Virals: They're Nothing To Do With Viruses

It might have been a joke forwarded on to you by your best mate: a pic of some Hollywood starlet picking her nose; George Dubya’s recent hand-written “loo-break” request; a preview clip from the next hot movie…

Whatever it was that invaded your inbox, the internet’s been around long enough for all of us to have been bitten by the viral bug at some point.

And, even with the sheer number and variety of virals out there, they’ve all got one thing in common: Not the ad itself, but the way it’s passed around.

Jez Jowett of Cake Media and viral site Eatmail.TV puts us straight:

“You can produce a clip, it’s a piece of content, but it only goes viral when people start attaching themselves to it.”

“You can’t produce a viral, you can just produce a clip and hope it goes viral.”

Take your pick

Here’s a list of some of the most popular types of viral out there (as listed by viral website www.boreme.com):

• Movies 40%
• Images 33%
• Text 23%
• Animation 3%
• Sound 2%

All shapes and sizes

And, of course, virals come in an assortment of genres, largely humorous:

• Topical:more often than not political, with Bush and his cronies taking a particularly big beating. In fact, a popular anti-war viral saw Bush being given the Big Beat treatment.
• Also, doctored photos: Jade Goody’s face merging scarily into a pig’s. David Hasselhoff coming to the rescue of the hurricane Katrina victims – tasteless, yes, but that’s not unusual with virals.
• Interactive: e.g. Games. Virals such as Beer.com’s ‘Virtual Bartender’ and Burger King’s ‘Subservient Chicken’ are programmed to recognise whole phrases. So, for example, you can tell a skimpily clad barmaid to “Pour me a beer,” “Touch your toes,” and so on. Hours of fun…
• Celebrity: With and without make-up, looking like a bag lady, pre- and post- nose job, etc.
• Sport: e.g. Euro 2004 when England lost to Portugal, the Swiss ref made a ridiculous call and Beckham missed a crucial penalty. Says Bore Me founder, Pete Brown: “This type of viral spreads like wildfire but is short lived, but three days later they are irrelevant and forgotten.” (See Euro 2004 Collection on www.boreme.com)
• Caught on Camera: documenting a real-life funny event, such as Pinky the Cat – watch in disbelief as the cute feline goes berserk and does some serious damage. Pete: “These can spread quickly but will also remain circulating the Internet for a very long time. “
• Clips from TV: bloopers, streakers, even Jerry Springer fights!
• Not forgetting adult: ‘Erotic Kylie’: the wee songstress straddling a bucking bronco for Agent Provocateur – nuff said.

And the sub-categories…

Then there are the spoofs and homages:

• Lee and Dan’s Suicide Bomber spoof of the VW ads (“Small but tough”) being one of the most notorious.
• Citroen C4’s ‘Carbot’. The robot car ad has been transformed into ‘Full English Transformer,’ complete with sizzling bacon for legs.
• And the classic Star Wars Kid: a chubby kid plays with his light sabre. The original footage has been digitally manipulated into dozens of hilarious copycat vids - apparently uploaded without permission by his schoolmates. The kid’s parents sued.

Subvirals come about when brands covertly spoof their own brands to add to the hype. Eatmail.TV released an exclusive Budweiser ad, taking the well-known ‘Whassup’ exclamation and popping it on a UK version. This went on to spawn a whole load of amateur virals.

What are they for?

People make virals for all sorts of reasons, says Bore Me’s Pete Brown:

• To make a statement - e.g. virals with Bush, Blair etc. It’s a form of release that has the ability to reach many others via the Internet.
• To get people to notice them with humour, controversy - an ego thing or a business thing.
• To become part of a community - just look at www.b3ta.com

The tools for the job

There’s no need to swot up or splurge on the latest software to get in on the viral act. Digital agency DS.Emotion suggest using any of the following:

• For movies – iMovie on a Mac.
• For photos/images – Photoshop is a winner.
• For audio – just use a cheap/free video editor. Apple’s QuickTime (on Mac and PC) can be used for basic editing if you’re on a budget.
• For interactive virals you can’t really beat Macromedia Flash. “It really isn’t that hard to work. But if you’re really not into learning something like that, you could have a go at using PowerPoint.”

What’s so good about them anyway?

Well, from an advertiser’s point of view, virals are largely a dream come true. Here are just a few reasons:

• A lack of ITC regulation - brands can promote their products and get away with more risque content than they would on TV (Such as Trojan Condoms and their ‘Sex Olympics’, or the clever take on Mastercard’s ‘Priceless’ ads).
• It’s innovative - plus, it looks good if a brand is seen embracing the latest in communication.
• Cost-effective – the budget for a viral campaign would be in the region of £50,000. Compare this with one traditional TV spot at £10-15,000.
• Charities such as Comic Relief, Greenpeace and the NSPCC have taken advantage of this less expensive medium
• The message can spread – unlike traditional advertising (e.g. TV ads) all it takes is one easy click for you to forward a viral email to your whole address book (just watch who you send them to, though!)

The future is viral

Mobile virals is where it’s at, apparently.

Says Jez Jowett from Cake: “Mobile is where we’re already distributing clips down mobiles to users.”

“Traditional marketing routes will start getting integrated into viral. And I think what increasingly we’ll find with that is that we will start integrating vouchers onto the end of a clips. So you’ll be able to watch a film on your phone and at the end of it it’ll say send this clip onto five friends and get £1 off a can of deodorant.”

Reckons Chris Hassel of digital agency DS.Emotion: “Viral’s are great subject matter for talking about down the pub.”

“This will only increase when it moves onto mobile – and you can literally see what your mates are telling you about there and then.”

Bring it on!

Links:

Bore Me: www.boreme.com
DS. Emotion: www.dsemotion.com
Eatmail.TV: www.eatmail.tv