viral marketing - Internet Marketing News and Blogs

One of the most common - and most infuriating - mistakes made by PRs is the overuse of the dreaded term ‘feel free’, especially when pitching to bloggers.

Feel free to add this to your blog! Feel free to post this video! Feel free to promote our viral!

Oh yeah? How about ‘feel free to take a running jump’? Or ‘feel free to pay us a ton of money and then we’ll talk’.

Drinks seller Thresher Group has reverted to last year’s highly successful discount tactic in a bid to boost Xmas sales of wine and champagne.

A similar 40%-off offer – which the company claimed was a costly error twelve months ago, but was actually a highly sneaky viral marketing trick – is now being promoted on its website.

This year has seen UK agencies and brands allocating significantly more cash to viral marketing, as well as spending it “more intelligently”, according to a new survey.

The research, by Kontraband, found growth of up to 60% in output in the first seven months of 2007, compared to the same period last year.

Security experts have issued warnings over a bogus chain email claiming to offer hundreds of pounds in M&S vouchers. 

The message, seeking to exploit the success of viral campaigns such as Threshers’ last year, promises the vouchers to recipients that forward it on to at least eight people.

Richard Spalding is the MD and co-founder of Kontraband  - owner of the popular distraction site of the same name and viral marketing agency The 7th Chamber. The company's currently self-financing but has just appointed investment bank GP Bullhound to secure funding for an assault on the US.

We asked Richard about his plans for the future, and why viral is still an under-thought-of part of the marketing mix....

Miniclip, the world’s largest games site, is preparing to move into the mobile market as part of an expansion plan which will also see it targeting the Far East.

Entertainment marketing outfit AzACreations has come out with a ‘How To’ guide on advergaming – not a new area but one in which campaigns still see widely varying degrees of success.

The report provides some useful tips on how to make the games themselves grab users’ attention. These include: setting targets for players, clear rules, allowing feedback, and enabling in-game characters to grow and develop.

It also offers ten reasons why viral campaigns fail, which we'll list after the jump...

The online buzz surrounding the Snakes on a Plane movie is a fine example of how internet publicity can go ballistic without a penny needing to be spent on traditional advertising.