Every day we seem to be hearing about new social networks which are focused on non profit causes such as charities, and politics. Sites like Dip Dive, which seems heavily focused on Obama, and indeed seems to have launched the ‘Yes We Can’ viral video, are proving that the viral generation have a thirst for engaging with content which goes beyond games and funny clips. In fact users go as far as submitting essays and articles about the politics behind ‘Iron Man’ the movie. And so here we have another social network that has arrived called SocialVibe. This network allows users to raise money for charity by essentially embedding a pay per click ad on their profiles, however the money goes to chosen charity. It will be interesting to see how this fares against Oxfam UK’s efforts to unite 200 charities behind a single widget to raise money for charities.

Imperial Leisure are proud to have launched our latest online marketing campaign for Green Man Music Festival called Green Poll. Having only been live for two days the campaign has gone truly viral with thousands of visits a day

The campaign strategy was devised using our newly developed social conversation tracking engine. This allowed us to deliver a creative and idea which would hit the right note with festival goers. Imperial Leisure is also undertaking the seeding of the campaign targeting nearly 1000 websites.

Green Poll is a genuine effort to engage with festival and music lovers without the gimmicky and corporate marketing campaigns. It allows bands to register themselves and the public to decide which band will open the festival.

Full case study will be available soon in the mean time you can visit Green Poll now.

The long running online marketing campaign for the next installment of the Batman films resumed today, after it was abruptly halted by the death of Heath Ledger. This was marked by a new edition of the Gotham Times being published publicising an election campaign to be become the district attorney for Gotham, and it looks like a real election will be held at the Gotham Election Board. A striking feature of this campaign has been how long it’s running, and the various ways they have recruited brand advocates, by running contests such as puzzles, giving cell phones which later on get texted with instructions etc. As a result users have been actively enjoying and looking forward to the next installment of the campaign.

Toronto was recently littered with teaser ad posters for a marketing campaign promising a new drug which help parents curb the life ambitions of their kids, and limit free thinking and being individual.Other posters read: “My son used to have his own hopes and aspirations. Now he has mine. Thanks, Obay!” “When Amy started thinking for herself, we had to nip it in the bud with Obay”.The campaign was part of the marketing strategy by University of Western Ontario. Teaser ads tend to work because they make us stop and think and work out the meaning behind the campaign, which gives us a sense of accomplishment. When the product is eventually revealed consumers pay attention.

Last summer, a teaser trailer for an untitled movie in which Manhattan was attacked by an unseen force drew widespread international speculation, ultimately building such a powerful buzz that the film - later revealed to be Cloverfield - opened in January 2008 to record-breaking box office numbers.But the marketing gambit doesn’t guarantee success. But the marketing gambit doesn’t guarantee success. In 2007, a video of a bride cutting off her hair in a pre-wedding fit drew 12 million views on YouTube. When SunSilk the product behind the campaign revealed its involvement two weeks after the Canadian clip was uploaded the buzz abruptly stopped.

Consumers stop caring pretty quickly once the mystery is revealed. And hence planning the mechanics of teaser / buzz campaigns is a real fine art to get right.Though a wide array of organisations such as Scientologists and anti-pharmaceutical lobbyists have been widely named as suspects in the Obay whodunit, despite being clustered in eastern Canada, The Colleges of Western Ontario have gained national / international attention online.

We love the Adidas Originals viral campaign. Users are given a $100K budget to create their own festival at their own venue, and book their own bands. The creator of the festival which receives the most visitors, wins tickets to the Adidas Originals festival.

It is great to see brands doing original online marketing, where the user truly becomes the content distributor. In this example the users are sending the links and blogging about the festivals they have created because they want to win.

It’s not surprising that these days, all the brands are after a good viral. The cult of the internet video is really kicking off and everyday we all receive new links to clips on video sharing sites.

What is surprising is that the definition of a good viral campaign is being confined to video sharing between peers. Hence as a result there’s an assumption that a viral campaign needs to be funny or rude to be effective.

While a good viral video clip can be very effective and beneficial for a brand, viral marketing is not limited to sharing a video clip. Viral marketing is about encouraging communication in the brands target audience. It’s about communicating an idea to the opinion formers which will filter down to the rest of the target audience. The vehicle for this can take any form, and is very sophisticated.

There’s no doubt that producing a funny or rude video clip helps the viewing figures However what is not so certain is if a brand can benefit from this. While we have a good idea of what makes a good viral campaign, no one really knows for sure. To create a good or great viral campaign we need to understand the mechanics of communication so that we can move away from producing “funny” or “rude” films and really start talking to our target audience, who in turn will talk to their friends and spread the message.

A good place to start producing a good/great viral campaign is to consider the following;

- What is the brand / product?
- Who is the target audience?
- Crafting an idea / message that the target audience will understand and believe in.

Examples

Live Strong Yellow Wristbands

Livestrong campaign is part of the “Wear Yellow Live Strong” educational program intended to raise money for cancer research, raise cancer awareness, and encourage people to live life to the fullest in cooperation with Nike who manufactures the “live strong” bands in Austin, 70 million Livestrong bands sold to date.

What makes this campaign great is that virtually no publicity or marketing was done. In a very short space of time the bracelet has now gone from a fundraiser to being a part of global fashion landscape where A-List celebrities were featured wearing them raising millions in the process.

Bravia Balls

The Bravia Balls ad was shot with real balls on the streets of San Francisco. It got a huge viral kick because of that very reason. San Francisco is the internet capital of the world and as it was being shot people who witnessed the event were blogging about it and sticking photos on Flickr Before the ad was every released there was a huge online buzz about it. Soon the searching for the term “advert” in Google returned the Bravia site in the top three results.