Too much „viral“ stuff out there?

Test of character is something done by Renault. A video (yes, only one, but I assume there are more to follow), trying to be funny I guess. With a send to friend button.

Ugly Duck is a site with three clips that aren’t bad. But not send-on function.

Mitchell Brothers is an advergame that is aparently meant to go viral, Chemical Brothers, too. Funnily enough this seems to be a trend for releasing new albums or tours.

I am starting to wonder about the term viral. It’s being used inflationary these days, don’t you think? These 4 examples, plus my last two posts are all meant to be viral. But what makes an ad concept viral? Just by posting movies on the web, like the ugly duck? Or games like the two bands? Just putting something interesting on the web? There is lot’s of interesting ad stuff on the web, clips, audio, games and no one calls it viral.

I don’t think you can initially create something viral, nor should you try to sell to your client a „viral marketing campaign“. Whether or not something becomes (!) viral, you can never know. You can only try to enforce it, by, for example, adding send-to functionalities. Or seeding it in blogs. (But this is dangerous.)

I don’t have a solution. I just recommend not to call it „viral“, until it has somehow proven to be so.

(all examples via)