When clients ask for a viral
One thing that really does my head in during client or agency meetings is that there is alway some genius that asks for a Viral.
I mean really, “Hi, this is our new detergent, can we make a viral?” er… sure I mean that how it works. Charlie biting that kids finger, all planned and scripted. Rebecca Black planned on have everyone take the piss out of her crap song – not her musical abilities. Sure
Thing is Virals are not planned, they are attempted. At that next brainstorm, change the wording to “Lets attempt to create a clip that will go viral” much easier. Think about it, if there was a guaranteed sience to making something go viral, then we wouldn’t have virals. Everything would be clocking 50 million views and nothing would stand out.
Effective vs Obvious Media
A response I posted to this article that appeared on Socialmediatoday - read that first.
Totally agree as well, I find traditional media to be quite limited, only certain sections in a news paper, certain times during the day on TV. On top of that you are basically casting a net and hoping there is a bite. It may promote but there is significant wastage. (Plus the fact that things like BARB and Rajar are an estimate based on a tiny percentage)
The reason it may be hard to see those ads in an online perspective when looking for it is becaus its so highly targeted, so many elements are in place to make sure it gets to the correct person, be it someone on the very verge of buying a car or someone that almost bought and didn’t. TV, Radio and print cannot do this…as for billboards… Hi I’m a big picture, hopefully one of you will buy into this.
I’ve worked with marketers still living in the 80′s and prioritising traditional then using left over budgets towards online, not realising how much more targeted thier ads would be – plus accountable, measurable and even changeable if needed. What would it cost to run 30 different messages on one ad on TV?
Social Media, even better – playing it right and finding those loyalists to your brand., Users that will big you up, respond to other users all based on thier love of the related product. How amazing is that? Even cheaper then online paid media. Allowing users to see negatives and positives, then seeing those users sing praises or recommend you to loads of thier mates… or slating your product then having to respond to hundreds of fans that disagree. When you get that right, it is amazing. Those users pushes and shout outs are more believable, converting and powerful then any TV ad, radio ad or print campaign put together. You could acheive the amplication of an expensive primetime TV slot and a tenth of the cost.
I’ll stop now.
commissioning a logo and impatience
So I’ve just registered on DesignCrowd to get some designers on the logo. I’ve given 10 days and a prize of £150 – should be okay. If you are a designer and you are reading this – give it a go : Brief
Hopefully in over a week from now I should have a nice fresh logo. Then the beta signup phase begins.
Having said that, the dev partner I’ve teamed up with is extremely busy and its taking time for him to get back to me. Bit of a concern right now, but it may be that I’m impatient. Just really want to know whats the next step. What do we need to do to get building. I have my marketing plan all set, but need a definite start to get promoting. I don’t want to do a whole lot of promotion and get my first signups only to lose them or have them ignore any email messaging because they forgot they signed up.
My thinking right now is that I’m not a paying customer, so my priority for him is low, which is understandable. I have offered equity, but he has to make a living in the meantime. If push comes toshove, I’m pretty confident I can raise the funds given the opportunity to speak to an investor or two.
We’ll see anyway.