Happy Halloween: Don't fear the adaptor

Almost a year ago I wrote a post that called on those who would 'do viral' to remember who actually 'does' viral: The humans doing the interacting with one another.

And to that end attempts at 'viral' work which enables co-creation gives you both engagement and relevance.

One example I remember well from a previous life was an excellent and funny video - expensively made with high production values too. It was on topic. The seeding strategy was sound.

But it was essentially broadcast, broadcast which USED the user as the distribution channel.
So the message couldn't be adapted by the receiver. There was no room for their input. No adaption = low adoption. And if I don't adopt, I'm not going to pass it on; as simply illustrated as I can, here.

The quality was high. But the relevance was low. And relevance, as I so often say, beats quality every single time.

Allowing people to put a little of themselves into 'your' viral makes it 'their' viral.

And as Alan Moore - and by osmosis I, am so fond of saying: "That which we create, we embrace."
It allows us to work with the user rather than targeting them, based on the understanding that the User Is The Destination Now.

It makes it their message, not yours.

So I was delighted to walk into my new job this morning to be met with this new piece of work from Brando-Digital (yep, that's where I'm working now).

(By the way, we're so new the company site is nothing but a holding page right now. If you'd like to know more about us, drop me an email at david AT brando-world.com )

Despite the he-would-say-that-wouldn't-he inevitable in this; I think it's pretty cool. It allows the adaption of the message which will encourage that adoption.

It's promoting a new phone, the Sony-Ericsson W595 - so the youtube element is not only relevant (you can upload direct to youtube from the W595) it's also a helpful viral aside.

Technically, some may be interested to know the creation of this effort has involved mashing-up apisfrom youtube, googlemaps AND facebook.

And importantly, it uses not only the silo'd social networks (in this case facebook) but also email - the most ubiquitous of all the social connectors.

Yeah, yeah, yeah but it's also a bit of fun people can have together at Halloween. We've given people, as Mark Earls would say, something they can do together - we've made the human interaction element the important element.

Have fun with it. Pass it on if you think its cool and think someone else will do to. Here's mine, below.
BTW I'm not 43 - yet! But I am odd.