The Viral Factory

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The Viral Factory
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The Viral Factory A Viral Marketing Company

• The Viral Factory make the content that drive
  viral campaigns
• We design and create the files which people
  send around their friend networks 
• Were here to talk about
• - what virals are- what they do- how they work

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What Are Virals? - and will they wipe your hard
drive? -
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What Are Virals?Some Examples Text Based
From Ed mailtoed_at_molehill.co.ukSent
Thursday, July 11, 2002 951 AMTo matthew
smithSubject Fwd Panic on the streets of
London Panic gripped the streets of London this
afternoon when patches of sky took on an unusual
blue colour and a ball of fire appeared above the
city. The phenomenon, known as 'The Sun' and
commonly found in Mediterranean countries,
unleashed a terrifying heat and brightness upon
the capital, causing many pedestrians to take off
their hats and scarves, while motorists were able
to turn both their headlights and wipers
off.Tony Blair urged people to be calm and
return to work as normal stating "We've seen
this sort of thing before", he said,"but it never
lasts."There are forecasts that 'The Sun' could
be seen throughout the weekend but a spokesman
for No.10 said, "I wouldn't hold my
breath". (Reuters, London)
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What Are Virals?Some Examples Flash game
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What Are Virals?Some Examples Still Image or
JPEG
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What Are Virals?Some Examples Video Clip
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What Are Virals?The Common Thread

• those were small files that are sent around
  friend networks by email
• as friends pass on to their friends, spread
  grows on an exponential curve
• like a virus!
• very quickly, vast numbers of people see the
  viral
• viral becomes famous within relevant communities

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What Are Virals?Definition

• When we talk about 'a Viral' we mean a file
  which has spread on the Internet through peer to
  peer networks
• Marketing phenomenon that facilitates and
  encourages people to pass along a marketing
  message (www.marketingterms.com)

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What Are Virals?History

• Online version of the first advertising channel
  ever to exist word of mouth
• Hotmail grew a subscriber base of 12 million in
  1.5 years by tagging all emails sent from their
  service
• An early video viral success was the Singing
  Alien created in 1999 by 3D animator Victor
  Navone to show off his skills. It made him
  famous.

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What Are Virals?History

• John West Salmon ad which many people have only
  seen on the web
• Microsoft X-Box ad was launched via the web long
  before it was on TV (and has now been banned)
• These were very good TV ads that made it onto
  the web and went viral

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What Are Virals?History

• Headrush was made by TVF to test viral theories
  and to demonstrate spread.
• It drove over 400,000 people to our website and
  we estimate it has been seen by more than 50
  million people
• The difference between what we did and the
  previous virals is we set out to create a viral
  effect rather than it happening by chance.

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What Virals Do - when a message develops a life
of its own -
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What Virals Do Multiply and Spread

• 1
• 11
• 1111
• 11111111
• 1111111111111111
• 11111111111111111111111111111111
• 11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
  11111111111111
• ETC

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What Virals Do Self - Distribute

• A viral creates its own media space
• Finds its own audience
• Self censors
• Self replicates

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What Virals Do Create a Buzz

• According to Emanuel Rosen, Buzz means "The
  aggregate of all person-to-person communication
  about a particular product, service, or company
  at any point in time."
• Using this definition, the buzz created by a
  successful viral campaign is unparalleled, with
  hundreds of thousands of person to person
  communications an hour.

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What Virals Do Create an Event

• Burn bright and fast
• Buzz spillover into offline world
• Hugely PR'able

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What Virals Do Reach a Unique Audience

• Virgin Territory 
• Vast Universe
• Global Reach

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What Virals Do Word of Mouth Recommendation

• Anti Spam
• The power of friend networks
• The importance of the send
• Sponsored entertainment

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How Virals Work - creating a viral looks like an
art, but is more of a science -
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How Virals Work Viral Buttons

• We have studied 1000s of virals and have
  isolated viral buttons to push
• - Sendability vs. receivability
• Theres a difference between the act of
  receiving watching and enjoying a viral, and the
  act of sending it on
• Most marketing media concentrates on the
  receivers experience packing in as much
  information as possible
• Virals need sendability enhancing the
  senders experience will result in more people
  sending on the file and ultimately, a viral
  success

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How Virals Work Its a Numbers Game

• The more people who can view and understand a
  viral, the more people will send it on
• Culturally independent (no spoofs, cultural
  references, language)
• Avoid sound-dependence
• Avoid large files
• Go for a ubiquitous file type

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How Virals Work Playing a joke at the viewers
expense

• and other tricks of the trade
• - Empower the sender!
• Our virals invert expectation
• Watching them feels like having a joke played on
  you

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How Virals Work Playing a joke at the viewers
expense

• and other tricks of the trade
• - Empower the sender!
• Basic human psychology means if you are the
  victim of a prank, you will immediately want to
  play it on other people.
• If this type of content came directly from a
  brand it could be a PR disaster, but it comes
  through a 3rd party your friend.

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How Virals Work Playing a joke at the viewers
expense

• and other tricks of the trade
• - Empower the sender!
• People DONT like to look like some sort of
  corporate stooge - avoid overt commercialism
• People DO like to look cool amongst their peers
  make sure your content helps them