The Brave New World Of Digital

British newspaper The Telegraph has a detailed review of the use of viral and online marketing. Lots of examples here:

Companies are seeking ever more creative ways of getting their message across to consumers, from mobile-phone messages to profiles on MySpace, reports Robert Watts

The video clip is beamed to the mobile phones and computer in-boxes of young men around the world. It shows a Cockney bruiser booming a catalogue of colourful insults to the viewer.

It could just be another irritating piece of spam, but this hardman seems to know a worryingly large amount about the viewer’s personal details and habits: his name, his job, what he looks like, hobbies – even the name of his partner.

The final insult comes when the poor recipient is told he’s definitely not “man enough” to drive a new Mini Cooper. That’s probably when the penny drops and the viewer realises he’s actually watching a cannily designed advert.

This threatening Cockney is the face of Mini Cooper’s ” ‘Ave a Word” online campaign to launch the car three months ago.

The target audience for the absurdly named Mini Cooper S JCW GP KIT is metropolitan men aged 25 and over. So the challenge for the agency Glue London, part of the FTSE 100 ad giant Aegis, was to devise a tough, masculine online campaign for a car which had of late been viewed as, well, one for the ladies.

This is where the East End hardnut came in. Visitors to the Mini Cooper website were invited to “dish the dirt” on mates by filling in a form about their friends’ personal details.

By filming an actor saying the hundreds of different answers, Mini Cooper could create a highly personalised advert which was sent out to more than 1m people.

The genius of this is that in doing so it created an ad with the wow factor which meant viewers rushed to email it on to other potential punters. And each time someone did that Mini Cooper had two new valuable email addresses.

Welcome to the brave and highly inventive new world of 21st-century advertising. British companies are embracing websites, games, viral emails and a host of other digital media to get their message across.

Read further to find out how a toothpaste got 50,000 friends on MySpace!

Telegraph