Marketing: Fun and Useful – try now!

This AdAge article gets to the heart of some of the more pressing questions about viral video. You cannot assume or hope your way to success. The questions (summarized below, and addressed in the full article) will get started on the right track.

Look at the numbers for Farmville users! Launched in June: 56 million users to date, with one million new users joining per day! More than 20,000 users have protested inability to customize their virtual farms with virtual Indian flags. Some sense of engagement and attachment. A fairly simple but addictive social game – encouraging competition [...]

Sony Erickson is behind this latest flash-mob series – with an attempt to extend life and engage interest beyond mob participants. Will be interesting to follow this to see if it gains traction and links to commercial action.

The decision by Coors (Molson) to pull their ads (presumably intended to help them stand-out from competitors and get noticed) seems like a quick and un-needed stand-down. Time for some bravery? Anticipating some criticism is part of communication planning. If Kokanee complains that the Coors’ “ranger” ad knocks their mascot then will Coors also pull [...]