Probably not, but it doesn’t stop people from trying.

Dominique Hind has theorized of a potential “viral formula” that predicts the success of viral campaigns:

Viral = (PCF)2, where

* P = Personal – using your name or personal details in the viral campaign (examples of this are: CSI: NY launch campaign and Mini Have a word)
* P = Perverse – the politically correct way for saying porn (an example of this is: Paris Hilton burger launch)
* C = Cool – anything you would be happy to forward on to your friends because you will be seen as finding things first (examples of this are: Mentos and Pepsi experiment, VW Golf and Hotmail launch)
* C = Carnage – this builds on shows like Australia’s Funniest Home Videos. People love watching others hurt themselves.
* F = Funny – most funny viral have been publish on YouTube (examples of this are: Trojan Games and Calton’s Big Ad)
* F = Freaky – anything that makes you question what you have seen or turns your stomach a little (an example of this is: CSI: NY launch)

But she also adds that a viral campaign depends on its creative idea. A preliminary Google search will turn up plenty of other hypothetical viral formulae written by amateurs and professionals alike.

Personally, I don’t think that it’s possible to define a formula. For one thing, what makes a video a “hit” is how well it appeals to the users. And these opinions are based on personal attitudes, culture, and values. While it is possible to predict a general idea of what will be liked and what won’t be liked, there is no guarantee that your viral video will appeal to millions of people. What was it about a drugged up little kid after a visit to the dentist that made us want to share his hilarious mannerisms with everyone around us? David After Dentist only satisfies one of the criteria of Hind’s formula, and yet here is this video, with over 51 million views, merchandise, interviews on television, remixes all over YouTube — David’s made it. He’s achieved the user-generated dream! But if someone were to ask David or his father how they did it, they’d look at you as if you were a crazy person. How could they have possibly guess how viral their home video would be?

I can imagine how frustrating that answer (that’s not an answer at all) would be to a marketer, however. HP, for example, has conducted a study to predict online virality. But they are looking at it from an angle that they can scientifically study: by predicting how the content will trend after its release into the internet world. They studied thousands of YouTube videos and millions of news story on news aggregate site Digg. They managed to predict the 30-days-later popularity of Digg news stories based on the number of hits in its first few hours of publication; similarly, they could predict the 30-days-later popularity of the YouTube video by observing its initial ten-day popularity. They’re comparing popularity in terms of isotope half-life. In this way, HP hopes to collect meaningful research for future marketing use: “The study was also the basis for a product the company is testing -an algorithm-based content management system called i-Catcher, which reorganizes content on a website based on people’s attention to it” (Klaassen, 2009).

I think this retroactive way of examining internet popularity is a lot more effective — rather than putting all these ingredients into one final product and hoping for it to go viral, take advantage of current popularity trends and use their popularity to somehow sell your product. This is, of course, what has been done already with some amateur artists being picked up by huge mainstream companies. Corporations may not like being dependent on the masses to create their content and them leaping on our creations after the fact, but because virality currently cannot be predicted, this is the only method that guarantees their name will be attached to viral campaign.

Sources:
[1] The Viral Formula, written by Dominique Hind on her blog.
[2] HP studies online attention and learns to predict virality, written by Abbey Klaassen.

Dr. Strangelove presented a question in class about  to which extent woman will use the internet to show their objectification.  Although he had strong examples of women who posted demeaning videos of themselves online, I can’t imagine how this could become a norm that would out produce the male video production.  In my mind, most of the women I know are far too shy to ever post a blog online or comment on a video they don’t like, let alone post a video of themselves half-dressed.  We know that with the power of the internet, our posts will last as long as someone wants access them.  Personally, I refrain from posting even semi-personal messages on social networks like Facebook although my security settings are on high.  So I really hope that in the near future, the mass amounts of videos that women are producing aren’t simply degrading strip teases.

One last comment is regarding the question proposed in class about to which extent women will change the society we’re going into or how much male culture women have to use?  Sadly, I think it will be women using the already established male culture.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe that women will make significant changes to our society, in time but, I believe that the institutions which currently exist will ultimately interfere with their goals.  No matter how much progress women have made in the corporate culture, I still believe that its’ foundation is heavily reliant on male dominance.

However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone is participating. I guess some would say there’s no problem in not jumping on the “active participation bandwagon”, and to some extent, that could be true. But then again, I consider why these types of people don’t use these abilities. I think it all comes down to the fact that these members of society, for the most part, are complacent. They fail to recognise the value of utilising their creative abilities and communicating them with the rest of the world, both online and offline. They simply accept the idea that we have freedom of speech, and reject the quality of said speech. Like Prof Strangelove highlighted, for them, its about “private over the collective, and freedom over equality.”

Fortunately, this trend is slowly declining and the user-generated culture is rising, as too are the notions of web 2.0, the involvement of the active participant, amateur video production and the overall involvement of the consumer in defining culture and mass media. I guess it all comes down to learning about the social media at play and the relationships between consumer and creator so that we can effectively comprehend the developing role of the consumer in the mass media. Maybe one day, consumers might completely dominate the field of viral marketing. Who knows what the future holds?

• “If everyone is just a regular person like me or Laura, wouldn’t it be better to leave advertising in the hands of the professionals?”

To start by leaving advertising to the professionals we can miss out on so many great ideas. Think about it a team of advertisers, depending on the company, could be from 20 – 200+ people.  This means that there is a limited number of ideas that can be produced within this group. By limiting the ideas you may be limiting how well your advertisement influences its audience.

Up until recently this has sufficed but it is getting harder and harder to get the audiences attention. We have progressed so far from a television with only 2-3 channels to one with over 900 to choose from. It is easier for consumers to avoid commercials if they don’t want to watch them. Also many programs stream their shows over the internet too which takes commercials out of the equation all together. Advertisers need to think up engaging advertisements that the consumer cannot ignore.  Well who best to come up with what the audience wants than the audience themselves. By inviting the general public to take part in building an  advertisement companies not only have access to millions of ideas they are also ideas created by consumers for consumers. Company’s create contests that offer prizes to the winning advertisement.  In these contests there is usually a vote that is given to the general public as to which commercial is the best. So now users are watching say the top 10 best videos and in doing so are becoming loyal to the brand but also they are picking which commercial will attract the biggest audience.

The following statement was also removed from our script but I believe it is important to say and I figured it would be a good way to finish up my final blog:

Just like web 2.0, viral marketing and many other aspects of the internet are still developing and we are always learning more things about it. For now, all we are sure of is that it’s a great way to get your product name out there. How you become viral is up to you and your audience

I don’t know about you, but I see this phrase at least once a day. Whether it be on products, services, competitions, websites or as company by-lines, it’s always there!

They’re a part of viral campaigns too! Think of all of the campaigns that have said in small print: “terms and conditions apply”. Even the Queensland, Australia Tourism campaign: “The Best Job in the World” had terms and conditions. But we can’t escape them because they apply for almost everything nowadays! Even food!

The idea is that companies want to regulate the consumer participation in their campaigns so as they still have full reign on the direction of their campaign. Therefore consumers are expected to abide by strict rules upon agreement with entering competitions or campaigns. Even then, consumers aren’t guaranteed entry because candidates and the content they provide corporations with are screened and if they do not comply with what the company wants, then its goodbye and back to reality. Quite often, many companies make sure to outline in their terms and conditions that if a person enters a competition, then the ownership of content they provide is handed over to the corporation involved.

So it all brings us back to the idea that, at the end of the day, corporations continue to have more power in the mass media than individual consumers, and unfortunately our society only perpetuates this idea because of the power we give to such institutions. Maybe sometime in the not too distant future however, consumers will realise their influence and power in society and this misconception about power and ownership will cease to exist.

James McKeen and colleagues did a study in 1994 about the relationship between user participation and user satisfaction. The study itself focused on large corporations and systems development, but I found that a lot of the same principles could also apply to user-generated media. In short, the research team examined 20 recently developed IS (Information Systems) applications from eight U.S. organizations, and evaluated them with inventories of user satisfaction, user participation, task complexity, system complexity, user influence and user-development communication. You might notice that some of these terms directly parallel the same considerations user-generated content would have with their respective publishing (or rather, sharing) platforms. McKeen et al.’s conclusions, after looking at 151 different systems, was that “user satisfaction has a direct relationship with user participation.” More than that, there were four contingencies that influenced this relationship: task complexity and system complexity acted as moderating variables that influenced how strong this relationship was, and user influence and user-development communication were other independent variables that were “positively related to user satisfaction regardless of the level of participation.”

What is interesting about this study is that they found that some systems had high user satisfaction despite little user participation, and others had low user satisfaction despite high user participation. The researchers found that a number of factors were important to the “unique nature of systems development,” such as the system developer’s skill and experience, and the availability of appropriate development tools. (Obviously, these factors do not apply to users collaborating on the internet.) But the general trend is that user participation is strongly related to user satisfaction, and it is only with other situational factors overpower the advantages of user participation will diminish.

Relating this to what we know about web 2.0, we can see that user participation is a huge driving force in what attracts us to websites. In this way, we have become active masses that can rise up to make our voices heard: if your site doesn’t suit our needs, then we will take ourselves our business (and our time, and our energy, and our love) somewhere else that does — worst comes to worst, we’ll make our own site. In terms of viral marketing, this type of thinking benefits the corporations: they can read research like this and come to an understanding about what seek in our media providers, and work to lure us to them. (It sounds like “lure” has a negative connotation, but I don’t mean it that way — companies need customers, and that’s just the way it works.) And if we won’t go to them, then they can come to us; that’s easy enough too, because we’re all in the same place: we all want to be happy, we are, in general, drawn to similar interfaces and to each other.

Source: The Relationship Between User Participation and User Satisfaction: An Investigation of Four Contingency Factors, written by James D. McKeen, Tor Guimaraes, and James C. Wetherbe.

Unfortunately, this fact is false. Lemmings do not commit mass suicides. Walt Disney produced a documentary about these rodents and staged a clip of a pack of lemmings jumping off a clip into the cold Arctic waters below. Although this fact is not real is has given us this powerful statement that questions our mental abilities to think for ourselves. An early apple commercial used this statement to make a powerful ad.

Now that you understand what lemmings are, we can go back to the big question, why do users like and take part in viral campaigns? I don’t believe that it is simply a mindless behaviour. Especially if you think about it. If we were to mindlessly take part in every viral campaign we come by it would take over our life. No, we pick and choose what we want to take part in and decide what products we like and think that others might enjoy as well. Also, as mentioned in the video people just like to communicate. Marketing is about invoking conversations and engaging with people.

But I can’t help but to consider what would happen if these people just didn’t post anything online? They would have all the privacy in the world.  By putting their home videos out into the online community they have to be ready to deal with the consequences that may come from it.  They can’t possibly expect that everyone will agree with the views they post or want to see the things that they find funny or entertaining.  So overall I disagree that privacy no longer exists in our society.  I believe that if you really want to have a private life than most social networking websites offer the proper blocking tools to control who can view your information.  As for online videos, if you don’t want to be criticized then don’t put something online into the online community, keep it at home to watch with your family and friends.  

On the other hand, I think that the members of the online community who criticize or comment on other user’s posts have to keep in mind that in reality nothing is left unfiltered.  Filtering starts the second we pick up the camera, we can’t help its, second  nature.  So the people they are criticizing you have to wonder how much of what you’re seeing is real?  And are these their actual opinions and their real personalities? Or is it simply an act used with the goal of  entertaintainment or to get any kind of reaction from the audience?

Since the creation of the Internet however, there has been a drastic change from private to public spheres and society has witnessed a violation of the sanctity of the home. There is little concern for this privacy that once controlled what was shown to the public. Now all we can do is sit back and watch as our lives get shown to the world. But society isn’t the only one at fault here. We, as individuals, must take some of the blame. Why? Because we have chosen to make our lives public! Sure you may think, well that’s what we’ve always known, and that may be true, but none the less, we still have the choice on whether or not we want our lives to be seen by the rest of the world. You’re probably thinking, no that doesn’t apply to me, I don’t operate in the public sphere. But the truth is, you do. Ever uploaded a video to youtube, or even Facebook? Ever put pictures up on Facebook? Ever put your private details such as location, email, phone number etc on a social networking site or somewhere on the Internet that others can see it? We’re all of guilty of it.

What’s interesting to note is that some take the transition into the public sphere that one step further and “violate the sanctity of the home” as Prof Strangelove explained in class. But how did we get to this stage? Well, over time, society has placed less and less focus on the need to distinguish private and public spheres. Consequently, devices such as video cameras have moved from the hand of the parent who records memories, to the hand of the an average consumer, either adult or child. Therefore what is considered normal and acceptable in the household, is know opened to the public for them to decide. The idea that “what goes on in the home, stays in the home” is no longer a reality.
Consider this video below.

This poor kid (David) is in the car after a trip to the dentist and has his reaction to the anaesthetic all over Youtube. This video got more than 51 million views. That’s a pretty big increase from the possible 20 to 30 people max that would have seen it 15 years ago! But why do we broadcast our lives in the public sphere? There’s a number of reasons, but the most popular are that:
a) people appreciate validation
b) people want attention
c) people have the desire to share and communication in the online community.

As a result, we get examples like the brother who has titled his sister the “butt rape girl” all because he wanted to develop his sense of self and get attention. I guess he was successful in that case because he’s received over 8 million views on one video.

There are a number of problems with broadcasting our lives in the online community, foremost that it is affecting our individual construction of identity, opening ourselves or those around us up for negative criticism and it is destroying the privacy that once existed in the home. I guess its only a matter of time until people begin to change themselves because of a fear that they will be judged by society.

Adidas Star Wars Collection

So just out of curiosity, I went to look for a commercial for these shoes and what I found shocked me.  I don’t think I realized how easy it was for companies to promote themselves and the variety of tactics they use until we started talking about it in class and now I’m starting to see it in ads all over the place, especially in this.  So please watch this 59 second clip and let me tell you what I mean:

To begin, we can take note of the lovely advertisement for Rogers splashed across the bottom of the screen throughout the entire video- tactic 1.  Now we have 2 companies promoting their brand.  Then we see David Beckham, Daft Punk and Snoop Dogg, all sporting either Star Wars or Adidas clothing- tactic 2 & 3.  Then comes in the Star Wars theme song and Darth Vader- well now we know there is actually ANOTHER brand or in this case, franchise, that is being promoted here- tactic 4.  Finally as the commercial wraps up, there is a one sentance promotion suggesting that you sign up for free for more information on their facebook page- tactic 5.  That means in 59 seconds, Adidas managed to include 3 celebrities, combine 2 major brands that have massive consumer loyalty and probably set themselves up to sell millions of shoes when they are released “on a street corner near you”.  Kudos, Adidas, kudos.

Another thing I wanted to touch on was how this signifies the convergence of classes which is a topic we have been talking about in Dr. Strangelove’s class.  It is safe to say that David Beckham, Daft Punk and Snoop Dogg are all members of the higher class.  But now we see Snoop Dogg walking everyday people aka members of the middle class, through Times Square, promoting something with them and all of these celebrities are wearing articles of clothing to support the product.  We can assume that when these shoes “hit a street corner near you” millions of middle class “you’s” will be out there buying the product their high class idol was sporting weeks earlier.