Design Studies: I Propose To Look To The Future

Why

For the last leg, we had to combine our efforts throughout the year including the research itself, the methods learnt through the likes of service design tools, the science of ethnography and our investigation into semiotics as designers, and create a final research proposal; thus creating a miniature version of the journey taken when writing such papers as a dissertation. I have to say, it's not half as bad as I would of expected, and have actually enjoyed several aspects of it, particularly ethnography and semiotics. Both help develop your approach as a designer be it from any discipline, as the principle remains the same - thoughtful design makes good design, and these are the things that help you engage with the user. I have learnt so much from this perspective, and as silly as it sounds I had previously not considered the consumer and or user half as important as they are. This ironically lead me to understand that understanding in itself is absolute key when designing for anybody other than yourself.

So, throughout this academic year I have been looking at how to engage the user in terms of advertisement. As I have previously stated, I have been asked to derive a research proposal from this, with specific regards to our individual disciplines. Advertising however, is an across the board topic, so I shall take a more personal outlook on the following, rather than a generalised I&ED outlook. I have linked in my previous posting throughout, as well as at the end of each category (although renamed the postings to fit the context).

Related Posts:
Design Studies: Service Design Tools
Design Studies: Ethnography
Design Studies: Semiotics
Design Studies: Final on Viral Advertising

Who

I would seek to explore what exactly it is that gets a graduate into practise other than their qualification(s) - as due to our current economic climate, employment is becoming increasingly difficult for inexperienced designers to successfully pursue. It is common knowledge that it is extremely difficult to land an internship during their academic years, and post-graduation it is becoming exponentially difficult to achieve employment with little or indeed no experience what so ever. Practices and companies are cutting back budgets, making already employed people redundant, let alone creating new positions for inexperienced yet professional designers. So my question is, how can you combine viral advertisement and innovative marketing strategies with the lengthly task of seeking graduate employment?

During one of our lectures this year, Lauren Currie (known in the realms of the internet as @RedJotter) suggested something that has stuck in my mind. She suggested that those seeking internships should not call a practise they were interested in, but rather actively go in and ask. She proposed we ask one of the members of staff out for coffee, and be that person who goes and enthusiastically requests experience. Her outlook was to be forward about these things, and not to back down if you were shown the door.

Related Posts:

Design Studies: What is Viral Advertisement 

Design Studies: Lauren Currie

What

But what else can be done? Surely there is more to this than hopelessly doing the rounds of companies in a lottery type fashion, hoping one day your numbers might just come up. Starting off small with things such as a "blog flyer" is all very well, but I would like to investigate into what makes a person memorable, what you can do to create a stir, and how can you become your own viral advert "epidemic"? I recently did a post on innovative CV ideas, which could be an aspect incorporated into your very own guerrilla marketing technique. How do you sell yourself as a new brand that everyone needs? Similar to as described in Gladwell's The Tipping Point, how do you make yourself sticky?

The BBC reported that only 13% of creative arts graduates found employment within the first six months of graduation.  The Guardian also reports on employment statistics for 2010. How do you ensure you fall into the right category within those statistics? In order to tackle such a never ending issue for graduates around the world from multiple industries, but more specifically those within the design sector, how would I propose I investigate this?

This is a real issue and unfortunately has real consequences, with The BBC unfortunately also reporting that design has one of the lowest employment rates, showing graduate unemployment at a 17 year "high".

Related Posts:
Design Studies: Blog Flyer
Design Studies: What Makes A Person Memorable
Design Studies: Creating A Stir
Design Studies: Creating Your Own Viral Ads
Design Studies: Innovative CVs

How

How do you extract the reasons one graduate is employed, while a similarly qualified, aged, and experienced graduate may not quite cut it? What is it that propels yourself from run of the mill nobody, into sought after fresh meat on the market? I propose that in order to find this out, studies would have to be created to analyse successful candidates qualities versus all applicants qualities, along with sought after free lance designers that provoke employers to come to them. Further to my previous research that suggests irrelevant stunt like attention seeking marketing strategies may work well, I would like to examine wether or not this would be appropriate for self supported viral marketing strategies, or if a strong brand ethic is required prior to tackling the irrelevant viral advert market. I propose that a ethnographic based survey be taken, paying particular attention to the trends seen on the likes of such social networks as Twitter.

If a selection of newly graduated design students were to be followed for the crucial first 6 months after graduation, would those who actively use their Twitter to make new connections be the first to be employed?

If all current fourth year I&ED students were to be followed for the initial period after graduation, who would be employed first and by what means?

I would also propose to contact design practises and actively seek the answers as to how they tackle the process of selecting a new employee, and the ways they instantly cut down applications from everything to the "select few". For example, Think Vitamin explains why they hired a new designer.

Design Studies: Purple Cow And Other Stories

Throughout the Semester, I have been posting about my journey through research, amongst a multitude of other topics - ranging from academia to puerile nonsense. What appears to be nonsensical postings about research and references about viral adverts and how to kick start these have finally come to a point. A tipping point you could say!

At the beginning of the Semester we read Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point - a book in which trends were discussed. Who starts them? How do they spread? Why do we bow down to them?

From there, I selected my own particular area of interest, which I derived from one of the case studies towards the end, regarding Airwalk's phenomenal advertising campaign that sent their sales skyrocketing. This lead to me to the more general term of viral advertising, from which I honed in on what particular people it takes to make an advert such as that work - how it spreads, and ultimately consumes the public. Below are my findings.  

Godin's Purple Cow is written in a similar narrative style to Gladwell's The Tipping Point, interlaced with supported research as well as personal opinion. An issue with regards to it's accred-ability is that some of the personal opinion could be read and interoperated as fact; however there is little evidence to support sweeping statements. This is also true for the fact that Godin also uses his own previous works as examples, which, as it is not an external source, provides nothing in terms of genuine credit, other than that he has previously published work. The Tipping Point has more accred-ability from this aspect, as the supporting evidence was stronger. Furthermore to the structure of the book; Godin has laced the chapters with summaries that helps consolidate a section, along with short statistical images. These may on a first read appear to be of use, however there is no reference to document the source of these, and therefore is rendered academically void.

Aside from the academic value, or lack thereof, there are some interesting points that Godin debates. The bulk of Purple Cow is based around creating advertising, or even a product itself that is "remarkable". Purple Cow features several tips and reasons as to why in the current industry of advertising old fashioned marketing strategies just do not pull in the crowd they used to. It makes for an interesting read, although as previously stated - it lacks the strength of evidence, even although valid points are made. It appears that it is a fantastic source to begin with, although in order to gain anything from it, the reader would be required to research further into the points made. It is, if you will, the tip of the ice berg.

One of the useful aspects however, is that there are a large amount of short case studies, giving examples of particular aspects of marketing strategies that have taken off, and caused exponential business. These read like an encyclopaedia of example business plans, however again, the reader would be required to pursue any one of these further to gain any sort of substantial information.

an example of "guerrilla advertising"  

Godin claims that "The obvious answer, [to be successful in advertising a new variety of a household product] if you've got the money and you believe in your product, is to spend all you've got to buy tons of national TV and printing advertising", however this is personal opinion. It is understandable and does appear logically correct, but Godin supplies no statistical evidence to draw on. Without substantial external surveys, statistics and figures, it may be, and I suspect is, far from reality - as good marketing strategies do not necessarily equal spiralling costs; see Guerrilla Advertising: Unconventional Brand Communication.

On a separate note; a strong supported point made in Purple Cow was the findings of Geoff Moore, in his book "Crossing the Chasm". His graph outlines the quantity of people that come under the early adopter sector, against those who are early and late majority. The early and late majority are mostly the general public, once a product has taken off in the mainstream. Godin makes the valid point that although Moore's curved graph is specifically designed to relate to technological products, it does in fact also mirror almost all products and services to almost all audiences.

As for Hill, Provost & Volinsky, they provide an academically approved study on how early adoption aids the marketing industry in their article on Network-Based Marketing; Identifying Likely Adopters Via Consumer Networks. There is immediately sourced evidence to support their explanations from the field, quoting the likes of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, and how it's success began. Each subcategory of ways in which people adopt a strategy is individually corroborated by outsourced papers and statistics. At no point is personal experience drawn on, nor any opinion from the authors. Texts such as this are highly useful in gaining authentication, as every topic is subject to scrutinised evidence.

The three main subcategories of early adopters are grouped into "explicit advocacy", "implicit advocacy" and "network targeting". Examples are given for each; to explicitly advocate a product you must publicly spread recommendation for a product or service through a word of mouth fashion. Implicitly advocating is to promote a product through action; such as using a product themselves, and lastly network targeting is to target past consumers social neighbours, in a bid to gain business from past happy customers' surrounding acquaintances. By understanding these sectors that naturally occur within society, marketers can build on creating the ultimate marketing strategy.

An extremely relative example of using multiples of the above is cited to be Hotmail's viral marketing ploy. It was based around a tag line at the bottom of every email that was sent from a free hotmail account - thus using network targeting, and implicit advocacy. This is a well documented example source of these aspects of marketing. The figures regarding the exponential growth due to this simple strategy shows that within a year, users had increased 10 fold, all because people contact like minded people. If the early adopter uses a product, and the product targets the surrounding audience, things are sure to spread. This is an example of a forced word of mouth epidemic. Not only this, but it means that the original user is an example of an early adopter; the epicentre who radiates adverts.

I first read about the term "early adopters" through Gladwell's The Tipping Point, and since then while reading in more depth into viral marketing; I have come to the conclusion that it is crucial to market towards this sector of buyers. Without this select group of consumers, word of mouth epidemics do not arise. With no word of mouth buzz, the message is not spread to the same degree of possible consumers, and therefore the viral advert slips into the abyss of advertising - never to be successful. This is of course, every marketers nightmare. Both Godin and Hill, Provost & Volinsky discuss the "early adopter" category of people; and how to advance your strategies aiming your advertising at this crucial group.

I have come to conclude that since Hill, Provost and Volinsky use varying types of evidence in their analysis, which cross corroborates all claims in their outcome - their evidence of early adoption is more beneficial to somebody who wishes to understand it with the intent of applying it their own business. As they drawn on several fields, including economics, computer science, sociology, psychology, marketing and statistics - with statistical evidence being deduced from six fields within, a would be viral marketer could rely more heavily upon this source. 

As for Purple Cow, it is more of a general interest and casual read. Undoubtably strong points are raised, however there needs to be further support for personal claims. 

If I were to read further into this, I would draw upon the information found in Connected Marketing: The Viral, Buzz and Word of Mouth Revolution. I would also possibly do a short survey with regards to a new product on the market that is still within Moore's early adopter stage - that also has a viral marketing strategy, and personally find out what level of interest there is. This would help indicate how regular in a given city, consumers look past the household products they blindly buy, and take heed of viral advertising. 

- Bibliography -

Dorrian, M. & Lucas, G. (2006). Guerrilla Advertising: Unconventional Brand Communication. London, UK: Laurence King Publishing.

Godin, S. (2005). Purple Cow. London, UK: Penguin Books. p.7, 31-32, 79-80

Hill, S., Provost, F. & Volinsky, C. (2006). Network-Based Marketing: Identifying Likely Adopters Via Consumer Networks. Institute of Mathematical Statistics: Statistical Science. Vol. 21. (No. 2.). p. 256-260.

Kirkby, J. & Marsden, P. (2006). Connected Marketing: The Viral, Buzz and Word Of Mouth Revolution. Oxford, Great Britain and MA, USA: Butterworth-Heinmann of Elsevier.

____________________________________________________________________________________

On a lighter note - I will finish with some memorable advertising techniques, that I personally think should be exploited more:

Design Studies: Word Of Mouth Has It..

Over the past week I have been extremely busy to say the least, with ongoing class projects and the associated difficulties. Needless to say, I have not posted for a while as a result. Aside from that, I have also been delayed as there have been conflicting stories on what is actually required for the last of this semesters Design Studies assignments. Below is what I started, but I have decided to in fact use difference sources, for two reasons - one, originally I was lead to believe that we were required to write 1000 words in total for our source (500 on summarising the source, and a further 500 detailing it's link to our chosen topic which was derived from The Tipping Point). This was then to be repeated for a second source. It was then discovered that we were in fact to write 500 per source in terms of summarising, and then a further 500 words pitting each source against each other and exposing any conflicting evidence - thus totalling 1500 words. However, the two original sources I had selected do not work so well for cross analysing so I have decided to alter my selection.

Secondly, CrossSearch - Dundee Universities online journal search, with online reading facility - has decided to crash due to high volumes trying to access it. I guess it's acceptable, given it's the week before the end of semester. Alas, I do not fear as my previous in depth research into my topic has left me with various other alternatives.

Below is the beginning of my original write up, however as stated above it is no longer what I will be continuing with, but I thought I would post it anyway, as a more in depth annotation if you will.

Dellarocas, C. & Narayan, R. (2006). A Statistical Measure of a Population's Propensity to Engage in Post-Purchase Online Word-of-Mouth. Institute of Mathematical Statistics: Statistical Science. Vol 21. (No. 2.). p. 280.

Dellarocas and Narayan provide statistical evidence to support the word of mouth theory by which information regarding an object, service or the like is passed along with added opinions of their success. From this, a reputation occurs, usually either in the form of a recommendation or the opposite - advice to avoid such a item. This can be generated solely from personal opinion; if enough people recommend a product, the general consensus would be that the product is good, and someone with no prior knowledge of it would then consider buying or using such an item as a result.

Viral marketing aims to generate commotion and uproar around a selected object - with the ultimate outcome being that an explosive word of mouth epidemic radiates out from their epicentre of advertising. It relies upon not only an outlandish memorable advert and or performance to kick start such a process, but it long term relies upon the public reacting to the original incident and then passing their experience along, with an accelerating effect. This is where word of mouth statistics are highly crucial, as these must be taken into account when tailoring the perfect viral marketing campaign. It must also appear effortless; as if it was a mishap or accidental broadcast. An example of such forced accidental viral campaign is that of Threshers Christmas discount voucher. They "accidentally" released a "suppliers only" voucher which entitled the user to 40% off. The online leak caused unprecedented circulation for such a small campaign, thus being highly successful.

My "new and improved" summary of:

Hill, S., Provost, F. & Volinsky, C. (2006). Network-Based Marketing: Identifying Likely Adopters Via Consumer Networks. Institute of Mathematical Statistics: Statistical Science. Vol. 21. (No. 2.). p. 256-260.

Godin, S. (2005). Purple Cow. London, UK: Penguin Books. p.7, 31-32, 79-80.

Dorrian, M. & Lucas, G. (2006). Guerrilla Advertising: Unconventional Brand Communication. London, UK: Laurence King Publishing. p.54-101.

Kirkby, J. & Marsden, P. (2006). Connected Marketing: The Viral, Buzz and Word Of Mouth Revolution. Oxford, Great Britain and MA, USA: Butterworth-Heinmann of Elsevier.

will follow shortly.

Design Studies: Misunderstanding

Tweet

I am lead to believe during the latest of our seminars that I have misinterpreted the previous assignment slightly.

The tutorial based website task of Assignment 3 was supposed to get us to build a list of reliable website sources - 5 from our area and 5 that we generally like to keep tabs on. Unfortunately nobody could get it to work properly - as every time we added one of the reliable sources to "basket", it removed the previous one. This meant we could select no more than a total of 1 site. Argh! I continued with the assignment non the less, although had to use my intuition when it came to a sources reliability or level of authority - wether my intuition was right or not, is yet to be determined.

I, however, had taken the above to mean that we must collect 5 online sources from our research area that we have focussed on recently with regards to Design Studies (as in Viral Ads), and 5 we generally like to keep tabs on (this being 5 general design sites. I didn't think that they would want to hear what we keep track of online out-with University related disciplines - there's a lot of rubbish out there don't you know!)

So, anyway, the above mix up and broken tutorial aside - I have taken it upon myself to amend my previous post. I have left that post live on my blog as they are still relevant, but I will add in the 5 generalised sites I keep my eye on below.

They include:

BBC News (Scotland) / New York Times / The Guardian

National Geographic

YouTube

WSPA

Twitter

Vimeo

There are several other sites I regularly like to keep up to date with, as I read a lot of current affairs. After all, it's important to know what's going on in the world. Dundee's only a pin prick in terms of global affairs, so I think it's good to know whats going on outside the box, so to speak!

Design Studies: My Tip Top Viral Sites

Tweet

I have a Top 10 Pages section to the left of this post already but I thought I should add my list with regards to our Top 5 Related Sites, and Top 5 Non Related Sites, so here they are:

For viral related sites that I like to keep tabs on, I have listed the following:

Computer Arts

Lambesis

New Media Age's Viral Brand Chart

The Guardian's Advertising Section

Rubber Republic 

For general links that are not so related to my chosen topic, (and I know there are 7 here rather than 5, but I couldn't decide):

Ottagono Magazine

Dezeen Magazine

Mark Magazine

Grand Designs

Architectural Digest

Inhabitat

Frame

Design Studies: Written Research & Annotations

Images like this make me (prior to recently) dislike marketing.
I will never dress like this.

As the third part of this research related saga, we were instructed to research into our chosen subject - by now you should of gathered that I selected Viral Advertising. We were then to provide Harvard referencing and annotations. I'm assuming that this is leading to some sort of essay - that or this is just an extremely long punishment exercise. 

I'm only joking - Jonathan. I actually secretly enjoy it. I was up last night quite late reading through marketing journals - which to my surprise are really interesting. Who knew!

Below I have listed some of my references and related annotations with regards to Viral Advertising, and ways in which to draw attention to your work, similar to the Tipping Point Bibliography page:

Baldwin, J. & Roberts, L. (2006). Visual Communication: From Theory To Practice. London, UK: AVA Publishing (UK). p. 28-29.
Audience research. Aiming to a specific genre or social area is likely to be more effective than designing/advertising to mass amounts of people. Few things are appealing to all. Social class charting the differences within the social ladder.

Baldwin, J. & Roberts, L. (2006). Visual Communication: From Theory To Practice. London, UK: AVA Publishing (UK). p. 152-153.
Arguing that design is successful if the consumer understands it - designing something that only design academics have the capacity to de-construct and understand is not suitable for the masses - which only renders said design useless. In terms of marketing and advertising, although we must strive for innovative advertising tactics - it must also be at a level to which the public can interpret. 

Collins, N. (2010). "I am Spartacus" Goes Viral on Twitter. Available: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/8130376/I-am-Spartacus-goes-viral-on-Twitter.html. Last accessed 18 Nov 2010.
Example of Social Networks (Twitter) being used to spread a word of mouth epidemic. 

Coughlan, S. (2007). Viral E-mails Taught In College. Available: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6291857.stm. Last accessed 18 Nov 2010.
Example of viral related business going too far - being taught at college, is this really necessary? Viral specific teaching removes from the fundamental aspects of good marketing.

Dellarocas, C. & Narayan, R. (2006). A Statistical Measure of a Population's Propensity to Engage in Post-Purchase Online Word-of-Mouth. Institute of Mathematical Statistics: Statistical Science. Vol 21. (No. 2.). p. 280.
Science behind word of mouth epidemics - shows statistical information regarding movie goers density population, and how their feedback after movies increased or decreased sales. Evidence of how feedback can start a word of mouth ripple.

Dorrian, M. & Lucas, G. (2006). Guerrilla Advertising: Unconventional Brand Communication. London, UK: Laurence King Publishing. p.22-46.
Examples of companies who have used the "street propaganda" approach to advertising. Includes the use of graffiti, one off installations and large scale image drops on buildings - with the intention to help generate word of mouth epidemics. 

Dorrian, M. & Lucas, G. (2006). Guerrilla Advertising: Unconventional Brand Communication. London, UK: Laurence King Publishing. p.54-101.
Example research and imagery of successful site-specific advertising. Helps to show how adverts such as these are executed, and how the public and consumers interact with them. 

Godin, S. (2005). Purple Cow. London, UK: Penguin Books. p.7, 31-32, 79-80.
Pros: Further reading into opinions within viral marketing. Questions information given in The Tipping Point and references the aforementioned. Specifically explains why viral marketing in particular aids businesses in advertising. Cons: Not enough evidence to support opinions, and lacks references, however does reference other similar books to which the author writes in a narrative, making understanding easier. 

Grannell, C. (2007). Catch On To Viral Design. Computer Arts. No. 136. p. 74-79.
Article in Computer Arts magazine, describing how to start your own viral advertisement and how to utilise common techniques within viral marketing. Also provides comments and advice from industry insiders who have worked on several such campaigns. 

Hill, S., Provost, F. & Volinsky, C. (2006). Network-Based Marketing: Identifying Likely Adopters Via Consumer Networks. Institute of Mathematical Statistics: Statistical Science. Vol. 21. (No. 2.). p. 256-260.
Journal investigating word-of-mouth marketing techniques, along with buzz marketing, and viral marketing though the use of social networks. Also describes filter systems that may be used in order to determine a consumer network. Gives examples such as how "The Da Vinci Code" first took off.

Hudson, A. (2009). How Does A Viral Advert Go Viral? Available: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7946000/7946459.stm. Last accessed 18 Nov 2010.
Supporting evidence to previous research of how to kick start a viral ad campaign.

Kirkby, J. & Marsden, P. (2006). Connected Marketing: The Viral, Buzz and Word Of Mouth Revolution. Oxford, Great Britain and MA, USA: Butterworth-Heinmann of Elsevier.
In depth research into the word-of-mouth aspect of viral advertising - as first found in The Tipping Point. 

Milligan, A. & Smith, S. (2002). Uncommon Practice: People Who Deliver a Great Brand Experience. Edinburgh, UK: Pearson Education Limited. p. 138.
Branding research relating to John Lewis. Discusses what brands mean to consumers, and summarises what it is about a company that gains a customer's respect. With enough stand alone respect, an off the wall ad campaign designed to gain customers attention is not required to the same extent. Brand vs. Adverts.

Simmons, D. (2006). Marketing's Viral Goldmine. Available: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/5179166.stm. Last accessed 18 Nov 2010.
Contains word of mouth examples of viral YouTube videos, and supports the previous evidence suggesting virals may soon go too far, as it is becoming increasingly easy to create your own. 

Webster, G. Viral Infection. Available: http://www.computerarts.co.uk/in_depth/features/viral_infection. Last accessed 19 Nov 2010.
Interview with industry insiders, with explanations of seeding and how to do so online and offline. It also provides links to several campaigns which depict this type of strategy. Mentions "stickiness" of adverts, and the use of social networks.

Design Studies: What Came First, The Viral Or Design?

While YouTubing my weekend away as it's too dark and miserable outside to contemplate socialising, I came across this:

It's everything I've been looking for. It's for The Conran Shop, and it's a Viral advert that promotes designers.

Rubber Republic are a UK based company, whose sister site - Viral Ad Networks - provide viral marketing. Above is an example of their work. 

Established in 2001 they have gathered quite an extensive and impressive list of clientele; including the likes of Channel 4, Nokia, Hewlett Packard, O2 and PlayStation.  They "seed" your campaign online, by "infecting" popular pages - so to speak. For example, they may post links in forums based around a similar topic, where people who tend to read the related threads would then click on the video out of curiosity.

They also have a blog, which I from now on will be following as I'm hooked! 

Below is another good example, by Viral Agency for FedEx:

I initially selected this topic as a derivative from the Airwalk Casestudy, which was brought up in The Tipping Point, where Lambesis came up with a marketing strategy to promote Airwalk in an entirely new radical way. I have since researched into this, and intend to research further, with respect to deriving how viral ads can aid design. So far, from the examples I have shown here in my blog, and from the many, many more examples I have seen myself, I am currently at the conclusion that viral marketing can promote any product or service. This means means it is suitable for design, as some design is in the form of a product ( product design, textiles, jewellery, etc.), whereas other aspects of design come in the form of a service (architecture, interior design etc.).

What I have also come to realise however, is that viral marketing itself is in fact - design. It can be film. It can be graphic design. It can be an installation. It can be a product itself that gets distributed to promote something entirely different. 

It's limitless and infinite, and I fear I have only touched on the tip of the iceberg! 

Design Studies: Airwalk, Virals - And An Afro Ninja

As I chose to go more deeply into the Airwalk Case Study section of the book, and as I had quite a keen interest in that field of advertising anyway - here is my related poster in response to the first part of Assignment 2, as documented in my "Design Studies: Storms a' Brewin'" post.

After our brainstorm and subsequent discussion afterwards, I looked more deeply into what starts of a word-of-mouth type viral advert. Firstly, to explain, a viral advert is an advert that does not necessarily depict the product to which it intends to sell, however gains popularity for it's funny/interesting/off the wall content. Via this, it gains momentum - often these days through the internet, and subsequently acquires  attention and publicity for the related (or quite often non related) product - thus selling high quantites as a result. Bingo! Easy really...

Well. The issues (as Airwalk and Lambesis found out) can be that it is very difficult to kick start something like that. I included an example of a successful Airwalk advert in a previous post. 

These days the world is littered with YouTube "stars" - off the top of my head I can name at least 10:

Sneezing Panda

Leave Britney Alone

Tay Zonday - Chocolate Rain

Laughing Baby

Worlds Greatest Freakout

Numa Numa Guy

Star Wars Kid

Afro Ninja

You Dun Goofed Up!

and most recently: Bed Intruder Song

Out of all of these my favourite is still Dramatic Look .

Now I am not for one second saying any of the above are talented, or indeed entertaining (well maybe a few) but for one reason or another they gained notoriety, thus becoming an "internet phenomenon". People often parody these, which although can also be entertaining, only add to the original's popularity all the more. These are exactly the types of things advertisers aim to replicate in order to gain publicity for their products. A few notable examples of this are:

Cadburys Gorilla Ad

 - with follow up Eyebrows Ad

T-Mobile Flashmob Ad

None of the above have any examples of the product, they purely feed off entertainment. They do however, come in more forms other than video marketing. There have been Viral Ad Campaigns in the form of various other media, such as promotional games, websites, images, and obviously videos laced throughout the internet, which then are picked up on by unsuspecting viewers. Subtlety is also an issue, as sometimes it works in a brands favour to allow it to seem like an unrelated source, to which it builds up and is released as the advert. Clever, huh? 

Time is another aspect to which is crucial in making these work. For example, websites that are only online for a set length of time, with for example a count-down timer to release etc. builds interest as it is limited - you have to get on quick to know whats going on. This works well for films. Websites that are quirky and unusual are also known to be successful - such as willitblend.com which tests BlendTec's blending power - by blending whichever product the public request. Engaging the public works well, as if the status of the advert is to progress, people are often enticed to return to catch up with the latest. 

Alternate Reality Games (ARG's) have also been used numerous times as viral adverts in order to promote several things, however they often relate to film and video game release. Cloverfields - which was released in 2008, had clues throughout their trailer that you had to work your way through their sister ARG at 1-18-08.com. 

I've linked in the trailer and related ARG site - so feel free to have a go!

I could honestly talk about this aspect of adverts for hours, but I shan't bore you all with my endless examples I have come across in my time. As viral ad's are not restricted to displaying or conveying the product in question it is entirely possible to use these as a way to attract attention to your project/company. Throwing boxes and boxes and boxes of stickers of your company's logo from above Times Square for example would work in the same way - aim attract confused attention. People immediately question what is going on and as we are inquisitive creatures, approach the commotion to find out what it's all about. I would however of course suggest contacting the local related authorities before clambering up the sides of buildings in the name of advertising.

So thats it really. Cause a stir, a commotion, a ruckus - and people will come flooding.

And well, the rest is history I guess! As easy as that!