Viral Marketing and seeding.
Henriette Weber Andersen
Citizen Rogue
following reasons:
1. As you outlined in your email, it is merely a buzzword and is
pretty vacuous. So many people use it to describe really lame
strategies from SEO to creating 'oh so clever' videos
2. The word itself is related to something that damages our web, our
computers and our bodies
3. Viral is usually referring to something fake created in some agency
4. Viral is not innovative, in fact, it is a cop out
5. As you already stated, there is nothing connecting, human or
relationship building about it
6. The amount of places it is used baffles me. I sat in a meeting a
couple of weeks ago, where the king of buzzwords used the word 'viral'
about 50 times to describe practically every idea he had, including,
"Players are viral" (he was referring to 'players' like iTunes and
Windows Media Player, which are NOT viral themselves, the media that
plays on them can become popular and get passed around, but the
players are not, in themselves, viral)
You all know that I am not too open about the the definition of Pinko
Marketing, but for the same reason that 'guerilla', a word that once
meant something, was bastardized, I need to keep it this way.
Viral is not ever and will never be part of what pinko is. Pinko is
about being part of the community you serve. Pinko is about building
real, human relationships. Pinko is about letting your customers
hijack your brand. Pinko is about never trying to get the quick cash
grab, never trying to 'trick' or 'dazzle' anyone into buying your
crap. Pinko is about respecting your customer as intelligent and
giving them the best possible option in your product and respecting if
they still don't give a damn (but finding out why and what you can do
to please them).
Pinko takes time. It takes patience. It takes integrity and heart and soul.
If you, at any point, are representing Pinko publicly, I trust that
each and every one of you will represent it with the same time,
patience, integrity, heart and soul.
Pinko is a movement, not a buzzword.
Viral is the sludge of marketing.
Tara
--
tara 'miss rogue' hunt
agent provocateur
Citizen Agency (www.citizenagency.com)
blog: www.horsepigcow.com
phone: 415-694-1951
Henriette Weber Andersen
Deborah Schultz
steered clear of discussing why i hate them publicly in an effort to
bring along those (often corporate folks) who need to understand the
level of effort, work and trust involved in community/pinko
marketing. I may just throw my patience out the window...;)
I just posted a related item on hornik's viral marketing talk at foo
--post had a different focus but it did get me thinking about all the
negative words people use to describe the honorable role of marketing
(true marketing) - post to follow soon.
welcome back
Cheers,
D
Deborah Schultz
deborah...@gmail.com
http://www.deborahschultz.com
917-848-1016
/pd
that has been posted to this forum !!
"Pinko takes time. It takes patience. It takes integrity and heart and
soul. "
/pd
> On 10/4/06, Henriette Weber Andersen <henrie...@toothlesstiger.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > hmm, well here's a story for you .
>
> > Everybody in the little blogosphere of the country of "Denmark" was ranting
> > over me being employed as a "project coordinator" for a viral agency.
>
> > After 2 weeks at "the office" I find out that there is something incredibly
> > wrong.
>
> > I couldn't quite make it out - but I wasn't doing what I thought I would do
> > =)
>
> > I was actually buying up traffic and placement on sites...
>
> > this wasn't my idea of viral marketing.
>
> > So actually viral agencies are incredibly oldschool - I mean - I did the
> > same job in 2001-2003 for an odds comparison service, and it isn't much fun.
> > it isn't very "people" or " human" either
>
> > So I guess viral is just a buzzword for companies to show innovation...
>
> > I mean what is your feelings about Viral agencies and viral marketing at all
> > ?
>
> > btw - I am talking at a danish conference about pinko marketing in
> > november... how great is that ?
>
> > all the best
>
> > Henriette Weber Andersen
> > henrie...@toothlesstiger.net
> >www.toothlesstiger.net
> >www.henrietteweber.com--
> tara 'miss rogue' hunt
> agent provocateur
> Citizen Agency (www.citizenagency.com)
> blog:www.horsepigcow.com
> phone: 415-694-1951- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -
mtam...@gmail.com
I was in the same position you are in now about 6 months ago. It was
horrible. I left, it was killing me. When I started looking for a new
gig, I started interviewing the interviewer. Asked them what they
thought words like viral, community and conversation meant to them and
the company...man, did I learn a lot.