Birthday fun and viral marketing

A couple days ago I had a lovely birthday, and the internet played a big part in it.

My partner researched places to go and have fun on it, made a reservation through it, I was given gift certificates purchased off it and that will be spent there, sent gifts ordered from it, and I got cards designed on and sent from it as well.

A friend sent me an interesting "card" that I had fun with.

You go to the site and upload a picture, cut out the face, and it incorporates the photo into the flash and creates an avatar or e-card.

Now this isn't where I'll go into my rant about Flash and it's "correct" and "incorrect" usage on a website because this is a good example of the good that can be done with it.

Here's a screencap of the finished product that my friend sent to me (Click to see the "card" in action, and don't ask why there are photos of me dressed as a Ninja floating around the internet please):



This is the top page of the website just in case you wanted to make one yourself.

There is a Japanese expression (phrase?), "Shokugyobyo", which literally translated means "Work (Profession) Sickness".

No, it doesn't mean what you probably think it does which is that it's that malady that overcomes you on Monday mornings or after a long holiday making you either want to head out of your house much later than usual or just call in sick.

It's what you call what is happening when you find yourself frequently noticing elements of your work or profession invading your non-work time thoughts and lifestyle.

So what does a person like me do first when I get an e-card like that?

The same exact thing anybody else does, and that's make my image dance and twirl and try to get it to do that "disco hands" thing for a little longer than I'll admit to.

But then there's my second step, and that's probably where *my* "Shokugyobyo" kicks in.

When I see a website like that with a creative idea, a catchy design and "spreadability" (my own term) potential I always get to thinking about how the site owner intends to use it to make money because the majority of popular sites like that don't exist for us to have fun on, they make it fun for us to be there so they can make money.

I started wondering what business model the site owner had in mind.

Are they planning on making money off selling the cards and avatars, and opting for making their money by sheer visitor volume at a low cost per item?
(Think ringtone and music download sites and such)

Or do they have something larger in mind?

So far, the only potential for income from this site that I can see comes not from the free e-cards, but from the images downloadable to cell phones.

Now, everybody wants to be a millionaire.

If you think about how many sales you need to become a millionaire (well, to make one million dollars and we won't even start talking about development or hosting or marketing costs or anything right now) selling a product at $2.45 a pop, the answer is 408,163 sales. (Plus or minus a smidge)

Say each customer pays for and downloads 3 images (a number I've pulled out of my *ahem*..hat..) before they move on to the next hot thing and that's still 136,054 customers you need to make interested in what you have.

So you want to make a million, and you have an idea, and you need to grab the attention of at least enough people to result in 136,054 people from your target market actually buying your product.

What do you do?

In the olden days you had to make a huge pile of your competitor's stuff, burn it in public, and send smoke signals out to the media hoping they'd pick it up and make your product known.

Or buy a paper, print, radio or television ad or something.

It's before my time (*cough*lies*cough*), so I'm not too clear on how that stuff worked in the olden days.

And what do you do today to get an advertising campaign going on a limited budget so you can reach enough people to get at least 136,054 of them to make a purchase and make you a million dollars?

If you click on the little "built by netymology" image in the upper right-hand corner of the page, they give you a huge clue as to the answer on their home page.

"Netymology specialise in web design, e-commerce, Viral marketing, online games, web applications for content management, interface design, identity and branding."

The two key words I want you to focus on here are "Viral marketing" and "Branding".

Branding is something I've touched on before, so today I'm going to talk a little about viral marketing and how it's the internet version of a word-of-mouth campaign of yore, but quite often much sneakier and more guided and not at all apparent when done well.

Maybe it's actually not all that different and just the medium and ease with which it's carried out is, but that's a debate for a different day.

How did I learn about this site?

A friend sent me a funny e-card from it.

And how did she learn about it?

Most likely from some friend that sent it to her, that had it sent to her, that found it because it had made it's way to some website or online community she likes, most likely planted by a person pretending to be just a satisfied user or person who came across a nifty new thing, a "shill" if you will, but really a "viral marketer".

And how did you learn about it?

Maybe by reading this blog entry right here.

And so on, and so on and so on.

This is the basic premise of viral marketing;
Plant an idea "naturally" (no, it's not really naturally, it's intentional but you've failed if people think it's intentional because they feel manipulated and rebel against it) in a visible online community or property, and then get people to unwittingly do your advertising for you by spreading the word.

Have them propagate it like a virus for you until it spreads and saturates throughout the general population.

(Unwittingly unless, of course, they happen to have a serious case of Shokugyobyo, in which case they may know that's exactly what they're doing but don't really mind the manipulation if they think your idea is spiffy, and in some cases, may intentionally try to help your campaign. In other cases, they may feel a little jealous, however, but once again, they could always steal the idea and try to do the same thing if had the right investors and developers).

The online media coverage of "Bag Borrow or Steal" site with their wonderful idea isn't exactly viral marketing. It's a pretty good example of a media savvy site owner (business owner) who uses the media to their best advantage.

Today's site, with their "Muglets", is unlike a shop that rents designer bags in the sense that until this company created this particular good (Item? Brand?) there wasn't a market for it since, well, it didn't exist.

I'm not going to go deep into this concept today, but keep it in mind the next time you're forwarding a URL to a friend or coworker with a cute or funny or neat kind of gimmick and take a little time to say "Hmmmmmmm..... am I being used as a carrier to spread a viral marketing concept?"

Because sometimes it's fun to notice the ways in which you're being manipulated even if you don't mind that particular manipulation at all.