more and more prominent for relative search terms because the sites that are linking to it are popular, especially when we are talking about those news sites and affinity portals. Iconocast recently reported that a quick Google search turns up 2,400 matches for Godin's coined term, ideavirus. This doesn't happen by accident. Notice it's basically the name of the book he wants to sell. Godin gets it. FURTHER READING: Iconocast Playing Games, By The Numbers In our feature article we posited The Ad as Actor, happily engaged in an interactive drama with a vertical target group community similarly playing their roles. In Immersive Advergaming this community acts out these roles within the arena of the advertiser's benefit arguments, competing against one another for supremacy while e-mailing other colleagues to join in and take their best shot. And no, this is not merely a scene from A.I. We have actually witnessed such an interactive drama playing out over the course of 2001 within the arena of the Immersive Advergame we created for VERADO (VRDO): VERADO, The IT Security Game. 250,000+ IT professionals, VERADO's target group, have downloaded the free game to date and played the role of IT SuperHero, battling an oddball assortment of hackers, crackers, data thieves, corporate spies, and digital phreaks. The roles of the villains are, of course, played by The Ad as Actor. To understand how the arena in which these roles are played out can be constructed from the advertiser's benefit arguments, consider one of our favorite scenarios. As the IT Superhero defending your network bunker you have been battling the spammer's massive onslaught of e-mails flying at you by slinging CD disks at him, attempting to knock him out. This isn't doing the trick and your network is slowing down from the continued attack, so as a last resort you pick up the blowtorch that someone has left on your desk and begin firing. Part of the game's popularity has to do with the fact that it is wackily hyperbolic. Think flaming, the fate of many spammers. What is the spammer's worst nightmare? That's right, getting flamed. The Spammer begins to get fried but before long the sprinkler system kicks in, which damages your data more with each drop of water raining down from the ceiling spigots. The argument, you learn, is that dry fire suppression is critical to escaping data loss in the event of a fire. And VERADO's facilities, of course, incorporate dry fire suppression extensively as a safeguard. Clever benefit arguments like this are buried throughout the game. Thus The Ad as Actor is able to creatively immerse the player in arguments for the advertiser's products and services, subtly educating and pitching along the way. In Immersive Advergames like our example where these arguments serve as wacky antidotes to common industry conceptions (or misconceptions) tuned uniquely and specifically to a vertical target group, a community of collegial competition for supremacy ensues. In our example, over 1,000 high scores have been posted to the Leader Board on the VERADO site in the last three months. Colleagues are e-mailing each other to join in and take their best shot. Dry fire suppression has never been more fun. by VMM Editor

VIRAL FEATURE
Just How Interactive is our Industry, Really?

Think about how many times this has happened in your life.

You're driving down a road, minding your own business, when a billboard ad catches your eye.

The billboard ad uniquely and specifically appeals to you, so you drive off the road, park next to the base of the billboard support, and begin climbing up to its facing.

Once you are at the top, standing on the scaffold footing gazing up at the beloved ad outstretched before you, you begin to interact with the ad itself. Really interact. You form a relationship with the ad, returning for visits day after day, and leave contact information in case the billboard ad wants to get in contact with you in between one of your visits.

If this has never happened to you and you do not know anyone it has ever happened to, it's probably because billboard advertising is not interactive. I'm not slamming the outdoor industry, mind you; the creatives within are severely limited by their own medium and it's simply the truth: billboard advertising is not interactive.

Yet if the billboard industry is not interactive, and we all know this, then why are we in the interactive industry calling our industry interactive when we have been trying our damnedest all along to be the billboard industry, online?

We certainly are not limited by our own medium. It's simply a matter of a creative timewarp.

Sure we've heard tales of television's infancy amounting to nothing more than radio shows piped through the picture tube. We need to allow growing pains for any new medium, and it's always easier to step backward rather than forward.

But it's about time now we took one strong and fateful step forward.

So how do we become interactive, as our name would suggest? Consider again the billboard, which we have used here as a touchstone. In the scenario above, is the person who has formed a personal relationship with the ad there written large more likely to become a buyer than those who simply drive by with a glance?

How many of our banner clickthroughs are merely drive-by glances?

Interactivity, though, is not obtained in the drive-by glance. Interactivity requires two actors, each responding to the other's input. This active and lively exchange leads to a relationship being formed, one which is returned to, and, ultimately, one which is shared with others.

Here we find ourselves in the only medium where the ad itself can assume the role of one of these actors, the consumer the other, and the relationship one that can be passed-along to and replicated by thousands of other consumers in the blink of an eye and yet·

...we keep settling on that old drive-by glance.

Our industry in its full maturity will leverage The Ad as Actor. Our industry in this new era of full maturity will rival or eclipse the nostalgic boom we all hold so dear. Innovative employment of The Ad as Actor will harness the full potential of our medium rather than our medium being harnessed by what other mediums have done before.

We have caught glimpses of this future with the nascent rise of Advergaming in the second and third quarters of this year. Prior to that it didn't even have a name. Some of it has slipped under the radar or been easily dismissed as simply slapping branding upon extant downloadable games, in which case it would be nothing new under the advertising sun.

But a strain of Advergaming which will prove to be the forefather of this brave new world of interactivity can be found if you look closely within some of the Advergames themselves, at the actual game play. Beyond simply slapping logos and banners onto an existing game, innovative marketers are beginning to build Advergames in which the game environment, scenarios, and characters themselves creatively immerse the player in arguments for the advertiser's products and services, subtly educating and pitching along the way. In those cases where these arguments serve as wacky antidotes to common industry conceptions (or misconceptions) tuned uniquely and specifically to a vertical target group, entertainment, loyalty, and most importantly, vertical target pass-along ensue.

These Immersive Advergames create a vertical target group community actively engaging in the advertiser's benefit arguments, competing against one another for supremacy while e-mailing other colleagues to join in and take their best shot. They are actors playing their role. The advertisement as actor plays its role, which continually changes based upon input, always strategically but subtly presenting the most apropos product and service education and pitch in a manner which, can you believe it, actually creates good will.

A relationship is built, one which is returned to for further visits.

It is a relationship that can be passed-along to and replicated by thousands of other target consumers in the blink of an eye.

It is happening right now as you read this line.

This is the future, and it is interactive.

by John Lustina

---

VIRALLY SPEAKING
The 5-Liter Engine that Could: What the BMV Can Learn from BMW

The latest installment: A fictitious adventure in which our Columnist fancies himself not only a deal maker, but one who can squeeze the blood of a contract from the stone of local government.

Last month, we used BMW's offshoot marketing site, BMWfilms.com, as a shining example of viral marketing done right. BMW spent a reported $9 million on the films, featuring directorial talent ranging from Oscarú winner Ang Lee to Madonna's future ex-husband, Guy Ritchie. And the films have been no small success. While accurate numbers are difficult to obtain, download estimates reached 10 million by July, and have no doubt climbed significantly since then.

Not that it wasn't already cool to drive a Beemer, I suppose, but the films make it cooler. And "making it cooler" is a theme that a number of companies and industries should think about integrating into their own campaigns. One night, restless with my role as the mere documenter of the viral marketing industry, I hatched a plan. The Bureau of Motor Vehicles in a nearby state is currently experiencing what they euphemistically call a "debt surplus."

The residents of that state are taking advantage of the dissatisfaction of their State Police force. As something like 48th in the nation in take-home pay, the State Police in that state have made it unofficially known that they're not too worried about pulling people over for things such as expired license plates. Thus the residents aren't too worried about renewing them.

The whole thing smacks of a trailer-park Mobius strip, where the shallow view of cost-effectiveness and the more-shallow public trust of local government chase each other around and around until the only thing left is · a business opportunity? But would the BMV see the potential, or would they just not get it?

So here was my pitch: Make the Bureau of Motor Vehicles "cool." (I worked hard to figure out a way to say "cool again," but in all my research, I never found a moment in history in which the BMV was previously cool.) How to pull off such a feat? Simple. Create, launch, and maintain BMVfilms.com -- The electronic marketing arm of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. I envisioned several short features, each blending the magic of Spielberg, the sterile distance of Kubrick, and the ennui of a roller coaster line maze -- all delivered with the deep, smoldering passion of an actor like Andy Richter or a random Wayans brother.

I contacted the state's motor vehicle commissioner and set up a power lunch at Denny's. Over home fries, I made the move.

"You know," I leaned in close, "I already parked the domain. It's just waiting out there for you."

He looked outside in the lot. "I don't see it. Is it next to that blue Buick?"

"Never mind," I said. "Listen. We'll have so many people in line to renew their plates that you'll have to work all night six days a week."

"All night?" he winced. "That's a problem. I'm off at 4:30, except on Thursdays, when we shut down at noon."

"Okay," I said, "so you'll hire more people. Demand will be that great."

Again he looked squeamish. "Hire more people? Man, you wouldn't believe the paperwork generated with each new hire."

But then his attitude shifted. "But I like the idea," he said. "In fact, I'll be in Hollywood next week, and maybe I'll run it past Marty."

"Marty?" I gasped, amazed at his Rolodex. "Marty Scorcese?"

"Naw, Marty at Kinko's on Sunset. He's very creative. You should see the 4-color brochure he did for the Beverly Hills BMV. Just amazing."

"By the way," he continued, "what's this going to run me?"

"Oh," I said. "That's the beauty of it. You know how BMW did it for $9 million? I can do it for a third of that. If you're with me, I'll get on the phone right after lunch and we'll have storyboards started by tomorrow." "Whoa," he said. "Three million. That's a little steep. Got any banners instead?"

by Erik Dafforn

---

Your privacy is important to us. You may unsubscribe from Viral Marketing Monthly by sending a blank email (from the email address that is subscribed) to: unsubscribe-viralmarketingmonthly@burst.sparklist.com.

We use our best efforts in publishing the information in this newsletter, however we do not assume, and hereby disclaim, any liability for any loss or damage caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions resulted from negligence, accident or other causes. Intrapromote and its affiliated individuals may perform services and/or have other relationships with companies mentioned in this newsletter.

Copyright © 2001 Intrapromote LLC. All Rights Reserved.