Viral Marketing - Out of the Brands Hands
You might or might not of been following the popular website Bros Icing Bros (it's basically a drinking game where you surprise your friends with Smirnoff Ices and once they find them, they must get down on one knee and drink the full bottle). This has turned into a huge hit among a younger male demographic. The website (which is now shut down), showed photos and had stories of "bro's getting iced by their bro's". This was done entirely without the blessing on Smirnoff or their ad agency - and took off in a true "viral" fashion.
The NY Times had an article about how the site got shut down (it was shut down by Smirnoff) despite the increase in sales in college towns (especially throughout the South). This is obviously a hard issue for a company like Smirnoff to tackle. There are really two (obvious) sides: 1. People who usually don't buy/drink this brand are now doing it. Sales increase and awareness increases. It's totally free marketing! 2. While the brand has spread to new groups, it's totally out of the hands of Smirnoff and they have no control over it. Another problem for them is that their brand was actually being mocked - it could also be seen as encouraging binge drinking.
Drinking games will exist regardless (especially among college students). What is truly unique about this website is that it totally took off and wasn't in control of the agency or brand. Even though Smirnoff made them take down the site - many spinoff's are popping up all over the web. A similar thing happened with Coke when it became a YouTube hit for users to put Mentos into Coke bottles causing an explosion. Coke's initial response (from a company spokesperson):
"We would hope people want to drink (Diet Coke) more than try experiments with it,"
Now, I'm not trying to poke fun at Coke at all - as it is something totally different when branding is taken out of the brand's hands and put into the hands of the consumers. However, it does get a bit tricky when people are naturally (and without your help) getting excited about using your brand (in one form or another), and the brand is not thrilled about it. Over the past 4 years, Coke has learned to accept this and embrace the consumers taking hold of a portion of their brand prescence online. Not too long ago they released an update to the Mentos + Coke videos and commissioned the guys who got over 11 million hits from their first video to do another.
It's definitely important for brands to monitor and understand how their consumers talk about their brands, use their brands, and share their brands (either with friends or by creating a video or website around an idea that centers on their brand). As this happens more and more it'll become even more important that brands learn to be active in these networks (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc...) and really become a listener and a voice. Creating content that is inline with their consumers (both what they're watching and creating) will also be increasingly important for brands (ie: many people were releasing Coke + Mentos - maybe it would of benefited for Coke to have release the "ultimate" Mento + Coke video back when it was first popping up online).
It's fun to watch these trends change - in a way, it ends up making the brands work harder in producing products and experiences that are really embraced by their consumers.