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Spotted in a bar in Belize.

The intrigue of that poker game.

To get people to talk, they've got to know something about it. They've got to be made
curious. You've got to get them asking questions.

It's that (secret) in this "ad" that does all the hard work here.



Posted by Ed Cotton Duncan Watts, Professor of Sociology at Columbia University, was recently interviewed on the topic of viral marketing for HBR’s Ideacast series.

Watts started out by explaining how viruses work, highlighting how it’s well known to science that a small number of people start epidemics. For a virus to become an epidemic, it requires each infected person infects at least one other person. Infect less than one and a viral epidemic doesn’t occur.

In science terms, an epidemic requires a “reproduction rate” of 1.

Watts believes marketers need think beyond viral, to an alternative that he calls Big Seed Marketing. This demands marketers go beyond the analogy of viral, where current thinking demands that viruses start with a small number of people. His recommendation is not to replace traditional marketing with viral, but introduce viral elements to traditional programs.

Simply put, pay for an initial base and then add tools to help spread the idea.

Watts used Procter and Gamble’s launch of Tide Cold Water, as an example of Big Seed Marketing in action. P&G wanted a true viral effect, but in tests campaigns generated “reproduction rates” that were significantly less than 1.

Procter then sent the campaign to its mailing list of 900,000 people and discovered that it took 20 people to infect 1. Although the impact wasn’t as viral as they had hoped for, they still added 40,000 people for no cost. Importantly, they didn’t start out small hoping to seed the idea; they started with almost 1 million people.

For years we’ve been using the “viral” in viral marketing, thinking and hoping that it’s marketing that works like a virus, it turns out we were wrong on two fronts; there’s no such thing as a truly viral marketing campaign and if you want to get the next best thing, forget small, you need to start out big.

Everyone these days is talking about viral marketing and memes, but it's often a tough concept to grasp, it appears so intangible.

So here's a great real world example for you.

Improv Everywhere are a NYC performance group who are all about doing great stunts (100s of blue shirts invade Best Buys, when U2 comes to NYC they staged their own rooftop concert with a U2 look-a-like and sound-a-like band, etc).

Its latest exploit was to "Punk'd" Yankee Stadium in the middle of a baseball game.

One of its "agents" spent several innings pretending to be unable and incapable of finding his seat. It started when he tried to return to his seat after visiting a concession stand and despite the shouts of "Rob" from his friends, he couldn't find it.

The Rob virus quickly spread throughout the stadium with hillarious results.

A full account can be found here.

It really shows how interesting ideas can spread quickly.

Apparently, all it takes is one dumb guy at a baseball game.

Here are six reasons why it works.

1. The crowd is connected- in a physically confined space and they are all Yankee fans- which allows the idea to spread quickly
2. There is lots of attention on the crowd because of the numerous breaks in the game-people are often looking around the crowd as well as the field-so they are looking for something to catch their attention that might have talk value for the person they are watching the game with
3. Someone lights the fuse- friends start the story- they set up the character and the problem for the rest of the crowd
4. It becomes a storyline. Rob has become a character with a dilemma
5. It's interactive- it's become a game-help Rob find his seat- people naturally want to help
6. There's also mystery.Why is he doing this?- the expected reasons are  because he is stupid and/or drunk- which are amusing topics for baseball fans

Via Wonderland