Ba de ya - say do you remember, that viral in September?
Welcome to September's roundup edition of Viral Intelligence. A veritable glut of virals found their seedy way over to us last month. Here we'll look back on the on the good, the bad and the darn right ugly in the world of viral and buzz marketing - from kamikaze kitten games to SFW (safe for work) XXX virals.
Quick Links
News Round-up:
Welcome to 'Film 2.0'
It was almost ten years ago that The Blair Witch Project first harnessed the power of viral marketing to elevate what was a low-budget indie film into a $248 blockbuster. Earlier this year, 'Cloverfield' made the most of the Web 2.0 zeitgeist with its use of fake YouTube clips, Myspace pages and blogging. Cloverfield highlighted the use of online content to not only market films, but also extend the viewers overall film experience by layering content before and after the films cine release - creating a 'multi-layered experience'.
The latest, and perhaps most ambitious, example of web 2.0-styled multi-layered films is Paramount's Tropic Thunder - a kind of Apocalypse Now meets Spinal Tap action comedy featuring Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. as a set of prima donna actors making a Vietnam War film.
Multi-layering is at the heart of Tropic Thunder - affecting its concept, plot, characters and marketing. Conceptually the film's a Vietnam 'making of' style movie - with a ton of Apocalypse Now references. Within the plot of the film, there's also a 'making of' (or should that be 'making of making of') documentary. On top of this, there's a whole host of back-stories for each of the main characters, including actor's microsites and fictitious film trailers.
Read more about this at the Team Rubber blog, Faris Yakob's blog and at Behind the Buzz.
Viral Books
Every once in a while we do something nice for our industry friends - we send them books. And we don't just send them any old books - they're usually books our team are reading and being influenced by. And we don't just "send" books to our friends - we "share" them.
This difference is an important difference for a couple of reasons:
Reason no. 1 is because sharing is at the heart of who we are as a viral agency. Our underlying ethos is based around sharing stuff - content, ideas and even books - not broadcasting.
Reason no. 2 is because we're keen encourage other people to do the same. Sharing as a basic tenet has benefits for both sides of the contract (or un-contract) with the sharer gaining social capital, and the sharee gaining whatever capitals being shared - in this case a book, or at it's core the currency of knowledge.
So sharing is at the heart of the Rubber Bookclub - and it seems to be working. One of the first people to publicly espouse the joy of book-sharing is blogger Amelia Torode @ Life Moves Pretty Fast - who's asking for takers for our latest book club book "Cluetrain Manifesto" once she's finished with it
Anyone up for it??? . . . Bueller . . . anyone anyone . . .
4mations.tv: YouTube for animation launches
Bloggers were invited to the official launch of the full-fat version of animation sharing site 4mations.tv in September.
It is the love-child of Aardman animations, Channel 4, Lupus Films and Reality digital.
Perhaps this will be a new home for viral animations. Blu's Muto animation has shown us just how succesful they can be.
Forget Gorilla Marketing, Now It's About The Chocolate Dream Steam Machine!
Do you think you have what it takes to bake, chill and explode a mix of your favourite ingredients into a Dairy Milk chocolate bar impressively enough to please a Parrot?
Oh, you've never thought of that before? Well here's your chance to see...
Hot on the heels of the infamous Gorilla and Trucks campaigns; Cadbury are giving you access to the Chocolate Dream Steam Machine and the opportunity to choose from a range of sweet, fruity, rich, nutty, subtle, and downright ludicrous flavours to mix into your very own personalised bar of Dairy Milk.
The only thing standing between you and your chocolate is the adjudicating parrot, if he doesn't like it, it goes straght to waste. If he stops it on the conveyor belt and flaps like a mad bird, you're up for the chance of winning your very own, dream Cadbury's Dairy Milk bar!
We are seeding this on behalf of Hyperhappen, and are super pleased to be a part of the ongoing Cadbury advertising innovations!
Get over to the Dairy Milk Factory and see if you can impress the parrot with your chocomagination!
The credit crunches latest victim - Manchester United
We've got a mini-theory about the relationship between sponsors and football teams: poor performance in the markets = poor performance on the pitch.
Here we go:
- Man United have one of their worst ever starts to their season. AIG teeter on the brink of collapse (propped up the US Fed).
- West Ham lose their manager. XL goes bust.
- Newcastle United have one of their most troubled years in their history. Northern Rock goes *** up.
QED!
Anyone else got any more evidence to support my crack-pot theory?!
Send your views to chris@rubberrepublic.com.
5 of the best
Post Olympics and the bar kept on rising in the viral world - here's our medal table of high-jump viewed virals. As usual some of our favourite campaigns and not-so-campaigns.
SFW XXX viral not safe enough for YouTube?
Viral campaigns may have been superfluous in September come Earth, Wind and Fire. Yet it wasn't a 70's disco classic which drew comment but a SFW (safe for work) vintage 70's porny vid promoting Diesel's anniversary parties. As it has been removed from YouTube, it will be interesting to see how succesful it can be. Porny imagery and xXx tagging have always been a formula for viral success...but is this an over-exploited angle?
Killing Kittens
Animation sharing site “4mations” (www.4mations.tv) aims to be the centre of the animated universe - one ruled by kittens apparently. Join thousands already in committing mutiny by making kittens go kamikaze in this addictive and challenging viral game of trigonometry to promote the site.
Spectacular Sticky-Note Experiment
Hitting the office viral zeitgeist can really be effective if you take something as everyday monotonous as a post-it note and embrace it with the colourful imagination of a Sony Bravia ad.
From Samurai Girl and Eepy Bird at www.eepybird.com and www.abcfamily.com.
Usain Bolt Dances The "Lightning Bolt"
When Usain Bolt is not running, what else can Puma do to make the most of their association?
...that is, what else comes naturally to him on the track - dancing the "Lightning Bolt" in his Puma trainers. It might not quite provide the dancing lesson it testifies to, but it's a good lesson in acheiving views riding on the back of the Olympics. It has acheived over 400,000 in 10 days.
Awesomest High School Commercial in the Land!
*Extreme* fond nostalgia brought the protagonist of this viral video to promote enrolment for his college. We think its hilarity is matched by its stupidity...
