By Curtis Silver, WIRED
Viral marketing — the technique of wrangling word-of-mouth to create a buzz around your product or idea — has been a powerful tool since the first caveman started the first rumor. Spreading the word person to person is the stuff of Avon dreams — and Bernie Madoff nightmares. And it requires the confidence to lose control of the message by setting it adrift.
The modern age of viral marketing began in the mid 1990s with (of all things) a cultish, childish cable TV show that defined “guilty pleasure†way before Beavis and Butthead. The producers of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (the premise of MST3K is almost too ridiculous to articulate) knew immediately they had something viable, new and remarkable, and that their best marketers were the show’s smallish but loyal audience. In those dark days before streaming media, they encouraged the show’s viewers to videotape their copyrighted shows, and pass them along to friends — creating that sought after word-of-mouth buzz.
Marketing agencies took note, realizing that in order to have a successful viral marketing campaign they would have to give something away gratis. They also had to give people a reason to recruit others to their cause. But how!
In 2002, three years before YouTube, BMW ported this revelation to the internet. More than 11 million viewers initially tuned in to watch the web-only short film series The Hire, starring Clive Owen. Of those, 2 million registered to the BMW website. We don’t know how many of those clicks were converted into sales, but here’s the big number: In four years, it’s estimated the videos were viewed over 100 million times.
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