Top Ten viral marketing cases

Whether it's viral marketing or word-of-mouth, they come from good ideas, perfect timing and strong execution.

At the time of her reputation, Paris Hilton Hilton The critics: "I will succeed, I am a marketing genius." "Unfortunately, we are all ordinary people, and to get a lot of eyeballs and create millions of sales of marketing activities, the challenge is no less than the Hilton Hollywood big comeback."

Nevertheless, every year there are many creative marketing campaigns that have won people's flowers and applause, they have great ideas, perfect timing, smooth execution. From these successful examples, we have selected the 10 most representative cases of the 2011, hoping to help people develop excellent marketing strategies. You are welcome to enjoy it.

Contagion virus Billboard

Warner Bros. Canada, Curb media and advertising agency Lowe Roche jointly promoted the new film "The Century War Plague" (contagion), directed by Soderbergh (Steven Soderbergh), Tells the story of a mysterious, deadly virus that spreads through the world. They hired a group of microbiologist and immunology to inject penicillin, mildew and pigment bacteria into an ad version. The bacteria grew slowly under the control of light and temperature and eventually spelled the name of the film, which they placed in the windows of an abandoned shop in Toronto. Some pedestrians were uncomfortable with the billboard, but the idea attracted a lot of media attention, won the media awards and became a source of inspiration for peers. "The idea is cool," said John Laramie, the CEO of Adstruc, a new york-based outdoor advertising start-up, Laramie. It's probably a crazy idea someone thought of, but it was a success from planning to execution. ”

Experience: Guerrilla Marketing

The traditional marketing model sometimes does not stand out, if you break the tradition, the idea may get viral spread. Ryan Lum, founder of the Creative Guerrilla Marketing blog (Creative guerilla Marketing), said the viral billboard was a positive example of guerrilla marketing, "and people are excited to be curious when they see him, Trying to figure out what this billboard is all about. ”

7-11 's journey to the unification of the ice

Earlier, in the disputed U.S. midterm elections, President Obama accused the Republicans of doing nothing, saying the U.S. economy is like a ditch in the car, when the Democrats sweat hard, trying to pull out the car, "the Republicans are sitting on the sidelines, drinking the ice." After the election, Mr Obama joked that the Bingfeng would be held at the White House for the upcoming Republican Speaker John Boehner. 7-11 Convenience stores seize the opportunity to use all their marketing power to subtly turn Obama into their most famous product spokesperson. This convenience store enterprise and the advertisement agency Freshworks cooperates together, has created "The Si le ice unification Journey (Slurpee Unity Tour)". They designed a billboard with an elephant representing the Democratic Party and a donkey for the Republican Party, elephants and donkeys sharing a cup of thought Le Bing (a symbol of bipartisan reconciliation). They put billboards on a truck and let the truck travel all over the United States to advertise it and offer people a trial drink.

Experience: Always keep an eye on hot issues

Keep an eye on current events, and the things people are talking about can bring inspiration and surprise. "The 7-11 marketing campaign is timely, effective, entertaining and impressive," said Mark Schaefer, founder and marketing consultant at Schaefer Marketing FX. They turned the president into their spokesperson. How can such an opportunity be given up easily?

Yoga brand Lululemon Athletica's ambassador program

Unlike big companies such as Nike and Adidas, which spend billions of dollars inviting sports stars to shoot ads and do activities, Lululemon Athletica in Vancouver uses a more grassroots approach to attracting local consumers. The company's main product is a 100-dollar yoga outfit. Since its inception in 1998, the company has developed an ambassador program recruit local athletes and fitness coaches (who do not pay for endorsements, but only offer 1000 dollars worth of sportswear and equipment) to experience products, wear company clothing in front of students, and give fitness classes in local stores. "Our Ambassador wears our clothes and can advertise for us wherever they go," said Eric Peterson, the company's marketing director. "Given the company's projected revenue of $1 billion trillion in 2012, their promotion is simple and effective." Tom Gierasimczuk, editor-in-chief of the Canadian Marketing magazine, said: "These brand ambassadors are very close to their communities, and it is very effective to expand their brand influence in this way and to make people feel that the company is giving back to consumers." ”

Experience: Harnessing the power of the civilian population

Find a way to turn your best consumer into your promoter, and you will achieve your goal. Schaeffer, a marketing consultant, said: "I love the way the Lululemon is made to promote the brand, not the movie star or the sports star." It's one thing to say that a brand is good, but its customers say it's good. ”

Intel Museum of Me

To show people the power of second-generation core processors, Intel has launched the visually Smart marketing program. The product can help people to turn life into a documentary, in order to show people that the product can help "visualize" a person's life, Intel Corporation and projector company from Japan to work together, in 5 months to establish the museum of me site. Just log on to the website and authorize it to connect to your Facebook account, and in a matter of seconds, you can create a video of the photos and content in your account to show the user's life. In a short period of time, this innovation spread like a virus, and in the absence of any paid media hype, the user volume exceeded 1 million in just 5 days. "Our use of this service directly touches people's feelings and concerns, and allows people to tell stories about themselves in a personalized way," says Pam Didner, Intel's global integrated marketing manager. ”

Experience: Becoming personalized

It is clear that proximity to consumers is important for any form of market development. "Intel has successfully demonstrated the benefits of a certain technical and complex product in a way that is easy to understand," said Kent Huffman, a Social Media marketing magazine, who commented on Intel's move: and achieved measurable business goals. ”

About.me Billboard Competition

AOL's about.me is becoming popular, and the service allows users to create a page that aggregates the various footprints on the user's network. About.me put forward a simple but far-reaching marketing plan: competition. About.me users have a contest in which users who get the most votes on the About.me page will appear on billboards that hang in Times Square, and a New York trip to see the billboards with their heads in hand. The campaign was advertised on Twitter and Facebook, and for a time, the about.me site visited 5 times times the usual amount. Some of the competition's users even filmed videos on YouTube or distributed leaflets in schools to collect votes. Ryan Fujiu, the about.me company responsible for corporate collaboration and user promotion, said the competition had turned all users into their advocates. "The most important thing for social networking marketing is to keep your users talking about your products with friends, co-workers, and family members." ”

Experience: Increasing user participation

Give customers a good reason to focus on you, and they will help you achieve your goals. Lenz Christopher Renz, co-founder of the BRPR Group, a new media agency based in Miami, said About.me's propaganda took advantage of the inherent vanity of the people, including him, who made unsolicited publicity for about.me through Twitter and Facebook. A lot of people came to him and asked him, "What's about.me?" For the business, they have done a good job of publicity.

Spotify is online in the US

Spotify is a music streaming service company with more than 10 million users in Europe. When they arrived in the United States last summer, they developed a marketing strategy that enabled them to successfully land in a highly competitive battleground in the United States dominated by well-known companies such as Pandora, Rhapsody and Google Music. At first, the company focused on recruiting early adopters and influential people with higher Klout scores (a measure of social media influence), and letting them tell everyone they knew about Spotify as a way to increase their visibility. Second, the number of invited users was limited during the trial period, and the curiosity about Spotify increased. When Spotify was officially online in September, they established a partnership with Facebook.

Experience: Occasional xenophobic measures

One word: do not enter. "People tend to be interested in websites that need an invitation code to register, which also makes the user's desire for the site greatly improved," says Lenz. "Schaeffer added:" Equally important is the sustainability of promotional activities, when Spotify was online, many people came to me to find out about the site-including friends, my children and Twitter-for a long time, because promotional activities have been flirting with their curiosity. ”

Method ads

method is an environmentally friendly laundry company headquartered in San Francisco. When they enter the detergent market, faced with huge challenges, what they have to do to change the consumer's buying habits is to convince a loyal user of the stain washing powder that this is just 20 ounces (translator: About 566 grams) of laundry detergent can clean 50 barrels of clothes. And their promotional budget is only 200,000 dollars. Eric Ryan, co-founder and designer of Method, thinks the best approach is to seek customer help. The company hired media agency Mekanism to shoot a crowdsourcing ad. They drew a storyboard, inviting people to take their own action on the board, then submitting their footage to method for final editing. A total of 332 consumers participated in the event. When the ad finally took shape, it became the 93rd-most-viewed YouTube video, and increased the number of Facebook fans by 68%. Lenz, from Brpr, who worked with method, said: "The beauty of this crowdsourcing is that it contains a distribution network from the day the ad is completed." ”

Experience: Establishing a dialogue mechanism with consumers

To have a dialogue with consumers, and consumers have a two-way exchange of brands, its influence is greater than only to the consumer unilaterally preach the brand. "As a brand with a sense of purpose, consumers are our most important spokesmen," said Ryan. ”

Perrier YouTube Promotion

Perrier sales in the North American market have been disappointing for nearly more than 10 years, and in 2011, Perrier a bold branding campaign in the digital social media arena, attracting the attention of younger consumers. With the help of Ogilvy and the spread of power, the beverage manufacturer posted a series of video ads named after the Perrier nightclub (Le club Perrier) on YouTube, where the exposed dancers revel in a lively nightclub. Advertising promises to consumers that the more people they watch, the more sexy and wild their content becomes, and the more than 11.5 million clicks they bring to their ads.

Experience: Make your activities worth sharing

The most important thing in social media is "delivering value." Natalie Zmuda, a journalist at advertising Age magazine, said: "Instead of asking the viewer to forward after the video ad is posted, it's better to stimulate themselves to click on the ad for viewing." You can make creative and interesting ads that attract people-especially young people-to recommend your ads to their friends. ”

Apple's Siri

Any list of top-quality marketing will not miss Apple and its longtime global advertising agency, TBWA. In 2011, Apple released its latest iphone 4S phone with a main push-Siri AD. Siri is a personal intelligence assistant capable of understanding user voice commands, helping users to schedule appointments, send mail, search for web information, and help them locate the latest Starbucks features. A 30-second TV ad showed the consumer the main features of Siri, Siri helps to arrange life for the various users from housewives to CEOs, and shows the consumer what Apple has been trying to do: make life easier (and, in addition, uncover your hidden needs).

Experience: Problem Solving

No matter how powerful the product is, it's a better choice to focus on how the product is serving customers or solving their problems, compared with boasting of product features. "Whether your target audience is a consumer or another company, you should show them that your product can fit into their workflow and change their lifestyle," says John Obrecht, editor of BtoB, Marketing Strategy Magazine. ”

Disney Dream Portrait

Since 2007, Disney's theme of Dream portraits has blurred the relationship between art, advertising and writing. Disney invited top photographer Leibovitz (Annie Leibovitz) to take photos of some of the world's most loved stars as Disney legends. The latest season's photos include: Cruz (Penelope Cruz) plays the Big Eyed Beauty Belle, Jeff (Jeff Bridges) adorn the evolved beast, Quinn Lati Law (Queen Latifah) plays "The Little Mermaid" in the evil Ursula, Olivia Vilde (Olivia Wilde) starred in "Snow White" in the Evil Queen.

"It is a great idea, its meaning lies in the deep analysis of the soul and the depth of the brand." The scheme is both practical and far-reaching. These actors are the best representatives of a character who is far from real life and has a dream color. Marketing Magazine's Gierasimczuk said.

Experience: The concept of going out of paradise

Few companies can rival Disney's advertising spending. However, no matter how much budget you have, a traditional, well executed activity can stand out in the midst of a tumultuous competition as long as it has a compelling story. Glerasimczuk, editor-in-chief of Marketing magazine, said that Disney's dream portrait, like the classic vodka ad, confirms how those wonderful concepts have made themselves a long-term marketing classic.