Monday, June 01, 2009

Viral Ads

In anticipation for tonight's class - I checked out adage.com and came across the weekly top spots for viral marketing ads: http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=136774

It's great to see that people are viewing these videos, but like most ads - the big question as we learned from Professor Kagan is: "what's the ROI??" Number 7's top spot, "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, La, La, La Dance Party" is more likely to give me nightmares than encourage me to drink a Coke. And I can't say I'll select the option (i think a non-linear video ad) to friend, "Zoozoo" on Facebook, the most bizarre and annoying character for Vodaphone in the Number 1 spot.

Evidently the stop spot is determined from the results of the company True Reach: http://www.visiblemeasures.com/true-reach/ a company that measures how many people view the video ad and analyzes the emotional reaction of the video's comments called, "Sentiment Analysis". True Reach even video ads itself: http://www.visiblemeasures.com/see-it-in-action/overview-video/. The question is though - does it really pay to be popular? Are people going to stop using their iphones because they watched a clever vodaphone or t-mobile ad? It's my very little understanding that most viral ads cost less (most likely because they're running it for free online) and if that's the case are companies really getting their ROIs?

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