The Secret Diary of a Bonafide Marketing Genius

I hate viral marketing. Really, I do.

You see, first of all, viruses are icky. They are in actuality small, infectious agents that can replicate only inside the cells of other organisms. The word “virus” actually comes from a Latin word meaning toxin or poison. Nobody likes getting them (and that includes your customers). Only terrorists enjoy spreading them. And I’m pretty confident that no one in their right mind really wants us to create or propagate a virus on their company’s behalf.

What clients want, when they ask us to “whip up a really great viral campaign!” is to create marketing that spreads at an exponential rate—similar to a virus.

Because you see, viral isn’t what a marketing campaign is, but how that campaign spreads. The Secret to Viral Marketing Success has nothing to do with viruses (thankfully). It has everything to do with how share-able, how share-worthy, and how join-worthy the content that you create is. Because sharing is not a passive act (like when you get a virus)—it’s a deliberate choice.

So here’s a thought. Instead of focusing on “viral marketing”, we suggest embracing “consumer-driven marketing”. This means focusing on, and deeply understanding how and why people choose to share things with each other. It means committing ourselves as marketers to creating media that consumers actually want to share; media that’s more akin to a “gift” than to an infectious agent.

It means accepting the fact that when people tell friends about a brand, they’re not trying to help the brand; they’re trying to help their friends. Thus if we want them to share things for our benefit, we damn well better take the time to understand and cater to their motives, not ours.

Let’s stop creating campaigns, and start creating conversations. Ideas. Experiences. Better yet, let’s start creating conversations, ideas, and experiences that are not only worth talking about, but are actually made better by virtue of the dialogue they evoke. Let’s stop expecting our clients and customers to talk about our brands and instead empower them to interact through them.

But listen: if you’re determined to keep spreading viruses instead of gifts, for heaven’s sake, please pass the Purell*.