• by Christine Champagne , October 26, 2006

The Viral Factory, based in London, is a devout worshipper of the Web, creating, producing, and seeding viral videos for Internet consumption. The 5-year-old boutique viral marketing agency is a decidedly idea-driven entity. In fact, Matt Smith, the firm’s managing director, maintains, “Viral, probably more than any other marketing channel, is idea-driven in the sense that if you don’t have a good idea, a good piece of creative, it won’t get seen.”

Point taken. Viral videos can be cleverly seeded, but it is ultimately up to consumers on the Web to distribute the content to friends, family, and coworkers. “That’s why the content drives the media,” Smith says, musing, “The content is the media.”

With that mantra in mind, The Viral Factory sets out to craft ideas that truly engage. “It’s such a buzzword, but we talk more about engaging people than entertaining people,” says Henry Cowling, director of special operations of The Viral Factory USA, the shop’s Los Angeles-based outpost, which opened earlier this year.

In recent months, The Viral Factory has engaged Internet users with “Haute Couture,” an outrageously funny viral project for Remington which markets electric shavers, among other products. Created in conjunction with Grey, London, the online video takes viewers to a fashion show featuring models with rather unruly pubic hair. A monster hit on viral content provider Kontraband.com, “Haute Couture” drew an astounding 800,000 views in its first three days on the site.

The Viral Factory also recently created a faux news report for Axe Body Spray titled “Ravenstoke,” reporting on a remote Alaskan village overrun with women after the male residents doused themselves with Axe. The piece garnered an impressive 800,000 views within the first three weeks it was posted on Kontraband.

Notably, “Ravenstoke” marked the first time The Viral Factory, which worked directly with the client, had been asked to conceive a viral program that would jibe with an above-the-line campaign — in this case, the “Spray more, get more” effort from Bartle Bogle Hegarty. “The perceived wisdom is you can’t make viral fit in with above-the-line,” Smith says. “But I think with this one we did.”