Fallon strategic planner Aki Spicer explores the latest social media metrics of the "Kittens Inspired By Kittens" phenomenon (created by Fallon ECD Al Kelly) as well as the 5 actionable lessons we can apply to our brands.
Been on a rant recently about a new production option for the social web in face of ubiquitous, cheaper, faster "Good Enuff" technologies like camera phones and laptop editware.
This tech democracy is amplifying how wasteful micro-site development (just make a really hype MySpace page or YouTube Channel with widgeted contents and plow all your budget into savvy media buys) and the overly produced "viral" video is. On YouTube, people probably don't care about our craft. So get to the idea quick(er), cheap(er). Stop pursuing perfect and make it "Good Enuff".
"Good Enuff" isn't just for users, it enables us marketers to shoot more ideas fast(er), cheap(er) instead of rolling all our energies into a single overly produced "perfect" idea that just may fail. So fail fast(er). And fail cheap(er).
At the Social, good ideas are still seen as good ideas as long as production values are "good enuff" (Can they see it? Check? Can they hear it? Good, ship it and see how it fares on YouTube and Digg). And bad ideas aren't made any better on the social web because they were shot expensively (honestly all that gloss goes over the heads of low bandwidth viewers who are skeptical of commercial gloss).
Success at The Social dictates that it is best to fail fast(er) and cheap(er) and Try, Try Again till you strike the right "viral" chord (the more important pursuit).
Below is an interesting user-gen commercial for Trader Joes - shot on a handheld Palm Treo. 212,491 views so far on YouTube.
The daughter of Fallon's own ECD Al Kelly has confounded much of our agency "viral" science in recent days with her unexpected and cute lil' YouTube vid entitled "Kittens, Inspired By Kittens".
In only a few days "Kittens..." has garnered over 300K views, made boingboing, Cute Overload,trended #3 top shared link last nite on Twitter, YouTube honors now incl #3 - Most Responded (Today) Pets & Animals, #13 - Most Responded (This Week) - Pets & Animals category. 
Now, the reason this video is confounding to a strategist at an ad agency: it's all serendipity, folks, no budget, no client, no strategy, no objective intent - just Al Kelly sharing the infectious joy of his 6-year-old girl reading a childrens' book. That's the brief simple and plain. Either she's way smarter than us strategerists, or we're way overthinking it sometimes.
The success of "Kittens..." (and hundreds of goofy vids like it) often flies in the face of much of our well-produced, branded, and strategized factory "virals". So what gives? Is "viral" still just a roll of the dice - particularly for brands? Do we embrace the more-faster-cheaper ethos that drives the users? Do we recruit 6-year-olds to generate ideas for us? Do we get her to replicate the magic - this time for a brand? And it makes me wonder, if we had pitched "Kittens..." to a client would they ever have approved it? And if a client would've approved "Kittens..." would they have added too many brand mandatories that would slow down its "viral" appeal?
I do think we may learn 7 applicable lessons from "Kittens..." to add into our "viral video" toolbox for surefire success:
1) Embrace Silly - stupid is ok, too! (serendipity)
2) Getit?Gotit?Good. - make it a fast, easy "get": a girl reading a childrens book about kittens - got it. (science)
3) Embrace 'Good Enough' - shoot it fast and cheap, poor production value is good enough as long as they see it and hear it. (science)
4) Tap an emotional core that people want to share in spreading - people are immediately on this girl's side, we want to help her succeed at this book report. (serendipity)
5) Add Cute Kid - like Billy Dee Williams always said: "Works every time!"(science)
6) Add Cute Kittens (science)
7) Try, Try Again - rinse and repeat the above - the old broadcast method dictated we shoot one big production a year. The YouTube method says shoot more micro ideas and release them freely to the wild. (serendipity)
//POWERFUL (SIMPLE) IDEA
//GENEROUS ADDED VALUE TO PEOPLE'S LIVES
//MASS INTERACTION
//SOCIAL WEB AMPLIFIED THE IDEA
...Imagine if your Brand had done this?
Radiohead held an online contest to remix "Nude" from their album - "In Rainbows". I found this (late) entry to be particularly fascinating and breakout. It takes a bit to get to the "beat" but well worth it as it builds and mashes the music utilizing Sinclair ZX Spectrum Guitars, Epson LX-81 Dot Matrix Printer, HP Scanjet 3c, and Hard Drive arrays. Of particular note is his savvy working of the social net touchpoints to get the work slippy.
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