• by Seana Mulcahy , September 8, 2003

A while back I was moderating a panel of female CEOs. The woman who introduced me top-lined my bio while stumbling upon the term "Viral Marketing" with a grimacing look. I was suddenly a fish out of water. No one knew what the heck she was talking about and why I'd work on anything "viral."

The success of authors like Seth Godin and his book, "Unleashing the Idea Virus" have made the Internet-marketing-oblivious raise an eyebrow. Ask ten people what viral marketing is online and you'll most likely get 10 different answers.

So what do you think? Well, according to MarketingTerms.com, viral marketing is a "Marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message." What comes to mind when you think of this? Is it the good ole dancing baby that has been circulating the Net since '97. How about Hamster Dance (hampsterdance2.com)? According to USA Today, the site was created as a contest between two sisters. Each wanted to see how much traffic they could garner. It seems just about everyone with an Internet connection has visited. Kudos, sis.

This stuff hits the Net all the time. The goal is to have it be spread among users for a lengthy duration. The above mentioned have been around since '97 and '98.

Recently, a chubby awkward Canadian kid submitted a project consisting of a 2 minute video. In it, he parades around with a golf ball retriever as if it's a Light Saber straight out of my favorite childhood movie Star Wars. Fellow classmate pranksters immediately put it on the Net. You know what happened next? Yes, that's right -- it's spreading inbox to inbox like wild fire. Watch out Pamela Anderson, Britney Spears, and Ahhhhhhhhnold -- the"Star Wars Kid" hit the Lycos Top 50 search meter at #39.

I have to take a sidebar for a minute to let you know the kid's parents are suing his classmates' parents because they say their son has been ridiculed. If you ask me, the kid's become a part of pop culture. Who doesn't want their 15 minutes of fame?

At first glance, I tend to laugh at such Net phenomena. Then I think a little bit more and it seems kind of scary. Certainly, marketers and advertisers want a message, a promotion, a brand to circulate like wild fire. Why not? It's a low-cost way to generate buzz. But is this type of buzz good? Perhaps it is if you are a software maker, a digital camera, or if you produce streaming audio or video online. If you aren't, can this have the potential to dilute or heighten your brand image? Who else benefits from viral marketing?

When I held my post as head of digital media at an agency, many clients entered the viral world as a result of Godin's esteemed book. They looked wide-eyed and bedazzled as they yearned for such an idea. How can agencies sell this in as part of its overall service offerings? How can you staff up a team according to this need? How do you submit RFP responses for a pitch?

Fortunately for me I was in an integrated agency atmosphere with a dear friend heading up PR. We had an educational consulting client that targeted academia with its white papers, content, and eLearning classes. To illustrate our ability to touch this market we created a viral campaign gratis.

I and a colleague tapped into our electronic email addresses in order to find our most eFluential contacts. We each took a mere 10 - 25 addresses, crafted a personalized email, and unleashed it. After embedding a 1 x 1 transparent pixel into the HTML of our messages, we were able to track the heck out of it. Unfortunately, we did not have the time or money to be able to track emails forwarded to friends. However, we were able to track a link in the email that garnered several downloads of a white paper. The white paper of course was written by the agency. Our friends and colleagues and their friends and colleagues did not know this. However, we made darn sure that the information in the white paper was content they would be amendable to reading. While I am unable to share the stats with you, I can tell you the open rates of the email were at least 20 times higher in every given instance than that of our online advertising efforts. The conversion rate (white papers downloaded) had 200% more impact than acquisition-based email campaigns in place.

This obviously won us some additional work as well as an expert image in this arena. It's been a while since I had this experience. What I've found is that the opportunities come few-and-far-between. I feel as if I am in buzz rehab as I search for something bigger, better, cooler, and faster. Other than the chubby Canadian Star Wars kid is the force with us or are we still searching for it? So, tell me the meaning of viral, dear readers, and better yet, show me the goods.