Developed by Ogilvy Toronto, a professional ad agency (as most ads are), the piece seems like it would fit in well on traditional media, such as TV. However, by distributing the video on YouTube, Dove made a critical change that seems to have benefitted them tremendously. The video has gotten well over a million views since its inception (and even more if you count all the copies), while at the same time costing virtually nothing to distribute. That’s quite the ROI - though a TV spot would probably get more viewers, it certainly would cost much, much more.

Furthermore, the people viewing the ads are doing so willingly. This is in sharp contrast to TV ads, which in my opinion, rely on ad nauseam tactics to drive home their point. This is really the advantage of viral marketing - it spreads from person to person (at least in its early stages), and not really from a centralized source. However, this also puts the onus on the advertiser to develop an interesting and captivating piece, as this is effectively determines how many people will see the ad, not how much money is spent on distribution. But, perhaps this is a good thing - after seeing some of the commercials they now force upon you at the theatres, I would welcome an improvement on advertising.

Another advantage of the viral marketing campaign are the inevitable spinoffs that will occur. The Dove video has already spawned copycat and parody pieces on YouTube, with people eager to either display their Photoship skills or elicite a laugh or two. In effect, this is giving Dove free publicity. While Dove isn’t the first company to use viral marketing to their advantage, this is one of the times I’ve seen a seemingly made-for-TV spot distributed only on the Internet. Except Dove’s foray into this arena to be a litmus test for other advertisers - and by most measures, the results seem to be quite positive. One could argue that all this publicity won’t necessarily result in increased sales - but that could be said of any marketing campaign.

Does this mean that the sky is falling for traditional advertising mediums? Well, yes and no. (Forgive me for taking the easy way out and avoiding a direct answer) Traditional advertising is not going anywhere anytime soon. You will still see companies throwing millions at the prospect of the 30-second SuperBowl ad, which has always been the time to put out innovative commercials. However, the Internet has its own niche, and one that is rapidly being taken over and being taken serious by more companies. I think this will eventually force marketers to re-think and hopefully innovate more when it comes to ad spots.

However, what I think is more important is how the hype and buzz about this movie came about - all of it happened through entirely untraditional channels, and SoaP may be the first movie that was heavily promoted and spread through viral marketing on the Internet, actively encouraged by New Line Cinema. This sets a precendent that other marketers are sure to notice

The viral spread

Viral marketing is nothing new. Basically, the concept of viral marketing is not to advertise by traditional methods, but rather by encouraging people and fans to spread the news of a product by word-of-mouth, to their friends, family and so-forth. This can be done by creating fun little web games that promote a particular product, and thus it is hoped that the game will be forwarded to friends. It’s called “viral” because the hype and buzz spreads from person-to-person, rather than from a particular media campaign (TV, billboard, etc.) directly to the person.

The rise of hugely popular social networks, such as MySpace, has made viral marketing more effective. Witness companies Unilever, using MySpace users to promote Axe deodourant. This method of advertising is extremely cheap compared to traditional methods, and can be very effective. It’s thus a low-risk option that’s just waiting to be exploited by more companies. Perhaps even more astonishing is the rise of companies like PayPerPost, which offers payment to bloggers who agree to write posts about certain products. In a way, these companies are just like regular ad agencies, except they’re operating in a new medium - the online viral market.

These techniques can be related to, or called “astroturfing”. The term itself is a play-on-words of the term “grassroots”, which basically means huge amounts of regular people voicing their support for a particular idea or policy. Astroturf, being fake grass, is thus the same to “grass” as “astroturfing” is to “grassroots” - apparent wide-spread user buzz about a particular product, when in fact the buzz or hype has been ochestrated.

Snakes on a Plane goes viral

The lead up to Snakes on a Plane and its move to viral marketing may have been accidental and unpredicated by the people behind the movie. When someone got wind of the absolutely outrageous title and concept, it apparently quickly spread throughout the web, becoming nothing short of an Internet meme.

This lead to many user-generated videos or art mocking or otherwise speculating on what might happen in the movie. A blog dedicated to it was even launched. And, of course, the many requests of a proper Samuel L. Jackson one-liner eventually lead New Line Cinema to re-open shooting of the movie in early 2006 for the explicit reason of adding this dialogue that users had so rampantly requested. In effect, New Line Cinmea was getting free advertising of their movie because of all the online buzz it was generating because of the outlandish concept. And, perhaps most importantly, they themselves decided to jump on the bandwagon, and further encourage more hype by actually yielding to users’ requests to make the move even more outrageous!

One could argue that the movie wouldn’t have generated so much buzz had it not been so outrageous, but one thing is for sure: There is no way this movie would have generated so much hype before its release if it were not for the web. I guarantee you that almost everyone in the theatre last night had read up on SoaP on the web before going to view it - heck, that’s the only way they would’ve known about it!