taglab blog

Does viral marketing work?

August 23, 2006

Increasingly, clients and the press alike are beginning to question the effectiveness of viral marketing. At Taglab, we’ve developed a number of campaigns with viral mechanics that have been extremely effective. On some occasions though, we’ve advised clients against undertaking viral activity. Whether a viral mechanical is appropriate depends entirely upon the individual circumstances of a given brief.

When viral marketing first emerged as a buzzword, it generated a huge amount of excitement, because it appeared to be possible to reach vast audiences with zero media spend. Like most things that appear too good to be true, it was. Some ad campaigns (most famously the Budweiser “whazzup” ad) reached an audience of millions through nothing more than “word of mouse,” but this was the exception rather than the rule. Many more campaigns failed to capture the publics’ imagination in this way. Whilst it’s doubtless true to say that a brilliant ad campaign still has the potential to spread in a similar fashion to “Whazzup,” a client giving this as a brief to their agency might just as well ask them to bottle some lightening whilst they’re at it. This type of exposure should be seen as a potential side-benefit of an effective campaign, rather than as a core part of the campaign strategy.

Having said that, viral continues to have a key role to play in online marketing – particularly where it is combined with a good incentive. Effective incentives for viral campaigns can take many forms – ranging from the financial to the emotional. Financial incentives, such as TalkTalk’s “Pass it on” campaign, (where subscribers of their telephone service are encouraged to recruit friends and family in order to make free calls to them), have be extremely effective. We’ve also found emotional incentives such as appealing to users competitive instincts with “challenge a friend” mechanics in games and quizzes have also been effective in extending a campaign’s reach.

Whilst not every viral campaign is going to be the next Buzweiser, reaching audiences of millions, as a means of distribution, viral is far more intimate and credible than traditional media channels. Effectively it’s advertising communication passed on via the personal recommendation of a friend or colleague – and this level of audience participation often tends to generate a high conversion rates. With today’s new generation of MySpace junkies, and a growing interest amongst marketeers in all kinds of user-generated content – the role for viral advertising is becoming more important than ever.

Why “doing no evil” can put you at a disadvantage with Google

June 11, 2006

Google’s “do no evil” motto has become famous around the world. How frustrating then, to see those who dabble with the dark side of search engine optimisation are prospering on Google these days. At Taglab, we provide a range of search engine optimisation (SEO) services for our clients. We always advise clients to stick to best-practice techniques, and to avoid any exploits that may be regarded by search engines as unethical. And yet, time and again we witness sites employing crude techniques such as purchasing irrelevant 3rd party links achieving higher rankings than sites that play by the rules. The temptation to “do evil” can become almost irresistible.

As Google’s popularity has grown, the number of SEO specialists who are prepared to use these questionable techniques to propel their sites to the top of the rankings has increased massively. We’ve observed many such sites achieving consistently high rankings as a result. We assume that one day Google will correct these problems, and that those who rely solely on unethical SEO techniques will be duly punished in their rankings, but this seems to be a long time in coming. In the meantime, we’ll continue to advise clients to “do no evil”, but we’ll also warn them that this may not do them much good on Google.