The Beginnings of Viral Marketing

October 3rd, 2009

by John R. Sedivy

Media Virus Undoubtedly you have heard of viral marketing, or at a minimum something going “viral” especially in a social media context. The essence of viral marketing is that the right message hits the right target at precisely the right time and spreads at an unbelievably rapid rate. How does this occur? A little skill, good timing, and a whole lot of luck. But what makes a message, individual, product, service, or business go viral? If there was a definitive answer the same promoters of individuals, products, services, or businesses would produce hits time and time again. However this, more often than not, is not the case.

This is where luck comes in. But one’s luck certainly increases with skill. Knowledge, and the subsequent application of gained knowledge is power – and therefore educating oneself on viral marketing techniques may increase the likelihood of producing a viral hit, or at a bare minimum, recognizing a viral hit in the making. Increased knowledge increases the likelihood that one may hit the right timing and eventually skill, timing, and luck are all present and the stars are aligned.

But there are techniques for creating a viral hit which may be used to increase the likelihood of doing so. At a minimum one must understand the system and the processes the system uses. This is the subject of Media Virus! by Douglas Rushkoff.

Spreading The Virus
A virus injects itself into a cell and instructs the host cell – “spread me.” If the virus is executed properly the process continues over and over again until many, a majority, or even all the cells are infected with the virus. So it goes with a media virus.

A message originates from an individual or organization. It may die off at the first recipient – if indeed it does reach the intended recipient. It may spread to more individuals, it may spread to many individuals. It may spread to all individuals. One should be so lucky!

Viral marketing has been around since at least 1994 when Media Virus! was first published. So why the sudden interest in viral marketing? The Internet is coming into it’s own.

Sure the Internet has been around for some time – initially developed by The Rand Corporation in the late 1960’s for defense applications – however the masses are just now beginning to embrace this medium. And it isn’t even close to reaching it’s full potential. Something interesting I had learned when first starting my business – individuals and small businesses are slow, slow to move and slow to change. Surely this is not true of all individuals and small business, but certainly a large number. People stick with what they are comfortable with and therefore resist change.

The masses are becoming comfortable with the Internet. Research, reading, social networking, shopping – you name it. This comfort and subsequent embrace of the Internet is increasing the rate at which information is spread, and in my opinion this rate of information transfer only stands to increase exponentially over time.

This is a ripe environment for a virus to flourish.

Embracing Chaos
One of the most fascinating aspects of Media Virus! is the unique combination of systems thinking, chaos theory, and how the mass media works. Prior to reading this book I thought I had a reasonable understanding of how the media worked, I was mistaken.

According to Rushkoff the media is a living organism which continually evolves over time. Complex systems theory states that a system operates optimally when operating at the edge of chaos. The trade-off is that optimal operation is often unpredictable. As with any living organism it is impossible to predict with perfect accuracy the behavior of the organism (in this case the media), thus is impossible to launch a hit virus consistently over time. What can be predicted is the nature of the chaos and the need for feedback and iteration.

Feedback is simply a means of responding to received information. For example, initial forms of television did not possess information feedback – a viewer was static in their viewing of a television show and did not have a means to respond to the producers of the show, or at least if said feedback was present – it was rudimentary, say in the form of snail mail. Fast forward years later and viewers of a television show can vote instantly on content through such means as phone calls, texting, and even the Internet.

The Internet is the ultimate form of feedback. If a news agency or independent blogger reports a story that is relevant to the largest possible amount of people and that is different from the competition – they can end up on the front page of Digg or some similar website which continually pushes the awareness of stories higher and higher. Of course, like it may be viewed on Digg – a story can lose momentum just as quickly – just like a real virus. This is instant feedback.

The other component that must be present is iteration. This is simply a process continually repeated over time. Wash, rinse, repeat – that is iteration. Original television possessed iteration – producers would continue to churn out the same material over time – this worked because feedback mechanisms were limited. However, given the fast feedback of the Internet, future iterations can be greatly improved in amazingly short amounts of time. This is true process improvement.

Such systems (for example the media) are chaotic in that they are difficult to predict as a result of their rapid evolution. Feedback and iteration make them chaotic, which in turn reduces predictability over time, yet makes them optimal for their stated function – the spread of information.

Playing The Media
Media Virus! contains many examples of individuals learning the system and manipulating it to their advantage. For the reasons discussed above past performance is not a predictor of future success, however some have come incredibly close to doing so. Sometimes this was unintentional (at least initially), but may also be intentional. Another fascinating aspect is that I noticed that the individuals who had become aware of the working of the media (and similar chaotic systems) were not particularly well funded. They were grassroots organizations – therefore there did not appear to be a correlation between money and results.

There are some interesting examples of individuals and organizations playing the media – essentially trapping them into reacting the way in which they predicted. Sometimes – due to the nature of feedback and iteration – the results were completely unexpected – a smashing success or a fizzling dud. Again, this is where the luck part comes into play.

There were several events that the author used as an example which occurred during the past 15 years which were viral hits – many of which I had no idea of at the time. Actually, I was unaware until after reading the book!

Striking Contradictions
One example of this sort of manipulation of the media was the creation of the term “smart drugs.” This phrase was purposeful in design. Simple and memorable due to it’s contradictory nature.

Society dictates that - Smart is good. Drugs are bad. So how can there be such a thing as smart drugs?

Even if you don’t buy in to the whole smart drugs way of thinking the simple yet strikingly contradictory nature of the phrase would likely make an individual pause and take notice. You might consider the statement. The seed has been planted. Next you may debate the subject, argue with the originator. Discuss it with your friends.

To the originator of a media virus, all press is good press.

Lessons Learned
I had taken away quite a bit from this book. As I mentioned the book was originally published in 1994 – Douglas Rushkoff was well ahead of his time! In my opinion much of the thinking continues to be ahead of it’s time, although definitely relevant.

I feel that I have walked away from this book with a much better understanding of how the media works and how viral messages originate and are passed along. At a minimum, it has increased my scrutiny of received messages. As I discussed earlier, it is near impossible to consistently orchestrate viral marketing campaigns over time – consider why there are so many one hit wonders! However, the knowledge I have received from this book increases my understanding of what it would take to do so, and how to increase my chances. At a minimum I am much better prepared to recognize a viral marketing message in the making!

Who Should Read This Book?
Anyone with an interest in systems thinking, viral marketing, and chaos theory. Given my background in systems engineering and business I really enjoyed this book as it appealed to both aspects. However, one need not possess this background to take away some solid information. Although this book was written 15 years ago – the information continues to be relevant, and in my opinion will be for some time to come.

Viral marketing is a complex process – continuous feedback and iteration are required!

-John R. Sedivy of Cape Cod Branding