Viral Advertising: A New Approach

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - As Youtube celebrates its 5th birthday, businesses are getting more creative with how to use it. Local companies have found ways to use the video sharing sight to launch their way into your wallets. It's called viral advertising. The concept of viral advertising is just like it sounds. When you catch a virus, and if you aren't careful, it will spread quickly. That’s exactly what businesses want.

The age of advertisement is changing. Toyota’s latest ad campaign features a full on rap video, to convince consumers mini vans are cool. This is called viral advertising, using comedy and the internet to sell.

"When you have advertisement that goes viral simply because online viewers thing it's funny and they pass it around, whether or not they watch the video and turn around and go buy the product that's being marketed that's brand recognition. People will talk about it and discuss the commercial at work and with their friends," explained Fox 13 Senior Web Producer, May-Lin Biggs.

Doritos’s paid 2.6 million dollars for a Super Bowl add that only ran once. Thanks to viral advertising they got their money's worth. On YouTube it has received over 5.3 million hits.

“It's also just reaching people in different medians and encouraging that recall of your product and when it's available and what things they can get, and that can be done through a variety of tools now," said Director of Internet Marketing for the Memphis Grizzlies, Lesley Torrell.

There are other sides of viral ads.

"We have pre-roll ads at the beginning of every video. It used to be annoying for internet users. But now any time you go to pretty much any web site to watch streaming video you’re going to be subjected to that. It’s become common place now," said Biggs.

BMW was one of the first companies to use a strictly viral ad to promote its product. Back in 2001, the car manufacture produced "The Hire," a series of eight short films for the internet.

The series featured stars such as Madonna, James Brown, Forest Whitaker and Mickey Rourke. Centered on actor Clive Owens, various BMW automobiles were used in the series.

"I think viral marketing is a way of making advertising accessible and desirable for internet users. It’s becoming more valuable for them to make it a part of the internet as opposed to just this addition to the internet just to make more money," said Biggs.

"You have to be kinda genuine about it. If it looks forced or really acted then it's not going to work. But we have a lot of interesting players who are willing to do a lot of fun things so you never know what you're going get," said Torrell.