Viral: Who the Hell Wants a Virus?

Okay. I'm going to give in and comment on this Agency.com stupidity. I really should leave it alone. I want to leave it alone. But I can't go anywhere in this circle of masturbation advertising fishbowl without running into it. I don't think there's a question anymore if it's viral or not, the debate lies in the original intent of the piece. Opponents say that it's horrible PR, because it's so horribly ridiculed. However, agency.com and internet armchair philosophers like to twist their evil mustaches and cackle, "It was our plan all along to make us look like morons! And you're spreading it! Virally! Who's the moron now?" (as evidenced by We Roll Big.com). I've played this game before. You know, where the other kid says "I know you are but what am I?" The appropriate measured response now is "I'm rubber and you're glue."

This is actually a good opportunity to talk about what "viral" is. I put a lot of stock in etymology, I think there's a reason certain terms resonate with people more than others. Viral is a negative connotation. Nobody wants a freaking virus. You don't want to send your mom a virus. A virus is something that you get duped in to. It's not a positive thing.

When I broke my internet cherry about a dozen years ago I was an amateur hacker (note: Hackers are good guys, Crackers are bad guys). The hacker/cracker community and the advertising community have the same mentality. They both believe their superior intellect can manipulate everybody else. I bring this up because in the last ten years, advertising doom-and-gloomers have forseen the end of all things. The "end of the thirty second spot" or TIVO or reduced ROI isn't the point. The true issue is that the democratization of information has created a situation where people are becoming just as savvy as marketers are. It's not the death of the thirty second spot. It's the death of manipulation.

Anyway, viral marketing. It's nefarious. Take a look at SomethingAwful's attempt to artificially create a viral campaign or recent PR attempts against Al Gore. What advertisers are going to have to realize is that the public is going to start catching on to their dweebiness on the internet. It's kind of like when Pee-Wee walked into the biker bar during his Big Adventure:



Everybody wants to kill him because he's a dweeb trying to be a biker. But Pee-Wee realizes he's a dweeb, and then proceeds to do something dweebily fantastic that the bikers love. Here's some things advertisers need to remember in the next few years:

Be self-aware: Have a full understanding of how lame you are and that everybody knows you're selling something.
Make it awesome.: They know you're selling something, and they don't really care as long as long as its something interesting. If you're trying to push something incredibly stupid on them (and you know it's lame), you're going to get torn to shreds.
Seed with respect.: Things are spread on the internet through highly influencial communities. These communities are the tipping point, and they should be worshipped. It's their house, respect it. Don't jump into these communities with a sales pitch. They know their members, and they'll background check. If you've followed the first two suggestions, and you seed through the appropriate channels, the communites will pick it up and explode it's popularity.
You have no control: Once it's out there, it's out there. You have no possible way of shaping what direction or what people will do to it. You can shift its momentum, but you CANNOT change its direction. Manipulation is dead. Deal with it.

Just some thoughts, all of which were my own. Carry on, advertisers on the internet.