WORD-OF-MOUTH
As you read this, hundreds of zealous Britney Spears fans are gathering online, awaiting their next mission. They may be asked to seed chat rooms, conduct reconnaissance on search engines, or bombard MTV's Total Request Live, begging for the pop star's latest hit. In return, they can expect some killer swag, perhaps an emailed salute from Britney herself - or at least an autoreply version of the greeting.
The dark force behind this virtual army is M80 Interactive Marketing (www.m80im.com), one of several agencies that have sprung up to meet a growing demand for Web-based viral marketing. M80, headquartered in LA, specializes in assembling viral-marketing campaigns on behalf of recording artists and has handled projects for Sheryl Crow, Pearl Jam, and Madonna.
Of course, marketers have been seeding chat rooms with pitches disguised as personal recommendations since the prebrowser days. But like an insidious disease, viral marketing is mutating to avoid extinction. As a result, many marketers now believe the incognito approach to generating buzz online is no longer effective. As M80 president Dave Neupert puts it, "The community can smell a rat."
The latest viral strain takes a slightly more direct approach. At Wave Rock Communications in Portland, Oregon, PR pros scour bulletin boards to glean the current buzz on their corporate clients. When they come across a person bad-mouthing someone they represent, a marketer contacts the individual directly. (Wave Rock employees no longer post anonymous praise. These days, they forward online comments to clients who have the option of responding to posters with a personalized message.) At M80, employees scour the Web for enthusiastic music fans, who are then enlisted to generate buzz on behalf of their idols.
Still, over time these methods, too, may become powerless in the face of growing cynicism. "I view anonymous viral marketing as ultimately a losing strategy," says Emanuel Rosen, author of The Anatomy of Buzz. "You're essentially asking people to say nice things to you, which means your product can't stand on its own."
Indeed, some of M80's clients - such as Kid Rock and Eminem - may discover that not even viral marketing can convince enough people to say nice things about them.
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