
Viral Marketing can go too far: How long until people stop trying to care? - e1ven
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/opinion/25gilbert.html?ex=1332475200&en=ea91fded4e5b9868&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
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e1ven
I'll admit my mistake.

This isn't really a case of viral marketing as much as Compassion marketing,
which is targeting a new market.

This would have been viral if instead of simply leaving keys on the ground, it
encouraged you to "see if you can trick your friends" with the same set of
keys, or a similar action element for you to push.

Mea culpa, but the point of the article still stands. I apologize for
sidelining the conversation with a poor title.

To ask a (hopefully) better question, although I fear it may be too late for
conversation in this thread- Is there a point where people start becoming less
engaged in the world, because they're afraid that every action has a marketing
angle behind it..

To quote Futurama-

LEELA: Didn't you have ads in the twentieth century? FRY: Well, sure, but not
in our dreams. Only on TV and radio... and in magazines... and movies, and at
ballgames, and on buses, and milk cartons, and T-shirts, and bananas, and
written in the sky. But not in dreams, no sirree.

I worry that as people get more and more used to seeing an ad behind every
action, they'll stop caring about the actions, and stop investigating..

Look at the ATHF scare.. Imagine if that were more common, but if it were
actually a fake bomb, as the Boston Police had suggested..

As you go to open it, it screams "BOO! Too bad you didn't have life insurance.
Go to Omahalife.com to get some"

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dfranke
Tricks like Nissan's are better-described as just "left-field", not "viral". I
don't see how leaving phony keyrings lying around encourages people to pass on
a message.

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zaidf
Saying that people will stop caring about viral marketing is suggesting
creativity is finite.

What has happened due to the YouTube revolution is that it is harder to be
funny now. Notice it's just HARDER - not impossible. So while in the past year
or two folks might have gotten around producing average stuff that became
viral, the same level of creativity won't be viral in the future. I think that
is the real point the article is trying to make.

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BrandonM
I don't think he's asking how long until people stop caring about viral
marketing, but how long until people stop caring in general, i.e. about
humanity. I think the problem lies not in viral marketing itself, but in
Nissan's implementation of viral marketing. I think that the methods of these
different types of viral marketing are analogous to the goals of white hat and
black hat hackers. A practice that may be generally good and clever can be
thoroughly spoiled by those who take advantage of it for the wrong reasons.

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BrandonM
I have to agree with the writer of this article, except I think it would be
better to remove the "Viral" tag altogether. I think that marketing in general
has gone too far. Certainly appealing to the generosity of people and then
throwing it back in our faces is beginning to go too far, and I think the
author of the article does a good job of thoroughly describing where Nissan
went wrong, so I'll just shut up now.

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awt
Your best bet is to make something that is useful enough that you won't have
to rely on tricks to get people to use it.

