Viral Marketing Examples in the Eye of an Expert - Marketing - Viral Marketing

Nowadays there are plenty viral marketing examples to learn from. To the naked eye they may seem funny, shocking, surprising or just cute but only through an expert eye the under the radar mind manipulation techniques used in them can be exposed.

"I can't say that the average marketing professional gets it" said Ran Weiss, author of the Viral Video Blueprint. "Viral marketing is a bit more than just featuring a product or a brand. It's a mix of a good product, creativity and psychology. It's a territory unfamiliar to many and that is why so few really get it. It's an art but there are a lot of viral marketing examples out there now to reverse engineer"

You don't have to go a great distance to find viral marketing examples. Some of the most successful ones are right under your nose. Lady Gaga for example is an ongoing viral marketing campaign. You've got the outrageous performances, ridicules costumes and surprise element in every appearance she makes. Another good example would be high end sport cars such as the Bugatti Veyron. It may not be the most cost effective or fuel efficient car in the world but who cares. It's rare. It's the fastest. It's exciting.

Are all viral successes intentional? No. Some users just post a video on YouTube never expecting that it would catch fire. But their videos still contain the same sort of ingredients that a well crafted viral campaign would. Otherwise it won't be interesting enough for other users to talk about. In the case of the double rainbow guy for instance, what triggers other people to share his clip is the sense of superiority as the guy is hilarious. Was it his intention? We'll never know. But the ingredient is still in it.

"Viral Marketing has nothing to do with luck" adds Ran Weiss, "if you know what you're doing and put some effort and creativity into it utilizing simple techniques that everyone can learn, you can generate viral campaigns on demand"

The main difference then between intentional viral success and random viral success is the knowledge of how to integrate viral ingredients into a campaign and to recognize what works. To do that you need to have the eye of an expert