To get people to share your campaign, you need to give them a reason to share. Here are four main reasons why people will do this:

– They think it is super relevant to someone they know.
If you have a niche campaign, people will often share it with those that they think it will interest. This can be on an individual sharing basis – I email my Dad all things triathlon-related as he is a moderately obsessed Ironman even though I have no personal interest. It can also be on a group basis – I often share new football ads on my footy club’s facebook group page.

- They want others to feel the emotion that they experienced.
If someone finds content funny, sad, or if it evokes any emotion, then it has the potential to be shared. If your ad can tap into someones emotions then they will want to share the experience with friends. This is especially relevant with humour – if your content is genuinely funny, it can spread far! Although shock can also spread pretty far!

- They want to share knowledge.
When sharing to large groups (such as a Twitter stream) people crave social currency – things that make them more valuable to follow and that can generate new followers. By sharing content that is academically interesting or industry relevant, people elevate their reputation as a curator. This works as people want to be seen as the first to know (and share) things, and also those who want to prove they are aware of content (by sharing or discussing it).

- Sharing it will provide a direct benefit.
Although paying people for referrals does not seem the most sophisticated mechanism for sharing, it still holds worth as a method. Think of nearly every facebook app you use – where you can earn points/credits/farmville dolla$ for inviting your friends to join in.

These reasons for sharing should be thought about when planning your campaign’s creative. Which is most appropriate for you brand and the audience you would like to reach?

It is also worth remembering that people can only share content that they have seen – the initial seed is necessary if you want viral success no matter how good the content.

I thought I quite enjoyed American football; it is violent and exciting enough to keep my attention! However, I was soon fed up with the stop and start nature of the show. I think my mistake was watching it on the BBC where most of the program was pundits explaining the basics of the game and desperately trying to fill the time.

In the US, these gaps would have been ad breaks. The Superbowl is famous for its ads, so maybe this was what I was missing! With CBS charging about $2,700,000 for a 30 second ad, I was expecting the ads to be pretty high quality. Here’s a couple of my favourites…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

$2.7m is a lot of money for an ad space. However, the Superbowl has an estimated 100 million viewers, so it works out at $0.03 a viewer – Pretty good value?

Perhaps on the surface, but are these viewers all engaging with the content? These viewers could be making tea, paying the pizza delivery guy, or if they are female, completely disengaged by the huge number of male-orientated ads!

To counter this drain of U.S. ad spend, here at the Viral Ad Network we are running a special offer. For February only, we are doing a deal on U.S. targeted campaigns. We’re giving 2500 away views for free when you spend $999 on 5000 views through the network.

Check out our offer here

Click here to view the embedded video.

(by Del Campo, Nazca Saatchi and Saatchi via Adverblog)

Following on from my previous post on how your profile can be used as a marketing tool, I have recently encountered an interesting use of this…

http://oneideaaday.tumblr.com/

A job-hunting junior strategic planner will be posting an ‘idea a day’ on his tumblr until someone hires him. This is a great example of someone marketing themselves as a brand. It shows that he gets social media (each idea is under 140 characters so can be tweeted) and the ideas vary between medium so potentially appeal to lots of different branches of advertising.

I am looking forward to following his plight. It will be interesting to see if his ideas stay at a similar standard, get worse if he loses his inspiration for the project, or if they get better as he gets feedback and finds a more efficient creative route!

Good luck Nathanael!

(thanks to Indi.Ca on Flikr for the photo)

There has been a growing chatter surrounding the idea of people as brands. Be it ‘Brand Tiger’ and his recent form of brand deception (see Jim Prior’s Mad Comments), or people selling themselves to get ‘the best job in the world‘.

I think that this is an interesting notion. Platforms such as facebook open us up to reconnaissance research into each other: be it for job interviews, university places, or even just to ‘Link In’, we now need to be aware of our public facing persona.

This makes me wonder about the recent appearance of http://niccageaseveryone.blogspot.com/

This site is (possibly) a clever new Viral Campaign promoting Nic Cage: the Brand! It shows his diversity in the roles that he would have been perfect for, and his versatility.

It’s also a good way of losing 10 minutes. Fair play to Nic though, it does seem to be picking up momentum – there have already been 98 new additions this year!

thanks to Eric Verkamp for his Nic Cage as Hurley

The result is that thousands of people will be getting emails from friends asking them to watch a video of one of their  friends recommending the company (great way to mix viral marketing and word of mouth!)

You can seem my friend Alex telling the worst joke ever here. (it’s worth it – it’s about dwarfs)

Though it won’t convince me to splash out on an Alexander McQueen dress or Christian Louboutin shoes as modelled by Lady Tottington, having the well-loved Bristolian duo Wallace & Gromit front the campaign for the upmarket chain is definitely going to prove popular with consumers and their children.