The Top 10 Viral Ad Campaigns

Surfing online I came across a Times article  that reports the top 10 viral ad campaigns of the web as presented by Mr.Maymann, GoViral's chairman. Unfortunately some of them were removed from Youtube.com by the companies that have created them. Nevertheless, the examples (that I have picked) below best illustrate the crucial components of a online viral campaign: making people feel something and doing something unexpected.

The Nike clip featuring famous football star Ronaldinho

Quicksilver Dynamite Surfing: How to go in a country without waves, Denmark

Dove Evolution: "No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted"

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Berlitz: "What are you zinking about?"

Pink MySpace Has Gone A Long Way

General Mill's most recent social viral campaign, Pink for the Cure,  has just been listed among the Viral Hall of Fame 2008. The campaign aims to spread "simple stories of hope" on its dedicated MySpace page. It targets those women between the ages of 25 and 50, whose lives have been touched by breast cancer. General Mills, being more than a trendy "pink-marketeer" has invested in the long term social networking movement and has proved to be very successful! As I read through some of the strategies they have employed, the Groundswell objectives were already echoing in my mind:

1) Go where people are: MySpace (listening, check!)

2) Walk the walk: create personal connections 

3) Empower the impassioned: let them become evangelists (energizing, check!)

And no wonder they have been so successful. Partnering up with a networking site that has allowed them to reach their desired audience through understanding their need for moral and emotional support and they have just provided this without further complications. 

Missing TURKCELL

While talking about LISTENING this week, the company that immediately popped into my mind was TURKCELL- a Turkish telecommunications company that was founded about 15 years ago (or so, I just remember when my dad got his first cell phone, he was among the first). After having to deal with Fido in Canada, Turkcell has even started to seem even more divine to me, not only because of its (way) superior service in terms of EVERYTHING, but also of that fact that they actually listen to their customers. The anecdote that I am going to tell happened about 6 years ago, when most companies in Turkey would not even dream of a website like Turkcell had, let alone the online services they had been providing. Anyways, I had just gotten my bill, stating that I had been charged for something that I thought I was not supposed to. Of course, being my dad's daughter (you got to fight all the injustice in this world, especially economical ones!!!), I went online in the hopes of finding some kind of feedback form that I could fill in instead of calling customer service (Not really my dad's daughter here, he would have called). Anyhow, I wrote them a polite message stating my complaint. To tell you the truth, that was actually it for me. I didn't really expect anything out of it, I wasn't even sure if I was supposed to be charged or not. Who is going to deal with a 10 TL extra charge (about $CAD 7) on some teenager's telephone bill? To my surprise, they actually called me back and explained to me the situation. Well, they were too surprised, for my over expression of gratitude since realistically thinking I did not believe a company would exist 1) in Turkey 2) that actually cared what their customers said. 

Of course, it is deadly important that the company is aware of what the customers really think about it. You could do so much with showing yourself as a hip, creative cooperation when the customers think the right opposite. Though, this is very difficult to achieve since it is hard to predict where to start the listening. Is website the best place for it? How about those users that don't really utilize the website, wouldn't they be left out? And even if you actually got some feedback, how would you interpret it? Aaah the mystifying world of e-marketing!

So briefly, the moral of the story: If Turkcell was a man, I'd marry him. 

www.turkcell.com