• by Shankar Gupta , October 31, 2005

Ever since Burger King had people telling a chicken what to do, marketers have been looking for ways to get people talking about their brands on the Web. Unlike rich media, display ads, or search ads, however, there aren't many simple, ready-made tools for advertisers looking to create viral-ready campaigns.

Digital media firm Tickle, however, recently released a suite of products, dubbed "Tickle Grapevine," designed to do just that: put together an interactive online ad unit that users will ideally send along to their friends, creating online buzz that modern advertisers so covet. The four tools, released in September, are Viral Video, which uses a video clip -- a movie or TV trailer, say, or a television spot -- to create a viral page that can be e-mailed and shared; Brand Connector, which creates polls about products that can be shared virally; Performance Poll, which ties special offers -- product giveaways or content, for example -- to the poll; and E-Mail Tagging, which allows e-mail conversations sent from partner sites to be tagged with branding messages.

Clients who have used Tickle's Grapevine suite include FX, to promote the third seasons of "Nip/Tuck," and Bausch & Lomb, to promote its multi-focal soft contact lenses.